Tag Archives: workspace

The concept of “work swarms” and other forms of time-based or project-based collaboration evoked a recall recently of the concepts of the 1960′s architectural collaborative known as Archigram.

More appropriately said, the concept for the Walking City devised by Ron Herron, offered a view of the potentials for technology that are only now, 50 years later, being realized.

Herron’s concept imagined large ships of collectives of people and technology walking the landscape and applying knowledge, experience, expertise wherever it was needed and then moving off to other problems in other places. Peter Blake, writing in Architectural Forum in 1968, said,

Walking City imagines a future in which borders and boundaries are abandoned in favour of a nomadic lifestyle among groups of people worldwide. …Walking City anticipated the fast-paced urban lifestyle of a technologically advanced society in which one need not be tied down to a permanent location. The structures are conceived to plug into utilities and information networks at different locations to support the needs and desires of people who work and play, travel and stay put, simultaneously. By means of this nomadic existence, different cultures and information is shared, creating a global information market …
(From the Archigram Archive)

Others have commented on certain similarities of the commercial structures of our more recent times, and the instant cities that enable the globalization of war. In seeking formal or operational similarities to the sketches and descriptions of Archigram, however, many are missing what seems to be the key, yet unrealized vision of the group. The concept of spaces that engage a full spectrum of experience for people who, freed from the bonds of place, are then able to contribute and share knowledge across the world is a concept that is still restrained by the behaviors and practices of management, by the “best practices” of the real estate industry, by the zoning of most cities, by the rise of the culture of security, and by a failure of imagination in the design profession.

I think the vision is not “architectural” in conventional terms, but that it is very much about the experiences that architecture supports and can provide. Archigram’s Walking Cities are not battleships for the countryside, but are representations of a full and free set of sustaining experiences that enable people, dedicated to doing good things, to move to a place together that is not their home and and do work together untethered and unfettered by traditional or conventional policies and practices in the provision of place, space and technology. We know how to do this now without the heavy weight of Herron’s land cruisers, but even they are much lighter than the physical infrastructure we now have to work with and in.

I am, in other words, still looking for a developer.

I am looking for a developer

October 31, 2010

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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Everything about work has changed, but nothing of the workplace has.

Work looks different, now.

Major forces in technology, the economy, society and culture have combined in such a way that even the near future will be dramatically different from what we’ve experienced over the past several decades.

A casual recitation of the trends we’ve seen in new ways of working – mobility, agility, globalization, collaboration, crowd-sourcing, innovation imperatives, networked organizations, creative class, work anywhere, etc. – reveals the early components of massive and accelerating change.

And the lexicon of the current and emerging future – work swarms, hyperconnectivity, augmented reality, gaming, simulations, spontaneous work, the collective, etc. – is language that does not yet have counterparts in the world where the design of the workspace takes place.

We are very surprised by the slow pace of change in the planning and design of places for working. We believe that beyond our ability to see and comprehend what the future of work looks like, there are significant forces that constrain our ability to get to where we need to be.

The failure of the discipline of design to match the pace of the emergence of new ways of working will certainly mean frustration and, more importantly, restraint on the ability of organizations to capitalize on the promise of the future.

We think that new institutions and new approaches are necessary to resolve this issue.

The existing paradigms of the workplace are very strong and limit the ability to achieve rapid change.

At the core of this dilemma is the heavily embedded practice of looking to the future from the past. We have spoken before of our resistance to the terms and the articulations of workplace “trends” because we believe that the change taking place in society is so substantial that the future can no longer be extrapolated from the experience of the past or the components of the lagging present.

There has been and, until the Great Recession, continued to be significant investment in the physical infrastructure supporting the way that work used to be done. The office building in best practice, for example, is a form based on past organizational designs and management practices that uses components, modules and metrics to reinforce a conformity to hierarchy, entitlement, and a cellular array of assigned workspaces. Over time, these have generated a well-developed and applied template of core design and placement, floorplate size and dimension, and floor-to-floor heights that shape the organization of work, and even influences the size and displacement of organizations. Form does not follow function anymore; rather function fits form.

Those components, what we call the lexicon of workplace form, also represent a mature economy that has been well developed by furniture and equipment manufacturers, ceiling and wall component manufacturers, and the technologies of energy and communications distribution. This has also bred a generation of workplace design specialists, increasingly constrained by time and fees, who have developed an aura of market and practice area expertise that reinforces the incremental extrapolation and application of “best practice” templates rather than real workspace innovation.

And the embedded resistance to change in the corporation suppresses the mandate for change

Even while accepting the logic for new ways of working, management education and practice has been unable to adapt to and keep up with the extraordinary speed of change in the way that work is actually being performed.

In recent years, even the growing awareness of generational differences has generated merely stylistic differentiation in the accommodation of different ways of working without understanding the substantial emergence of entirely new forms of organization and execution.

The “trend” to make the workplace more “social” by introducing a Starbucks style into the lunch room is but one example of the misunderstanding of the emerging social nature of work, communication, networks and innovation.

