Recently, two of my colleagues pulled off a surprise baby shower for me, all while sitting in an open office environment. Needless to say, I was completely surprised! As you can probably imagine, a lot of work goes into planning a surprise party. Granted, some of it can be done through good ole’ e-mail communication, but at some point, all that scheming has to occur somewhere beyond that.  

So, how did two people that sit immediately to my left and right, without any walls or workstation panels separating us, pull this off?  This can’t be easy in any work environment, but somehow they were able to keep it a secret. So, does this mean it’s possible to have private conversations and work on top secret information in an open office environment without your surrounding colleagues hearing or seeing your work? Well, it definitely seemed to work in this situation.  
As my colleague Jodi Williams and I continue to embark on a journey to debunk open office myths, here we present you with busted myth #1: You can’t have private conversations or work on confidential information while sitting in an open office work environment.
 
Now, I know some of you out there may still find this to be a challenging issue, especially if you are sitting in an open office and shouldn’t be because of the nature of your work OR because you don’t have access to private spaces, etc. We heard you…we’ve been reading all of your comments and blogs on the internet [...]

Don’t just work from home. Creep out your employees from a distance!
I saw this article recently about the robot that visits your cubicle. Advertised as a “telepresence robot”, Anybots aim to connect workers more seamlessly through the use of video cameras, still camera and a microphone. The basic concept is that, working anywhere from a laptop, you can log into one of these robots which reside in your office and the robot essentially becomes your “avatar”. Your Anybot can zip around the workplace interacting with coworkers; stopping by your desk, sitting in on meetings or impromptu collaboration sessions, heading over to the factory to see what’s coming off the production line, etc. The video demonstration on their website gives you the idea.
While I do see some of the fundamental advantages of “Robot Boss”, I still can’t help but think of all the hilarious and awkward scenarios that could play out in our workplace culture:

It looks like a Segway had a one night stand with a vacuum cleaner. I hope the cleaning staff doesn’t try to use Robot Boss to buff the floors.
People will definitely dress up Robot Boss in embarrassing clothing. Mine would have a handlebar mustache and dress accordingly for the seasons and holidays. 
If you put a piece of paper over the sensors, can you laugh as Robot Boss crashes into walls because it can’t see straight?
Will people eventually prefer Robot Ross to in-person boss? If in-person boss wears cheap cologne, then yes.
I’d like to see Robot Boss take a client out to lunch. Good luck catching a cab, Robot Boss!
I’d be freaked out if [...]

I really appreciate simple charts, graphs, information in general. This Fast Company Infographic is equal parts: accurate / straightforward / funny. It boils down worker personalities into three categories based on how much you work and how much you talk. Created by designer Joey Roth, the poster doesn’t aim to analyze the information but rather act as a jumping off point for further conversation.

Simple infographics like this are a great reminder that your organization is full of a diverse group of individual work styles that often perform better in different settings. But still as Designers we continue to see offices being designed with one, maybe two varieties of workstation specifications. With workers coming in every shape, size and style it’s crazy to think we’re sometimes delivering such limited solutions. Granted, you can find TONS of styles and configurations for the numerous workstations on the market, and there are always those forward thinking/early-adapter clients but when it comes down to it, Designers (and clients) tend to play it safe and hassle-free, because the work it takes to specifcy (Designer) and then maintain (Client/Facilities) multiple varieties of workstations for a single project would be a logistical headache.
I’ve seen a good deal of new workplace furniture trends that are moving in the right direction to support various work personalities, but it also takes the Designer and Client buy-in to actually get these solutions implemented. We joke about things like Dilbertville and yes, we’ve convinced clients to take down high furniture panels, but some clients are hesitant and we end up seeing most people sitting in [...]

