The Globe and Mail:
Now there’s a new challenger to cubicle-farm monotony. Called
blended or distributed workplaces, they purport to combine the best of
open and closed concepts along with stylistic cues from shopping malls
and coffee shops.“The future of the office is not an office at all in the traditional
sense,” said Don Crichton, vice-president of workplace solutions for
the design firm HOK Canada, which creates spaces for the likes of
Capital One, American Express, EMI Music and Bell Canada. “They might
look more like hotel lobbies or airport lounges. They’re less
structured and less dense.”
There is a huge shift going on in the way we work. When I was young, everyone worked a regular 9-to-5 job, reporting to the factory or office. Today, many, many more people have flexibility and freedom (at least to work in different locations and not be chained to a desk). While not everyone can be a barefoot executive, many, many more people (certainly most that one would have imagined say from the vantage point of 1970) are.
The workplace is changing to follow-suit. As we’ve already discussed here, when work can be done as effectively (or at times more effectively) remotely, the “office” becomes a vehicle for socializing. I am not sure we have the physical space stuff quite down right yet. Hotel lobby or airport lounge or coffee shop come closest. But part of their appeal is that there is the kind of energy that comes from being in busy places and having strangers nearby. An office designed like this runs the risk of being too familiar or too vacant much of the time. My guess is a big area has got to be outfitting residential areas and especially residential condo buildings for work. Many people work from home. When they need a place to have a meeting, they go to a coffee shop. But what if that kind of space was somewhere in their building?
Lots to discuss here. What do others think?
January 14th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Long time reader first time commenting, have enjoyed following your blog. This is a topic of keen personal interest.
I concur 100% with your assertion that there is a significant change underway with the way people work. This is particularly evident in the 25 – 35 year old demographic. More mobility, flexible work hours and a more casual environment. Just have a quick look around the next time you are in a downtown Starbucks or Second cup. The majority of the patrons are using the coffee shop as an office.
I am in the process of setting up such an office environment here in Ottawa and would be interested in any other trends you are tracking with respect to the NEW office.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Richard, I think discussion of this topic would be enhanced if we link to some of that previous coverage you mention:
http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2007/12/third-place-evo.html
http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2007/02/where_the_coffe.html
January 14th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Oh, and by the way, any article that uses quotes from Rob Enderle, one of the most notorious quote-mills around, loses credibility.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
I don’t know how many times over the past few years I find myself sitting in a Tim’s or Second Cup and seeing / overhearing business conversations, including job interviews, where the interviewers apparently do not have permanent offices in the area and find that the coffee shop serves the purpose.
I recently noted the announcement from McDonalds that they are revamping some of their restaurants to be more like an upscale coffee shop, with fireplace, upholstered chairs, etc. In fact I was recently in one of these (Islington Ave. south of Bloor) and saw a couple of business people working away on the laptops, something I would not have conceived of at a McDonalds as recently as a few months ago. The workplace has certainly become pretty mobile.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Not sure I understand the relevance of the hotel post from Dec-2007.
The second link is more on the mark from last Feb-2007.
The challenge with many of the co-working spaces listed on the wiki is that most of them didn’t come to fruition some did. The key reference points I can think of from a Canadian context are Workspace (Vancouver), Network Hub (Vancouver), Indoorplayground (Toronto), Centre for Social Innovation (Toronto), Station C (Montreal), Queen Street Commons (PEI) and perhaps a few others. The majority are what I call professional co-working space that would cater to independent professionals.
In my opinion the greater challenge is to create a space that fosters a collaborative culture for team based companies with the goal of facilitating knowledge transfer, business acceleration and commercialization. Maximum economic benefit is derived from creating successful team based businesses rather than catering to service providers.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Ian, to see the relevance, you need to read the comments too.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Daniel Pink got some of this down in Free Agent Nation, Starbucks as conference room and Kinkos as back office. And I agree with the idea of having strangers around, I have a home office but work from a rented office downtown so I can go out on the street and see activity.
Richard, you’re building a whole new office, how are you approaching this? And how are you designing the space so it will be adaptable to whatever the technology and working styles are 10 years from now?