The existing institutions are powerless

While the corporation correctly senses that the current form of the workplace is worthless, it has not yet formed an understanding of what form of workplace has value. Workplace design consultants have illustrated that whether through layoffs or through mobility programs or through otherwise unrecognized shifts in how and where work is done, you can walk through the corporate offices these days and not see anybody there.

As the economy continues to press on corporate performance, most companies cannot shed real estate fast enough. The relentless purge is based, at least in part, on the traditional alignment of the corporate real estate function with the finance organization. Human resources, marketing, R&D and the value-generating portions of the organization have not yet assembled the point-of-view, position and power to influence the real estate momentum.

And, of course, the supply side of real estate, for a long time afraid of change, has led the design and delivery of the corporate workplace based on “exit strategies” – the generalization, commonization and commoditization of corporate offices to assure rapid turnover of occupancies even as the demand for a high level of customization and agility begins to emerge.

New institutions are necessary

The sense that the conventional designers and providers of the spaces and places where work is done can not adapt to provide a new model has led some from outside of the domain of “best” practice to attempt to innovate and create.

The Kauffman Foundation, for example, deeply concerned about the pace, volume and success of the entrepreneurial endeavors that power job creation and economic growth, have developed the Kauffman Labs for Enterprise Creation. They have commissioned a prototype space to act as a “test-bed” for the development and application of new modes of organizational design and development under the belief that space matters to people’s performance.

Similarly, Jeff DeGraf at the University of Michigan, has generate the Innovatrium concept. In his work with major corporations, he has found that great strides can be made with executives in an off-site, non-corporate context, but the pace and success of change is lost when they return to the conventional corporate space. The Innovatrium is a prototype to find a physical mode to implant in the corporate office to assure greater success in innovation initiatives.

These are early, small scale models, and there is a lot still missing.

So…I am looking for a developer

Our specifications are still in development and, in any case, we want this to be a mutual and multidisciplinary endeavor. Our model will evolve from design and development, from research and insight, from analysis and innovation, from prototypes and testing, and from new “metrics” around the experience of working.

We’ll return to this subject periodically. In the meantime, here is a very brief review of only some of the things we are thinking about.

The new model will use a new language of workspace design, a new lexicon of form. Since the leading edge of new ways of working is evolving so fast, and since older ways of working are moving so slowly, event the current language of work and design is losing value fast. “Collaboration,” for example, already has the weight of workforce skepticism, and everybody knows that the little table out in the open is not the supporting device. The new language must not carry any burden from inadequate responses from the past.

The new model is one of service, not control. Corporate real estate and facility management have provided things. The metrics of their performance and the limits on their resources have meant that the efficiency of the management of things and the minimization of the cost and amount of things have been their focus. “Standards” and “mobility” are a couple of the ways this is done, and “performance” became a financial, not an achievement, metric. The new model will instead understand and appreciate the importance of the way that people will get things done, and will provide the most effective resources for accomplishing the purposes of the organization.

The new model will be a sustainable model. Stocks and flows may be the underlying concept for the provision of space, not assignment and entitlement. This is at the core of our thinking. Corporate ownership and the long-term implications of real estate investment have combined to generate an inflexible and over-supplied model of space for work. We think a third party approach with a different model of supply is worthy of development and promotion.

The new model will seek talent centers, not cost centers. People will find and deliver success through their expertise and mastery in combination with a context-specific network of other experts and masters. These people will have the choice of being where they want to be, and that choice is increasingly an urban choice, in globally-connected, resource-rich centers. Workspace will come to be comprehended as a community, not a finite workplace.

The new model will focus on the experience of working. We believe that the leading organizations of the future will be the ones who “own” the experience of working. The measures and pleasures of performance will be determined by the people who fulfill the purpose of the organization, and not by the organization. Top talent will move to where they can be most effective, where the constraints on achievement have been removed, and where the available resources activate, augment and amplify their contributions and achievements.

Contact us if you’d like to explore with us how to develop the workspaces of the future.

[Image by -nathan on flickr.com]

Has the quality of the experience brought by mobile technology become so satisfying that it is no longer satisfying to work in a fixed place?

June 1, 2010

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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Whether in our professional work, in online discussion groups, or in our readings, it seems that the subject of workplace transformation is itself in a transformational state. People still cite statistics justifying one side or the other of the ongoing open versus closed debate, and others are counting the amounts of corporate real estate savings delivered through alternative work and mobility programs as supportive data to expand them.

Certainly there is an evolution, a progression taking place, and perhaps all of this data buzz is the signal that the subject is finding traction, but the metrics are still about consumption, and not yet about production. That is, “performance” seems defined in terms of a space/cost metric and not sufficiently in terms of organizational achievement.

In the meantime, as the design of the workplace lags, the design of technology that initially enabled alternative workplace programs never sleeps. Today, the 2 millionth iPad has been sold as more and more people discover the delights of the latest technology that lightens the load and allows almost access to almost any type of information in progressively more satisfying form, anywhere and at any time, and sharable.