As we’ve been working on this blog, we keep seeing the same few search terms come up: workplace trends, workplace 2010, innovations in workplace, etc.  To help answer some of these questions, we thought we would reach out to some of our colleagues, clients and friends and ask them about some of their workplace experiences.  Today is the first post in that series, and features HOK Washington, DC’s own Amy Fabry. 
What is your current role?  I am a Senior Interior Designer in the Washington, DC studio.
What would you say are current “trends” when it comes to the workplace?  Cram as many people in as possible. 
Seriously, many of our corporate clients recognize that there is a large portion of their employees that do not need a dedicated desk or private office, so they are moving towards a shared open office environment where workstations are not assigned to any person in particular.  While this “trend” has been around for a while, we are seeing our clients getting more daring with their sharing ratios and providing more “private” areas in return.  These private areas are generally small, unreserved rooms for one to two people to have a private conversation, take a phone call or conduct a conference call without disrupting others seating in open office areas. 
Another trend I see is the return of the lunchroom.  This isn’t your elementary school lunchroom, it’s a destination space with finishes and details that rival some of your favorite restaurants.  The key is to create a space [...]

My workstation has been getting very messy lately. I’m going through the CA (Construction Administration) phase on a project and my desk has suddenly been bombarded with stacks of paperwork, rolls of drawings and product samples. I’ve started a bad habit (one of my pet peeves) of putting junk on the floor next to my workstation. I HATE crap on the floor. Drives me nuts. Why can’t there be a perfect little spot to store everything? I keep thinking “this is just temporary. No biggie. Once we get through this phase of the project my desk will be back to it’s normal, organized, peacful state”. But then I’ve been noticing others around me also have this habit of keeping stuff on the floor next to their desk. For some people it’s not temporary. It’s a horrible way of life. On the one hand I can chalk it up to the creative process (we’re designers, creating cool stuff, we can’t be TOO organized, we feed off that creative chaos, right?). But then I realize that it’s not “creative chaos”, it’s  just ”too much crap” chaos. People simply have too much junk and never enough space to keep it all organized. So I grabbed my camera and went around to see how people are handling (or mishandling) their junk. Some aren’t so bad but some people can use a lot of help.
And I’ll ask the rest of you readers…what do you do with all YOUR crap? Send in your photos!

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To be honest, I used to hate hearing about companies that offer cool perks to their employees. I always wished I worked for those other companies. But lately I’ve been hearing about more and more companies offering interesting benefits. Hopefully innovative perks become more of the norm. Regardless of a companies motives behind the perks, I think it’s a great way to attract new employees (young talent with high expectations of a “cool” workplace) as well retaining some of the more seasoned employees (those who like their job just fine but maybe things are getting stale).
Here’s an article I found highlighting some companies who are offering interesting perks:
10 Perks We Love
While some perks are just plain cool (massages, dry cleaning service) other benefits are a great way for a company to express their gratitude and commitment to a work/life balance (travel perks, flex hours, work at home options, gym memberships). The challenge for employers is to balance these perks for their diverse workforce. A kid fresh out of school might not see the benefit of daycare reimbursement but would jump at the chance to work at home or have travel incentives. The key is to celebrate the diversity of your staff and provide appropriate perks, which may change over time. With an emerging younger, more socially conscious workforce, as well as more people working later in life, there is opportunity for some very innovative and fun incentives.
And this got me daydreaming of some other potentially cool perks (some of [...]

Yesterday’s Daily Stat from Harvard Business Review,Yes, You May Interrupt Me, draws on results of a recent Retrevo Gadgetology survey described in Is Social Media a New Addiction?  The survey asked things like “Do you check/update Facebook or Twitter after you go to bed?” and “Do you check/update Twitter, Facebook first thing in the morning?”  What caught my eye (and the eye of whoever does Harvard’s Daily Stat) was the one about interruptions – “Can you be interrupted for an electronic message at any time?”  Turns out 40% of their respondents don’t mind being interrupted, even “during an intimate moment”. 
What does this say about interruptions at work?  Made me think of Doug’s earlier post Anti-Collaboration and Mike’s (Don’t) allow me to interrupt, as well as some of the creative support spaces Angie describes in Where’s Waldo working? and the need for ‘alone time’ that Leigh talks about in Innovation Craves Solitude.  What about the difference between electronic interruptions (i.e. ignorable if necessary) and in-person interruptions (often not so ignorable)?  
That seemed like plenty to think about until I saw this post, Too Many Interruptions at Work?, and realized there’s another major source of interruption - myself.  The study described in the post shadowed people for three days, noting the source and length of all interruptions and came up with some pretty interesting observations, for instance:
We don’t have work days — we have work minutes that last all day.
What we found is that the average amount of time that people spent on any single event before being interrupted or before switching was about [...]

