Competition.  We all know that word, whether in terms of projects we’re trying to win or our favorite basketball team.  And we can probably agree that a healthy amount of competition can be a good thing – drives us forward, causes us to focus, challenges us, and introduces us to new ideas.  Well, how about when one of your biggest competitors (ahem…SOM) wins a competition to design a new “Silicon Valley” in New York City?  How does THAT make you feel? 
In late 2011, Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology – with SOM and Field Operations (designed the High Line in NYC) – won a competition run by NYC’s administrative office under Michael Bloomberg to repurpose a portion of Roosevelt Island.  The winning proposal included 2.5 million square feet total, with technology focused on NYC-centric industries such as medicine, finance, and advertising, and endowments for start-up companies.  What is particularly attractive about the campus, however, is that the proposal centered the 2,500-student academic institution around central “hubs” (see Fast Company for the animations of the space) and expansive, open areas organized by interest, not by discipline, to foster the exchange of ideas.  Polish it off with interwoven public spaces to serve the academic and general population and a net-zero goal for each of the academic buildings, and you have a pretty great recipe.  Or, at least one good enough to garner the attention of Bloomberg anc Cornell alumni alike. 
Understanding how people work, how ideas are shared, and how environments affect the [...]

This week marks the 5th birthday of the iphone! As I thought about this, I started to reflect on the impact that this one device has made…many people could not function well without it. I count myself in the group – I totally drink the Apple Kool Aid (full disclosure)! So why is it that I have become so completely dependent?
There has been a growing trend over the last 10 years called “convergence”, where many aspects of the world are coming together in ways that they never have before. For example, social media sites networking together so that you can pull a news story from one location and share on Face book – or vice versa. Grocery stores use cards to track what you purchase to give you specialized coupons intended to get you to try new products, as well as monitor your spending habits and sell that information back to the manufactures. All this data is tracked and stored for marketing purposes.
For me, convergence is epitomized on a personal level in the iphone – for example, when traveling I simply forward any email reservation confirmations to a website aligned with the Trip it application that organizes and creates a travel itinerary for me. When I arrive, the application interfaces with the GPS on Google Maps to give me direction for driving, walking, or public transportation to my destination. Also included are phone numbers that I can dial from the iphone for the destination if there are any problems along [...]

A recent post on Mashable – Is Working From Home Becoming the Norm? –  has statistics from a  March 2011 survey on the growing trend toward working from home and on how people in workplaces scattered across the globe and in different time zones are communicating.  Shown here is one of  their graphics showing the effect of remote work on in-office time.  The survey, The Future of Workplaces, was conducted by CigaOM Pro and underwritten by Skype.  Read more about it here.  Learned about it on a friend’s Twitter feed – thanks, Mike!

Share+Enjoy

 
Check out this great animation posted on information aesthetics, of Android activations around the world.  First you see worldwide, then across the U.S., then Europe, then East Asia.  Curious, I looked around for more on mobile devices, especially how they’re used at work.  There’s a lot out there so – please - feel free to add good reads that you’ve discovered.

Mobile Lurking Through the Holidays has a great graphic and lots of statistics.  Here’s one  ”72% of U.S. workers have access to a mobile device.”
Has Mobile Working Come of Age? is, as the title says, more about mobile working, but says this about the i-Pad: ” According to research by Forrester, three quarters of companies in Europe and North America are already using or planning to make use of Apple’s handheld device.”
For the non-profit perspective check out Mobile Computing and Telework: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop!
Manging use of consumer collaboration tools, mobile devices for work features a brief interview with Ted Schadler of Forrester Research talking about how it’s often employees who think of new ways of incorporating mobile devices into the work flow.  He also offers advice to network operators who are asked to make it all work.
When & Where Are People Using Mobile Devices? - cites this report, Smartphone Owners: A Ready and Willing Audience, which mentions that smartphones were originally “promoted as devices to help the busy, on-the-go, business professional.”
A recent Deloitte report, Addicted to connectivity, surveys mobile phone users from around the world.  “Smartphone owners are … intensive users [of texting] with 84 percent sending a text at least once a day.” 

Charging options? 

Try A Wind-Charged iPhone.  Here’s the designer’s site (Tjeerd [...]

What happens when a company gets too big to be an exclusively virtual company?
I recently came across an article on inc.com: 4 Tips on Managing a Virtual Workforce, which featured Michael Sappington, CEO of gloStream, a company that provides software solutions for electronic medical records. In the piece, Michael notes some of the obstacles to maintaining a virtual environment as his compnay grows as well as the decision to move to physical office space.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Michael to dive deeper into the pros and cons his company is seeing as they transition from a virtual office to a physical office. Michael was gracious enough to answer my four questions below.
1. As your company grows and you shift your strategy related to flexible work hours and a virtual workforce, have you encountered any personnel issues with new ways of working and, if so, how are you managing this change to keep employees happy and engaged?
Overall, the shift from a virtual electronic medical records company to one operating out of a physical office has gone very, very well. Our team members have welcomed the change and they are much more productive since they can find each other and quickly meet face-to-face, instead of having to spend time tracking each other down before finding a time for a meeting. Our team members are happy to be in an office and really excited about our new work environment.
2. What workplace trends (i.e. technology, furniture, new ways of working) do you feel [...]