In relatively rapid development we’ve gone from bulky laptop to lighter notebook to Blackberry to iPhone to iPad. We’ve fretted about work/life balance yet now go mostly with the flow. We’ve gone from traveling salesman to knowledge worker to worrying about how to accommodate the socially-connected gaming generation in the workplace.

We are learning that the old institutions are dying, as well. Leadership in commerce is increasingly being achieved through collaborative insight and breakthrough development, much of it achieved from relationships established after serendipitous contact at the peripheries of our core pursuits. These connections are, in a large part, the products of technologies that have made us lighter, more agile, more networked, more aware.

So this is what I am wondering: As the pleasures of these technologies have enabled the increasing satisfaction of connecting, developing ideas and achieving the good things that come from interaction in or from places other than the office, but since only a portion of those experiences are shared by people working in assigned space in offices – is it getting lonely in a conventional office?

What is the impact, in other words, of the experiential gap between the design of virtual and physical work space? Are there barriers to achievement, organizationally or personally, presented by working in assigned office space when the activities of others are being augmented and amplified by the ability to get out and move around?

Has the quality of the experience brought by mobile technology become so satisfying that it is no longer satisfying to work in a fixed place?

The latest workplace design trends

May 14, 2010

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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Among the most common expressions of advice as anxiety turns to optimism in the economy relates to the preparedness and actions of leaders. “You must rapidly move from the status quo,” so many advisers say, “and establish and consistently articulate a vision for moving forward.” It may be this vision quest that so many organizations are going through that makes the request for a review of trends such a frequent agenda item in our conversations with current and potential clients.

As I noted in our last post, a review of what others are doing now provides information, a measure of pace, a confidence in direction, and other assurances that you are on the right path. I cautioned, however, that trends, in this sense of “solutions,” are more the evidence of what others may have found to be the right move to make, yet may neither connect authentically to your own purposes nor deliver similar or related results.

Redefining trends

I thought I’d return to this subject, with a slightly different skew. Reviewing trends as “solutions” to help shape your path forward begins at the wrong point and may lead to bad results. Understanding and analyzing trends that shape what you do and how you do it is an essential discipline in shaping and communicating vision and purpose, and in shaping and delivering services and products that have value to those you serve.

More specifically, shaping a workplace transformation program based on the trends you see in the actions of others may be more harmful than doing nothing. Shaping a new workspace around the trends and directions driving the value in what you do can be a powerful agent in sustainable leadership.

Transform, and activate

A major social services organization was facing challenges brought by the reduction of resources as a result of the economic collapse, and a corresponding rise in demand for their services. The leader of the organization recognized that they would have to begin to do more with less. He quickly realized that he could never accomplish that mission-rich but resource-spare agenda in the type of workplace where they had been working. Although a generous gift from a financial services company, it was generations out of date, compartmentalized, and walnut-paneled. And it dragged on their energy and purpose.

This leader researched trends in workplace design and spoke with architects, designers and furniture manufacturers. He began to form a vision of the workspace concepts that he believed would characterize the type of organization they would need to become – open, collaborative, agile, responsive. He then embarked on a major program to find and design the right type of space. He included in it all of the elements that he had been advised were the components of a more open and collaborative culture. He then moved his organization in and waited for the culture to take shape.

After several months, this same leader began to shape another program – this time to “activate” the workplace. Even though his organization’s workspace was at the leading edge of a typology for action-oriented organizations, the results he expected were not materializing. Returning to the recent reformulation of the organization’s mission, he put together a proposal to augment the earlier project with artifacts of the unique work his organization did, and more representative of how work is actually done in the organization. They are now implementing a tuning and amplification of the concept in place.

Touch down, and touch base

A leading consulting organization had an innovation culture and a staff who worked closely with their clients in modes that were highly mobile. They were able to design and implement mobile workstyles that progressively reduced demand for their own corporate real estate. Each iteration of the program brought the ratio of people to seats higher and higher, and the ratio of real estate to people lower and lower.

The people who worked for them had no problem with the evolution of these programs. They did their best work in close contact with their clients, and traveled around the world to deliver their advice. The company became a model and their workplace transformations became benchmarks for others, the influential origin of a trend toward aggressive mobile workforce solutions.

This company however, began to have problems with the results of these programs. They had so successfully supported mobile workstyles that their people rarely had contact anymore with the company or their peers. The knowledge they had when they entered the company was not expanding, and the experience they gained in their work was not being transferred. Their brand power, formed from collective intelligence, experience and expertise, was eroding.

One component of their solution was, oddly, a workplace transformation program. They developed a workplace that was so authentically responsive to the experiences and behaviors of their “road warriors” that it became their preferred place to touch down. These “offices” became the places where they found colleagues and traded stories, where they updated and sustained their sense of the brand, and nourished their intellectual energies before heading off on the next engagement. The company is now making headlines again, and the next wave in its business innovations currently under way.

Envision, and transform

A large creative services organization composed of several advertising and media companies recently began a lease consolidation program to bring all of the companies together in one place. These companies were fiercely independent, proud of their brand legacy and, in some cases, competitive with each other for clients and accounts. And they were very resistive to the program.