I recently wrote this article for the St. Louis Business Journal.  It focuses on the post recession office, employee mobility and the impact on real estate. 
 http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/05/24/editorial4.html
In post-recession America, an intersection is taking shape between relentless cost cutting and retaining talented employees. It is a “less is more” crossroad where oversized real estate is pushing distributed work into mainstream. The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) and the Corporate Real Estate Network (CoreNet Global) define distributed work as work spread among distributed teams, in variable locations and occurring at varying times. In 2009, IFMA surveyed a thousand different distributed workspace strategies while HOK contributed four in-depth case studies. It demonstrated a need to rethink work environments. For example:
Sprint Nextel shed 3.5 million square feet of space between 2005 and 2008, saving $80 million.
BP increased collaborative space in one office to 25 percent without increasing real estate for 1,000 employees.
Telecom maker Nortel has reduced office space demand by 25 percent since 2004. In one regional office, it cut electricity costs by about $350,000 and CO2 emissions by 2,735 metric tons annually.
These aren’t workers crammed into space like sardines, but space efficiencies gained through the essential three C’s: collaboration, connectivity and comfort. In the evolution of work, companies adopted open office concepts to facilitate the exchange of ideas. But it also gave rise to countless “Dilbertvilles.” Today, technology has been miniaturized and with it the office. Work force connectivity makes flexible work schedules more viable for employers and more valued by young, talented workers in [...]

 
The bigger, the better – right?  Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a very downtown, anti-trend here in New York for big headphones with the candy-colored old-skool plastic outer shell.  These are value-engineered noise-cancelling headphones like the kind the guys on the tarmac wear. Ubiquitous white in-ear buds, the iPhone staple, are not only too civilized, they also don’t do a very good job blocking out the noises around you.  And the Bose Noise Cancelling headphones…$300. Seriously?!
 But, seriously, what better way to signal “Do Not Disturb” than a big pair of headphones. Like my Gen-Y colleagues, I pull out the ear goggles when I need to shut it all out and get something done on deadline.  Originally purchased for cross-country business travel, I’ve got a dorky pair of Sennheiser over-ear headphones, and they’re great…
But I find myself a little skeptical of my own actions.  Are headphones the best compromise between the benefit of informal collaboration and the complete lack of privacy in the open plan environment?  Are there better, more subtle ways to focus on the task at hand and politely signal to your colleagues to come back later?  Sure, you can build out phone booths, focus rooms and huddle rooms to solve this problem.  But is that really the best approach – or is the cheapest and simplest solution actually the best? 
I want to know what you think.

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Came across this article recently on Big Think… Why You Can’t Work at Work
Jason Fried believes the modern workplace is optimized for distractions. I can’t entirely disagree. Something he mentions that I’m sure a lot of people can relate to is getting into the work zone. “You show up at work and you sit down and you don’t just immediately begin working, like you have to roll into work. You have to sort of get into a zone, just like you don’t just go to sleep, like you lay down and you go to sleep”. Every interruption means you have to stop dead in your tracks and then ramp back up into that zone when you jump back to your other tasks.
“And the other thing about interruptions and calling people’s names, and ringing them on the phone and stuff, it’s actually really an arrogant sort of move because you’re saying that whatever I have to ask you is more important than what you’re doing. Because I’m going to stop you from doing what you are doing for me to ask you this question that probably doesn’t matter anyway.”
Ummmm…YES. This sounds about right. And we’re all guilty of it. So I’ve had a few thoughts lately on interruptions and how we can work to avoid them.
No cell phone policy in meetings
Multitasking has its benefits and it’s practically a job requirement these days. But in most cases, if you’re checking email on your phone during a meeting it probably means that you’re [...]