January 14th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
By the way, I can walk to a half dozen Starbuck’s within a few blocks of my downtown office and they’re all different. They’ve done a great job of creating different atmospheres for different uses. One has small tables for one or two people meeting, another has the armchairs and fireplace and computers along one wall, a third is basically stand up and grab a quick cup. You can see people working on laptops in any of them. There was actually one in the main library’s fiction room but it closed, I’m not sure if it was for lack of business or the library’s choice.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Have you read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast? It’s a fictionalized account of his early days in Paris, between the wars. Hemingway commonly went to a cafe to write, taking a break to chat when an acquaintance came by. Why a cafe? He had a wife and a toddler, his apartment was small, he couldn’t afford an office, and he felt invigorated by the passing chat. There were other cafes and restaurants he visited at night, where the international artists and writers of Montparnasse gathered to socialize after a day of individual pursuits. The freewheeling creative community that formed there was such a potent font of arts and ideas that people still wander around Montparnasse looking for it.
If the traditional pub is your ‘3rd place’, perhaps the semi-public workspace is your ‘4th place’. Should the 4th place be a part of your building? I think yes – if your goal is to meet colleagues. The coffee room is a place for an arranged rendezvous, or where you go when you feel the urge for conversation. If you keep such a space on the small side, people can feel like they are hanging out together in the kitchen. But if you really just want to work in a public space, go to a cafe. You’ll get a little exercise and a shot of street life along the way, then a table in a place where acquaintances say hello but won’t prolong a chat if they understand that you are working. This is an argument for locating your business in a town center rather than in isolated suburban office parks.
Why does anyone want to work in a public space, to begin with? I think people are hungry for community, even as we fear it will tie us down. The coffee-shop-office can offer a mild dose of community that won’t get in the way of our work. Either that, or we just can’t afford an office.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Have you read Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast? It’s a fictionalized account of his early days in Paris, between the wars. Hemingway commonly went to a cafe to write, taking a break to chat when an acquaintance came by. Why a cafe? He had a wife and a toddler, his apartment was small, he couldn’t afford an office, and he felt invigorated by the passing chat. There were other cafes and restaurants he visited at night, where the international artists and writers of Montparnasse gathered to socialize after a day of individual pursuits. The freewheeling creative community that formed there was such a potent font of arts and ideas that people still wander around Montparnasse looking for it.
If the traditional pub is your ‘3rd place’, perhaps the semi-public workspace is your ‘4th place’. Should the 4th place be a part of your building? I think yes – if your goal is to meet colleagues. The coffee room is a place for an arranged rendezvous, or where you go when you feel the urge for conversation. If you keep such a space on the small side, people can feel like they are hanging out together in the kitchen. But if you really just want to work in a public space, go to a cafe. You’ll get a little exercise and a shot of street life along the way, then a table in a place where acquaintances say hello but won’t prolong a chat if they understand that you are working. This is an argument for locating your business in a town center rather than in isolated suburban office parks.
Why does anyone want to work in a public space, to begin with? I think people are hungry for community, even as we fear it will tie us down. The coffee-shop-office can offer a mild dose of community that won’t get in the way of our work. Either that, or we just can’t afford an office.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I think we may be mixing two or even three different work space requirements here.
First, and as covered in the quote, we have companies like Capital One, PricewaterhouseCoopers, etc. who want to create an environment that fosters creativity and innovation among their own people _and_ one that helps foster the social ties that make teams effective. They want to create this space within their own “office.”
The trend, as the quotation says, is toward a more relaxed, flexible environment that fosters interaction but also that allows people privacy and quiet when they needed it. These same companies, however, typically don’t require many of their employees to work at the office all the time — they increasingly ask employees simply to get the job done. So, some employees will telecommute one day per week, or work flex hours, etc. [Google "capital one" and "future of work" for lots of discussion on this, for example. The Cisco website as a lot on this as well]
Second, we have the demand for “public” workspaces where anyone can go to meet with clients or for a break from home. The wi-fi enabled cafe is one example. Some hotel business centres are another. A flex-worker employed by Capital One might hang out at such a place occasionally. Or, a team of programmers might hit a cafe to create a focused, and yet more relaxed atmosphere to work through scheduling problems, in another example. (But this is not the same thing as designing Capital One’s office to foster collaboration)
Third, there are more formal office-rental businesses where people might pay for a desk, access to a boardroom and the fax machine, a shared receptionist, and a business mailing address.
It sounds like Richard is proposing a fourth model that blends #2 and #3. Condo dwellers would have a shared workplace within the building that might have a photo copier, fax machine, coffee maker, bookable board room with maybe a powerpoint projector, and a variety of comfortable seating options. But only people who live in the building and their invited clients would be found working here. As condo units get smaller, on the one hand, and as more families are living in condo apartments (with parents working from home), having such a space within the building could be a very attractive selling feature.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:03 am
The quote in Richards’s original post refers to the large enterprise office and the changes that are going on there. I would suggest that the office evolution is at all stages of the corporate life cycle from start-up to colossus. The trend that I have observed is one from a hierarchical organization to more of an ecology. For example Google has found a means of maintaining their very entrepreneurial culture by establishing Googlets (companies within a company) and keep a very start-up feel to their space. In my opinion the style of office a company has is a reflection of their corporate culture.