They participated, however, in a series of exercises that looked at the changing nature of the business they were in, the drivers of change for themselves and for their clients and customers, and the products and services they would need to develop to survive the change and to achieve and sustain leadership. This analysis led to insights that allowed them to envision the behaviors and experiences that would be essential to how they would frame and deliver those services. They then shaped a workplace and workspace transformation program around those experiences and behaviors.

Within a few months of moving into their new workspace, their principal customer, a global manufacturer, complemented them on the impact he felt to his business from the change that had taken place in theirs. Both the companies and their customers had survived a very challenging business context and today are leaders in their markets.

M-Shaped Strategies – A process inversion

These are the successful stories. In each case, these organizations shifted direction from initial intentions and achieved results from solutions that were original to their purposes. So many other organizations in these times, however, are starting with goals of “cost savings” and embracing workplace transformation trends and implementing programs that shed and minimize real estate but threaten the effectiveness of their mission.

The identification and analysis of trends is very important in the formation of a vision or development of a strategy for a robust and sustainable future. The trends to study in this context are not solutions, however, but problems. These trends are the weaker and stronger signals of emerging change, or of dissatisfaction with the now, or of a shift in value or values that provide the insight shaping the moves you want to make to be effective, or to lead, or to fulfill a purpose and meet a need in the future. They are what Roger Martin calls the “mystery.”

These trends define the context for what you will do as an organization. Clayton Christensen calls this the “job” you are asked to do, the root problem your customer wants you to solve, or the result they want to achieve through your products or services. In the examples I cited above, the social services organization’s customers wanted advocacy, the consulting organization’s customers wanted to trust in and receive the value of the brand, and the media company’s customers wanted integrated creative communications.

The role of the workplace in each of these “jobs-to-be-done” was influenced by considerations of functional, emotional and social experiences of both staff and customers in these organizations. People who worked for the social services organization or who had an interest to contribute to its programs could be moved beyond volunteering and donating to active advocacy by becoming immersed in the story of the community they would affect. People who worked for the consulting organization and their clients would progress throughout the exchange of experiences and knowledge gained in a global practice by its members. Customers of the organization composed of the media and advertising organizations would benefit from the creative and coordinated programs developed by in the collaborative and open culture of its agencies.

The jobs-to-be-done and the understanding of the experiences of staff and customers of these organizations were the underlying and salient considerations that then shaped their workplace strategies, programs, and designs. Each of these organizations, achieving and sustaining leadership through what they do are now effectively, trend setters, and have the potential to influence the moves that others make. But the strategies and concepts used by the agencies, for example, which could be seen as representative of a trend in design for “agile” and “collaborative” and “team-based” workplaces, would be inappropriate or insufficient for the jobs that the other organizations were trying to do even though they, too, wanted to support agile, collaborative teams.

A recommendation

I would recommend an inversion in the process and origins of the conversations we’ve seen as a trend in the quest for trends.

If you are an organization who also believes that the nature of your workspace influences the impact of your work, try inverting the conventional process. Try starting the conversation with your architect or designer by telling him or her about the trends deeply affecting your clients or customers – the “mysteries” in your scan and the “jobs” your clients want done – and how they might affect the direction you feel you need to take as an organization. I assume he or she will then engage with you in a conversation about the experiences that are at the core of your offering, and shelve the conventional presentation of the portfolio and the latest styles of workplace design.

I think you’ll be happier.

…..

Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Prescription

Roger Martin, The Design of Business

A new value equation for organizational real estate

May 6, 2010

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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Emerging opportunities in organizational real estate and workplace programs – and how to capture their value

I have become considerably optimistic about the future of our practice from the evidence of disruption that had been latently present and now is increasing activating our economy. What had been a slowly emerging awareness of the need for doing things in new ways is now attaining greater momentum through the recognition that a fundamental shift has taken place, and that new strategies and designs are essential to successfully get in the flow of new achievement.

I sketched a diagram, an emergent equation of sorts, that begins to express some of the shift and its potential in a couple of domains of interest for me.

It tries to express that the content of the institutions and organizations of the recent past, which had still been bound up in closed and constrained systems, is breaking out and finding new value through more open and innovative systems. The impacts of this change of state include the collapsing value of the services and infrastructures that sustained the older systems in the first decade of the millennium, and the emergent power and potential residing in the transitional white space between the recent now and the yet-unformed next.

Some familiar recitations

Corporations, as individually competitive entities, were essentially closed systems where not being number one or two meant death. They were administrated by hierarchies enclosed in towers expressive of stature, status, and power. The value in these towers was attained through internal controls like efficiency of utilization, and external influences like financial instruments.

These real estate values were achieved through a set of services, equipment and standards managed separately from the core purposes of the organization, and yet influenced the shape of buildings and cities. People sat in policy-defined cubes. Furniture manufacturers fabricated responsive and dimensionally-confined systems. And architects and designers influenced site selection and lease negotiations based on “test fits” measuring the efficiency of the ratio of space enclosed in cubes versus the amount of space left over. Developers achieved “investment grade” ratings on their buildings by, among other things, reducing the inches of building constructed between the module of the furniture systems proscribed by the corporate standards and the minimum dimensions of aisles defined by code. Geometric precision defined economic value.

