Among the things we found interesting this week
Connected life
The future of the automobile may very well be made in the tech shops rather than the fab shops. The “connected life” gets more connected. http://connectedlife.gsma.com
Company builders
The “studio” as a business model gets attention in startup land. What about this as the model for entrepreneurship? It seems that most companies follow the “garage” or “sunk works” model, pushing innovative initiatives into a separated incubation space. But what about the value of the embedded back office? http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/16/the-rise-of-company-builders/
Workplace Productivity
LinkedIn discussion groups vary widely, and you might resist them a bit. In some, there are a few people who must leap at any tickler of a discussion around a subject and then dominate, or act as controlling moderators, and suppress a more open dialogue. Nonetheless, good stuff always shows up in the creases. Here’s a bit of a discussion around workspace design and productivity. http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Whats-your-experience-office-design-101168%2ES%2E204428358?view=&gid=101168&type=member&item=204428358#commentID_null
By the way, I am finding a lot of the discussion on this subject rather tiring. That is, we seem to start with what is there, how things are done today, and then search for all forms of justification for doing it differently. But the different is mostly groupthink around a newly marketed idea.
In our work, I am finding that people really want to do a great job, but everything in the workplace keeps them from doing it. Start in the doing of the work to find out how to design a workplace to nurture the people doing the work.
Why we like beautiful things
Delightful. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/opinion/sunday/why-we-love-beautiful-things.html
Alternative work settings
This is a great piece of travel writing, and a rather interesting provocation about the implications of working outside of the office. http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article02151301.aspx
The office of the future?
I get this, but I offer caution. we are in the middle of a great conversation about the places and spaces where we work. Everybody comes to the conversations with a set of values, frameworks, lenses, and other perspectives that may or may not be in the future. http://officeinsight.org/?p=1891
You might think it will look like this. http://www.businessinsider.com/future-of-work-2013-1
Who are the “people”? http://officeinsight.org/?p=1869
Platforms and pathways
I find more interest in concepts like these to help define how we’ll work and what physical platforms we’ll seek to help us do what we want to do. http://platformed.info/platform-thinking-business-model/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+platformed+%28Platforms+and+Two-sided+Markets%29
Tweeting
Unusual weather patterns begin to reshape dense cities – Hoboken Seeks Hurricane Protection for High-Rises – http://NYTimes.com
Why do Owner’s Representatives do this? | archizoo [MEREDITH Strategy & Design] http://ow.ly/hL7Gr
#Occupiers – managers of workplace and services – how do you want your discipline to be viewed? | workessence http://ow.ly/hLUOL
“Selling our design services is like flossing our teeth” | Smells Like Design Sales ∙ An A List Apart Blog Post http://ow.ly/hLW84
archizoo [MEREDITH Strategy & Design] 