For several years our industry has pushed for the shift from ownership of space – as in your own office / workstation or your department’s conference room – to the sharing place.  In large part, this has been driven by the need to reduce the cost of real estate for organizations by trying to increase the utilization of  space used.  However, in my experience, there’s been significant reluctance due to our culture of ownership(especially here in the U.S.) . 
Last May at TEDx Sydney Rachel Botsman presented “The Case for Collaborative Consumption” and how several factors, including the proliferation of sharing websites, are having an impact on shifting our behaviors  from individual ownership to sharing.  She identifies 4 key drivers that are “fusing together and creating the big shift towards collaborative consumption”

A renewed belief in the importance of community
A torrent of peer-to-peer social networks and real-time technologies
Pressing unresolved environmental concerns
A global recession that has fundamentally shocked consumer behaviors

She also attributes the increase in this phenomenon to the “digital natives or Gen Y” and the ease of mobile collaboration – “they are growing up sharing…it’s second nature to them…moving us from a culture of me to a culture of we”. 

Her talk makes a strong case (using several internet examples like Zipcar, Swaptree and Landshare) that our consumer behaviors are changing due to the 4 points listed above that are being enabled by technology, mobility and a younger generation where sharing is second nature.
I believe Rachel’s presentation provides our industry with a few related examples, benefits and ideas for future opportunities around the idea sharing in an effort to reduce real estate, space and resource consumption faced by many [...]

Last year the HOK Chicago Interiors Group completed an office relocation project for Millward Brown, a leading global research agency. One of the main goals of the project was to make sure the branding of the space worked with the overall brand values of the company but also maintained a local identity to the Chicago market and their specific location. Millward Brown is a very youthful, creative and highly collaborative organization, and the physical space, amenities and branding all needed to reflect that culture.
The final workplace soultion is a very open plan with a variety of collaboration spaces,  reduced amount of materials,  youthful, energizing graphics and several areas for employees to kick back and relax, including a fully loaded Wii Rock Band area. It’s a great mix of a laid back, jeans-wearing culture with some very slick, sophisticated amenities for clients and visitors of all varieties.
The project was recently featured in an article in Interiors & Sources Magazine. Check out the article here.

Share+Enjoy

Remote…work? A recent article in the NY Times describes a new trend in working remotely: funerals.

[Friday humor time...at least for me...]  So, I’m sitting here at the island in my kitchen working on day 5 of remote work due to the snow/ice mix that has put the smackdown on the metro-Atlanta region (yes, we shut down for cold weather, too).  Fortunately for me, several years of working with a distributed team has made this second nature:  wireless access, a near-light-speed cable modem, cell phone and a corner office (in my bedroom) have enabled continued communication with my team spread across the globe quick and easy!! 
But it is not without frustrations…
So this morning I got an e-mail from a colleague using his brand new iPad.  It’s got this cute little sign-off:  “sent from my iPad.”  Do I really need to know that?  It’s a little jab in my side saying, “hey, I’m cool, I’m connected, I’m ON-DEMAND BABY!” I groan to my wife about it and then she reads me the closing from one of her client’s recent e-mails:  “sent from my magic iPhone.”  oh, yes, she read it from HER iPhone, too, complete with catchy phrase “sent from my iPhone.”  Another favorite: “sent while moving warp speed on my Verizon wireless smart phone.”  sigh…
Me?  I’m still banging out notes on the microscopic, worn out, push-button eraser heads on my Dash with my fat little thumbs and forefingers!  Even my kids (8 and 5) try to touch the screen to make it work, all the while complaining that I need to get a new phone.  Really?
So, I thought that the least I could [...]

Welcome to the next installment of our work+place history. Today we feature Cagri Kanver’s 2009 contribution to Medical Tourism Magazine. 
Cagri shared that overall cost and related benefits of green building can be achieved for any organization by implementing sustainable initiatives. In the article, he offers a model for measuring the economic value of green including an environmental benefit evaluation.
Read the article: Going Green – New Words in a New World
If you have some time to read some more HOK workplace history, check our previous posts:

Work+Place History (2): The Leader 
Work+Place History (3): Facilitating Change
Work+Place History (4): True Collaboration
Work+Place History (5): Working Abroad

Share+Enjoy