Then, a confluence of global comic development, financial meltdown, technology acceleration and the innovation imperative scrambled the value set. Rising real (and artificial) estate costs initiated a quest to squeeze, and “footprint hierarchy” disappeared. Technology enabled a work-anywhere potential, and realistic real estate utilization metrics proved the case for dramatic reduction in real estate demand. Innovation, the key to competitive differentiation and precious growth, was now believed to arise from a culture of creative and cross-disciplinary collaboration for which the cube was an enemy. Even after economic collapse and the disappearance of price pressure on real estate decisions, the demand for space may now be felt more by the coffee shop than the corporation.

Leading organizations are now trying to find ways to operate as networked clusters of competencies rather than closed corporations. The concept of work “stations” now only has value if you believe that if you have one you will not get laid off; instead, quality of place and attraction of space get attention. Work, in any case, is no longer contained in a company’s buildings, nor by the clock, and is progressively becoming part of a seamlessly networked, diversely urban lifestyle. People now much more agile in place and time, choose places and spaces that are the most effective, or can be made more effective, for whatever activity is part of their workstream.

So, what might this mean?

Our clients regularly ask us about trends. Understanding what is happening in workplace planning and design, for example, allows them to become current, test their status against industry and competitors, and make more informed choices about their own programs. Trends, a term borrowed from the world of style, may however be evidence more of group-think and less a valid tool for decision-making. The trend-setter may actually have been the only one in the chain who made an authentic move, creatively adapting and innovating their workspace to meet the unique and differential needs of their organization’s purpose. His followers may now be experiencing the frustration of trying to fit function to form.

In a recently posted video of his presentation at a TED conference, Simon Sinek offers a diagram – “the Golden Circle” – of the path to influential leadership, and a simple formulation that people want what you believe, not what you are.
Individuals and organizations with a well-formulated and articulated belief system (“why” – their purpose for being) develop aligned and authentic means to deliver on their promise (“how”). In order for the “how” of their organization to be effective, they shape their presence in place and space in the character of their culture (“what” – the tangible and physical expression of their unique DNA).

Trends in organizational real estate and workplace design

In their real estate and workplace design programs, aspirational organizations may see the impact and influence of others’ space moves and, sensing “trend,” may choose a similar approach for themselves, believing they, too, may benefit from the concepts.

The trend-setting organization may say – we are relentless in our quest to understand the needs of our clients and their customers. To get this understanding we do our work standing next to them, enabled by technology and support policies that allow our people to work in our client’s places. We’ve developed an agile workplace with all of the tools to support and nurture our highly committed and recognized staff.

The trend-following organization sees a “trend” to shed real estate costs through a reduced space inventory and minimized allocations. They initiate a mobile work “policy” and measure their success with a 40% reduction in occupancy costs, which, they believe, enhances their competitive position in the market. Their people begin to experience a high level of stress, make harmful decisions based on the celebrated internal metrics, and cling to a cubicle as an entitlement and an assumed job insurance.

If I could apply Simon Sinek’s principles to our advice to our clients, I would always propose that we design from the inside out. Developing a deep understanding of the purpose and goals of the organization (the why), we would then begin to shape with them a strategy design (the how) to meet their goals and then begin to uncover, test and develop concepts to shape a design strategy for place and space (the what) to enhance the performance of people and to achieve and sustain leadership in their mission.

In other words, I’d try this new formula with them–

Articulate why you are in business and let that purpose be the principle drive of real estate programs and decisions
Define how you uniquely do what you do, first without reference to space
Shape space and place around the how

This is a great time for corporations and other forms of organizations to reassess the purposes and power of place for their own goals and objectives, whether considering new initiatives or reviewing the impacts of past or recent programs.

What do you think?

© Jim Meredith

Narrow the Information Gap to capture higher value in design for workplace transformation

March 18, 2010

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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A continuing subject in the work we do is the concept of knowledge creation. It seems to be a subject that is rarely in an architect’s or designer’s commission. It may reside implicitly in the background of a design project, or may not ever be part of the conversation. It seems, however, that for the role that the workplace itself, and workplace transformation projects play, it should come more to the forefront.

We’ve talked before about how a change in the place or space of work is frequently a key component of an organization’s transformation agenda. These workplace strategy programs have a wide spectrum of objectives, with cost-cutting/space saving at the bottom of the achievement graph, and authentic interest in contribution and accomplishment higher on the scale.

Any project’s place on the scale is generally determined by its origin. Workplace and workspace matters lie in different silos of organizations. Projects arising out of finance may have cost savings as a primary success metric. We’ve had some projects arising out of a grassroots interest in advancing the creative output of an an organization, so the primary success measure there has been transition to a different shade of operations culture.

“Change management” is a discipline that is frequently evoked in these programs and here, again, there is a significant range of content, influence and impact. We have seen some programs in which the sum of content is a directory for day-one occupation of the new place – how to find a printer in the new layout, for example. More robust programs establish web sites and other communications programs to provide information over a sustained period of time from the initiation of the project to or through its occupancy many months later.