Therefore I would suggest that the change in office layout is in fact a reflection of a deeper change to corporate culture. The large enterprise companies that are changing are adapting to the changing needs of their employees. With the pending skills shortage and the 25 – 35 years placing more demands on quality of life in the workplace companies must change or suffer the consequences.
To Wendy’s point there I agree are a number of different spaces being discussed. The original post referred to large enterprise, my comment was with respect to early stage businesses and co-working space which is largely about independent professionals.
Zoe raised an interesting point about community and having the office in your building. With respect to the later many people working with home based businesses (team or independent) like that separation of work and home and appreciate the opportunity to get out of the house. Regarding the community aspect people tend to miss that water cooler conversation. Co-working space provides both for the independent and I think that is why they are gaining in popularity. I also believe that many more young people are taking the entrepreneurial route and starting their own businesses rather than work for a big company.
There is little doubt that changes are underway in how business layout their office space. I would suggest that the changes are even more pronounced in the early stage businesses.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I’m thinking wow … there’s still a great book here…..
January 15th, 2008 at 11:02 am
There’s definitely a great book here!
Several peers and I, from different disciplines but all creative classers, are in the process of trying to create the next generation Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth Place all-in-one. It’s a 3 story downtown “restaurant” that combines a cafe on the first floor with 6 historic parlor rooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors (for meetings during the day and events/parties/board meetings, strategy sessions, etc) during the evenings; an outdoor terrace for socializing; a glass-covered terrace for happy hours and nightlife on the weekends; displayed local art and the feel of an art gallery; etc.); and with an eye towards combining the best of old and new. The goal: to track the creative urban professional throughout the day and provide what he and she need where and when they need it. Coffee by day, wine tastings by happy hour, music and nightlife by weekend; small plates or catered cuisine, depending upon the fancy. 10,000 square feet of spiky space for the creative class to do its thing. I’m sure we’re not alone and I think we’ll see more of these models during the coming years. I think the condo model works to some extent; but that it works better to have that physical separation from home, even if it’s only a 2 block walk. Wish us luck!
January 15th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Two quotes from Ch. 1 of Eric Weiner’s new book The Geography of Bliss:
“It is a fact of nature that we derive pleasure from watching others engage in pleasurable acts. This explains the popularity of two enterprises: pornography and cafes.”
“Cafes are theaters where the customer is both audience and performer.”
January 15th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
My two kids each have a room with a decent-sized desk, a chair, a good light. Where do they usually do their homework? In the family room or at the dining room table.
When I lived in a huge co-op house in college (42 residents, plus about 25 boarders), we had several shared spaces for work and leisure. There was the desk in a (usually shared) bedroom. You could get coffee, read a paper, or chat in the family-sized breakfast room. After dinner a bunch of people would go to the (family-sized) TV room for the evening news and a favorite re-run. The music room was a quiet space – you could shut the doors, yet hear life next door. There was a hideous little study area in the basement where quiet prevailed. Many a conversation started in a hallway, bathroom, or the institutional kitchen. The 80-person dining room was for sit-down meals, house meetings and parties – people rarely chose to linger there. With all these options, I could pick a space to suit the mood of the moment. The one thing you couldn’t get much of was solitude.
This sounds like what I have heard of the working environment at Google. Lots of different work and playtime options, not much truly private space (damn, if I had that down-the-hall tech person who solves your problems while-u-wait…) I think this sort of environment might be best-suited to people in their 20s. The environment seems geared to keep that young-adult creative energy stoked white-hot. As I got older I developed a need for solitude, as well as a roster of family responsibilities. Do Google employees leave by the time they turn 30? If you want to encourage employees to work somewhere else when they reach 30, this sort of work environment might do the job.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I think Zoe B’s last comment is quite important.
I used to work freelance at home and couldn’t stand it because I missed having other people to bounce ideas off in person. But at the same time, there are those of us who need a little privacy once in a while to get away from everybody, just to recharge the batteries a little.
Perhaps there is a way to balance these two important needs.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Richard, there is definitely a book in this, but beware of sliding into the sort of architectural wank that started getting published about 12 years ago (search Amazon for ‘office design’, and you’ll come up with most of the offenders, as well as some good practical books).
