The office. Walls, ceiling, windows (if you are lucky), tables, machines, people and noise. A place where you go to work. The church of work. Do we actually need the physical office as we know today? How do office actually contributes to our performance and output of our work?
Don't get me wrong, I love my office and my colleagues. It is a great place to be, but like with most things in life, sometimes you need to get out to grasp a bit of fresh air, try something new and get inspired. People to collaborate with and machines to work on are to be found everywhere. Todays easiness of access allows us to create our office wherever we feel like, fuel our potential and can make us work in a new ways.
I am a big fan of working different places than your office but I hope Seth Godin isn't entirely right when saying "I think in ten years the TV show 'the Office' will be seen as a quaint antique.".
I believe the office and the community you build there are also very important part of your work life. Face time and the relationships you create contribute to your overall satisfaction, motivate and inspire you. So please, don't kill offices, just give people opportunities for being the office nomads and sit with laptop different and unexpected places. Make them go out. Changing the environment can fire some different neurons and bring astonishing results and discoveries.
Agreed. Offices are important as is the ability to become an office nomad. Change your perspective, literally and figuratively.
Posted by: Carol L. Weinfeld | April 06, 2011 at 07:33 AM