We reflect on this because the proximity, content and communication of information is a key component in evoking the engagement with intention that is at the core of achieving the real benefits of change, especially where knowledge creation, innovation capability and creative capacity are among the intended goals of the program.

Below is a nice introduction (from Jeff Monday) to the “Information Gap” theory of George Loewenstein. I cite it both for its general relevance and also as a guide to initial thinking about change management programs and their role in achieving the intended purposes of transformation programs, and beyond.

Understanding the information gap in the design, communication and implementation of workplace transformation programs can significantly contribute to the engagement of those affected by them, and through that to significant enhancement of the performance – the knowledge creation – of the organization overall.

Scenius and workspace genius

March 3, 2010

Design strategy, workplace design

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Last summer in Sydney, Brian Eno, the English musician, curated “Luminous,” a festival of music, ideas, light and performance. As its finale, he and associated musicians performed an almost day-long improvisational suite called “Pure Scenius.” One reviewer, the blogger indolentdandy described the settling like this:

The stage design was fascinating. From the audience’s perspective, Eno and his assistant were on the left sitting on office chairs behind desks with laptops and devices. Towards the centre at the front was Karl Hyde with laptops, a keyboard and devices. Behind them were The Necks: pianist Chris Abrahams, drummer Tony Buck and bass player Lloyd Swanton.

In front on the right was a lounge area (above) and next to it was a cafe tables with electric kettle, tea and milk clearly visible. Behind this were Jon Hopkins on piano and devices and Leo Abrahams playing a chocolate coloured Gibson SG through a MacBook Pro.

When not contributing to a song, musicians would wander over, make a cup of tea and sit and watch. The ensemble also grouped there in the intervals rather than going to a dressing room backstage…

It was amazing to watch Eno implementing his famous oblique strategies live – brief notes written and shared (using a webcam at his desk I think that displayed his notes on the laptop screens of the ensemble) for the band to respond to. Notes included (as best as I can remember them) ‘quiet and warm like blood’, ‘approach the extremes of pitch’ and ‘introduce hot and cold’.

In place at Pure Scenius, via indolentdandy

The setting is interesting in the embodiment of “scenius,” a concept of place-based collective creation. Kevin Kelly describes scenius as “like a genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes.” He says that Brian Eno “suggested the word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or scenes can occasionally generate. His actual definition is ‘Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.’”

The concept has resonated in a significantly large and diverse body of theory and practice. This idea that the design of place can play a significant role in the formation, development and nurturing of communal genius and organizational knowledge development has been tested by political action groups, social movements, and creative groups, and its influence observed in serendipitous innovators and others. The concept moves in terms like “epicenters,” “third places,” “third neighborhoods,” “combined interactive intelligence,” “collective inspiration,” “social scene,” “community genius,” and Eno’s own references to “fertile scenes,” the “ecology of ideas,” and “an ecology of talent.”

A corporate profile

I got caught by the concept because of the very wide acceptance of the importance of place in creative collaboration, yet the resistance to the concept in the corporate domain by many who are nonetheless seeking ways to transform cultures and become more innovative, whether to contribute to or benefit from the achievement of a different sense of community.

In our work we have been called upon to develop, design or implement corporate facilities programs using newly developed “standards” or “guidelines” to transform a specific space or a portfolio of places to support, augment, or initiate other organizational change initiatives. These usually arise out of a finance function, most typically corporate real estate. Success is measured in terms of place and space (square feet per person, e.g.) and finally in terms of finance (cost reduction).

In best practice, the change initiative is cloaked in terms of cultural, operational or organizational change like “innovation” or “collaboration.” In many of these cases, the form language of the change is in “open” offices and smaller work stations, and measured, in the end, by the financial and real estate metrics of people per seat, square feet per person, and dollars per square foot, rather than operational, social, cultural or impact measures.

Among the key emerging tools used in these programs is a body of data collected in various direct and indirect ways. Depending on the tool used, the data can provide analysis and insight on a spectrum of occupancy metrics– whether a space is occupied, for how long it’s occupied, who is there, etc. I many cases the concluding analysis is, in effect, “look at how little of this real estate is used in the course of a day,” leading to a program to cut space by 40% or more. In the best cases, there is additional information and observation to advise on the efficacy of a space for its purpose or to illuminate why it is that certain places are chosen for certain types of work and why they might work so well.

The very real caution to take in programs like this is to understand that the subject of the study is the space, and not the people using the space nor the intention of the space. Poorly designed or inappropriate space will show low occupancy and will be cut from the program and portfolio. The question of what space would be better for people and purpose is not asked, and so is not planned, designed and implemented. The program then delivers space that potentially leads to the next round of observations that make the proof for yet another space reduction, and a disengaged staff and reduced organizational performance, while yet showing great financial performance.

Places where people want to be

So back to “scenius.” The concept that Eno outlines, the idea that the configuration or design of place and space is a significant and important component of creativity and innovation has been bubbling for a while.