Fundamentally, this is a ‘pattern language’ issue, ala Christopher Alexander, and at least one successful pattern is already known (large common area AND semi-secluded group collaboration areas AND private offices), but it uses more RE than the bean-counters like.
The co-working pattern may be somewhat different, depending on whether it assumes that the ‘private office’ role is actually filled by home offices. And so on.
There are dozens of patterns nested in each of the ‘private office’ , ‘common area’, and ‘group work area’ patterns, but little of this is actually *new*.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Another problem with the condo model: entry barriers, they could never gain the magnetic pull of the cafe that pulls it all together. Hopefully our space will do that and lots more without infringing upon the need for privacy when it arises.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Michael – I see it as less about physical design and layout and more about where the 3rd part of Rise on work left off. So mainly about how people are working or trying to work or wanting to work today. And it would deal with the whole issue of the decline of the professions and the rise of new occupations, perhaps being centered around that. And the whole issue of the death and life of the corporation. People who have choice are never going back to that plantation or prison of regimented work. The title that jingles around in my mind as sort of a sister to Who’s Your City? is What’s Your Line? But these thoughts are oh so emergent right now, and City has not even hit the street yet.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Richard, the evolution of social and cultural institutions is a tricky area (a lot of top-tier management consulting firms make grand claims that aren’t borne out).
Organizations have their own pattern language, of course.
I don’t think that the corporation itself is dying, any more that the limited partnership, the sole proprietorship, or any other form of business entity. I do think we are heading toward de-privileging the corporation as an entity with human rights, partly in order to deal with the fact that corporations are so good at amorally exploiting market externalities, and as emergent entities aren’t under direct control of any of their component humans (even in groups).
One new form we’ve seen arise in the past decade is the ‘open source project’. There is still a lot of experimentation happening, but some commonalities are emerging about the most successful examples, such as a non-profit entity that holds the intellectual property independently of any commercial participants, or the fact that many projects are run as a benevolent dictatorship moderated by the ability of any and all participants to leave and start a competing project with the same code (and the same rights to that code).
I think we’ll see more attempts to copy the open-source project approach to other contexts (with varying levels of success).
I also think we’ll see a resurgence of the member-owned co-op as an organizational form, and possibly (as a result of competition with more open and decentralized forms) some innovation of the essentially feudal corporate model along more democratic (even constitutional) lines.
If these experiments I predict flourish, I expect that they will counter-intuitively re-enable (for good or ill) many people to whole-heartedly and un-cynically construct their identity around their jobs (or vice-versa, I suppose) in a way that has become quite unfashionable outside of the artistic and non-profit worlds.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Love “what’s your line”! If you’re true creative class, you probably can’t figure out how to answer that question, I never can. Am I laywer (trial attorney to date); educator to be (part-time now, but loving it); non-profit leader (I run one and am on the boards of several others); hospitality (the restaurant thing); real estate (do some of that too, with an eye towards community and historical preservation); etc. I’m sure this ‘problem’ is not unique to me and probably shared by the majority of the people who read your blog.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
@ Hayden Fisher: Good luck with your space! Hope you will find some way to get the word out far and wide once you are open. Apologies to Dr. Florida for hijacking his blog!
January 15th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Regarding Michaels point that corporations are not dying I agree. However, corporations and their structures are evolving. Chandlers premise that structure follows strategy had relevance to the industrial enterprise perhaps what we are seeing now is an evolution into a knowledge enterprise. The hierarchical model that has dominated corporate culture for generations does not facilitate knowledge transfer and creativity. In fact quite the opposite a hierarchy is just a notch in the evolutionary scale above a bureaucracy. In a commodity based business a top down hierarchy works well, few thinkers plenty of labourers. In an age of globalization with knowledge being the currency of corporations the hierarchy is an out dated model. In the knowledge economy all workers are thinkers and can contribute.
The changes that are being observed with co-working and shared space arrangements are just the tip of the knowledge revolution iceberg.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Ian, I think you’re overstating things. Heirarchy is a useful abstraction for organizing many types of work, and I don’t think that corporations will become non-heirarchical. Democracy’s defining characteristic isn’t a lack of heirarchy, after all, it is just as hierarchical in it’s way as feudalism.
Corporations may become flatter on average, of course, and will certainly be more fluid (ie. increasing lateral and vertical mobility). In other words, less rigid and feudal.
But hierarchy per-se isn’t going anywhere.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Another way of looking at the future of corporations is to say that it is possible that the most successful corporations will be those that facilitate the ad-hoc formation of hierarchies that are temporary and contingent, yet still fully accountable.