Ray Oldenberg may have started this growing awareness of place-based creation and innovation with his book, The Great Good Place. It may have been Oldenberg who coined the term “third places” to describe the settings in the urban environment that nurture a sense of community and belonging. They are places that are informal, voluntary, and without the marks of status.

Stowe Boyd over at /message picks up the theme and talks of “third neighborhoods.” Boyd is something of an expert in what he calls “social architecture.” He speaks of the importance of social tools and settings for both startups and well established large organizations. He believes that “we are seeing a rethinking of work, collaboration and the role of management.” Scenius for him is what the calls “social scene” where “every aspect of our identity and psychology is shaped.”

The theme also resonates with Alex Steffen, editor of Worldchanging – A User’s Guide for the 21st Century. In his blog, Steffen suggests that the “art of courting genius” is an essential capability of those attempting to innovate and develop solutions to big problems. He points out that genius does not arrive on cue, but instead in “unruly clumps, in great non-linear spurts of changed thinking.” Without the right places and spaces, you’ll miss what you had hoped to achieve. Instead, you must “create a welcoming place for [genius] and increase the likelihood that it will show up.” Steffen uses the term “epicenters” to embrace the concept of scenius, places with the right ingredients to “set the conditions for a planetary explosion of new thinking.”

Design principles

Kelly’s reflection on scenius suggests that it is a concept achievable at many scales that allow this eruption of creativity to take place almost anywhere. He offers a succinct checklist for establishing the “geography of scenius” that includes conditions of mutual appreciation, the rapid exchange of tools and techniques, the network effects of success, and local tolerance for novelties.

We’ll reflect in a later post on some more specific guidelines for achieving the potential for scenius. In the meantime, the setting of the improvisational performance we quoted in the top of this post offers a pretty good guide in its informality, ease, casual hospitality, elimination of the affects of stardom, various settings for participants, and multiple forms of spontaneous communication. The impact on the audience was huge, calling for multiple encores after hours of performance.

Most interesting was the impact on the performers themselves. Karl Hyde, one of Eno’s collaborators said, “It was extraordinary! We all came off stage thinking, ‘I’ve never been with a group of people that were so open-minded, generous and ego-less.’”

2. From square feet per person to…?

January 12, 2010

architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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I’m borrowing the 10 things concept to build an agenda of thinking for the next couple of months – my New Year’s resolutions, of sorts. Over the next few days, we’ll roll out one or two of these ideas in the hope that you’ll find something of common interest and choose to join the conversation…or even commission a study! Yesterday was the strip mall, today is workplace space.

This is the primary measure of corporate real estate cost, occupancy and utilization. It feels as if it does all the wrong things, however.

Work is mobile, agile, social, temporary, project-based, collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and more. Square feet per person implies a fixed condition, reinforces an entitlement, is predictive rather than responsive, reinforces rather than tempers demand, and measures consumption rather than production (that is, the products of the activities of the people in the space).

Most critically, this metric, as the primary subject of conversation in real estate, perpetuates a plan model that is increasingly obstructive to economic growth, and suppresses the achievement of the types of place and space that would most effectively serve the purposes and mission of companies and corporations.

There is a long distance between those who voice the purposes of organization and those who deliver its space. And the language of space makes that conversation even more abstract and obscure.

Now, in a time of significant excess space and declining rents, the language of real estate and the workspace loses even more meaning the longer it is based on area. Changing the lexicon of space, especially for its primary occupants, is a matter not only of economics, but of cities, innovation, productivity, engagement, and satisfaction that ought, it seems, point to an influence on GDP rather than local cost.

How can the language of real estate and workspace planning move from consumption to production and innovation? Which is the greater catalyst for innovation – the concept of what the workplace looks like and how it performs (illustrating and illuminating its metrics), or the measure of what takes place in the workplace (driving the brief that defines the design)?

Working and commuting in the living room

October 28, 2009

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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atnmbl_gallery_driveway atnmbl_gallery_country

In another of those days of interesting intersections of random readings from other places (the fast scan of the RSS reader) came this cluster, reminders of how the seismic shift in the economy set an emerging, but latent, shift in values into a more prominent position in thinking, doing and practicing, illuminating both their possibilities and the clutter in the way of gaining momentum. My interest is not so much in the specifics of these references, but with the sense that all of these moves in other places are indicators of need and potential illuminations of lags in other places.

So, in a few minutes of scanning on Monday morning, these –

Alice Rawsthorn reflected on opportunities for new thinking in automotive design, and expressed concerns about missed opportunities. She observes that the car companies have been traditionally focused first on the propulsion system, and then on exterior rather than interior styling. Combined with the closed culture that creates and sustains automotive designers, and the risk-averse culture reflected in corporate product development decisions, the resulting designs for a new breed of car – the electric vehicle – lack inspiration and motivation. Despite a dramatic shift in the nature of the problem, the response is largely conventional.

It’s one of the most exciting design challenges of our time. It’s a
(very) rare opportunity to reinvent a ubiquitous object that is the
most expensive — and, often, most emotive — thing that many people will
ever buy except for their homes.

Almost as if in response, Dwell presented this video interview with a San Francisco design team, Mike and Maaike, and some of their thinking on personal transportation. A fantasy scenario – and a wish – for the family car of 2040, their concept is a reflection on autonomous commuting and a mobile lifestyle. In a shft of thinking from the driver experience to the passenger experience, and from propulsion to lifestyle continuity, they sketch an entirely different sense of shape, enclosure, visibility, and even directionality. (Images from mikeandmaaike.com)

Their vision seemed to be also an anticipation of Joe Duffy’s lament and exhortation – Stop going to work! – in his FastCompany blog. “I don’t believe that inspiration is sufficiently served up in even the most compelling office environments,” he writes, pointing to the importance of escape, exposure to new things, changing perspectives and other environmental influences on innovative and creative thinking.

It’s this last one that is closest to our practice and an indicator of a substantial shift in thinking about the design of the workplace. For a decade, or more, there have been a number of influences that have been slowly shaping how we and our clients think about the world of work. In many cases, while relevant to emerging workplace culture changes, they have been influences from outside – considerations about differing behaviors and values in cultures, genders and generations, potentials for mobility generated by technology, global networking, and, of course, cost reduction. It has been rare, however, that a client has invited us to advise them on how to shape their workspace in consideration of the experiences of their employees and the potential benefits to be gained from the quality of those experiences.

Each of these cited references are particles in a stream of reflections here and by others that the dissatisfactions with what went before are the emerging opportunities for design thinking and design strategie now. Rawsthorn’s thesis is about shifting the focus from what propels us to us. Mike and Maaike remove propulsion form the equation altogether; their wish, I expect, is not about styling but about a transportation mode that is not selfishly demanding attention to itself. And Duffy’s lament is very similar – if you want something from me that gives value to what we are all doing, don’t preoccupy me with products and practices (propulsion systems) that reinforce a different set of metrics and values.

I look forward to going to the office now that I don’t consider it
“going to work.” For me it’s actually the more social aspect of
creating design. Because I’m not going there out of habit or for the
sake of appearances, it’s just another interesting facet of everyday
life and it helps keep things in balance.

Balance = happy = creative = productive. Repeat.

So some basic questions –

Why is it so difficult to change when change means survival?
Why so difficult to uncover and articulate a vision for change?
Is centralized management over?

Workspace “activation” – emerging concepts to move beyond workplace “branding”

October 2, 2009

architecture, Design strategy, workplace design

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I’ve spoken frequently of my appreciation of the “white space” of the workplace. I appreciate most the power of these spaces that lie between function and interaction to energize and activate the workspace.

These places are rare in the normal allocation of space in organizational real estate, especially in times of constrained spending. Yet, perhaps because they may more authentically represent the culture of the organization, we’ve found that these are the places and spaces that evoke the commitment and engagement of staff and enhance their performance. These are places, in other words – normally cut from organizational space allocations – that allow people to more rapidly and effectively comprehend, support and achieve the organizational mission.

We are preparing proposals for an organization who sought a dramatic transformation of its culture as an essential factor in its sustainability and its ability to contribute effectively to the sustainability of its partner organizations and the communities where they do their work.

Their new “offices” – in a formerly mistreated and largely abandoned high-rise – has a model proportion of “white spaces.” These spaces – unnamed in the functional program but provided through “net-to-gross” conversion factors – support several cultural and behavioral shifts:

From closed to open
From assigned to free
From entitlement to activity
From formal to casual
From secure to invitational

Most importantly, these spaces provide places for the staff to meet with members of partner organizations in extended occupancy – a few days or a few weeks – to work on problems and develop programs to benefit a constituency or community. What had previously been scheduled, agenda-driven and formal now can accommodate a project timeline and become appropriately and effectively extended, adaptable, resource-rich, collaborative, and focused on impact rather than time.

Now, in the last phase of their implementation and move, we are transforming our commission – develop and implement an identity and wayfinding signage program – toward a program for what we’re calling “workspace activation.”

We have generally moved away from more conventional, and commercial, concepts of “workplace branding.” We believe that the best expression of the brand of a company or organization is its work, and that the visible display of its work is much more effective than the display of corporate identity or communication of motto. We also believe that this “workspace activation” resonates into the effectiveness, influence and impact of the organization and its people.

Some emerging guiding principles include –

You are your brand – make your work visible; display what you do and how you do it
Make the workplace a canvas for discovery – “collaboration” so many times references production, yet a key culture of leading organizations is creating knowledge, as well; encourage communication and experience sharing
Design for experience – allow adaptation of the workspace to enable immersion in the work by shaping the space to meet the needs of the project

We are therefore developing a palette of graphic and other resources to animate the space with color, movement, image, information, invitation and hospitality. Neither “wayfinding,” nor “branding,” nor “signage,” our program proposes a set of cues, clues, samples and examples to encourage a culture of information openness, collaborative participation, and continuous communication.

We hope to provide a canvas for uncovering potential, giving coherence to capabilities, and initiating sustaining transformation.

—archizoo

The blog of MEREDITH Strategy & Design

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