Last Thursday, I was invited to speak at Total Identity's seminar "shifting boundaries". There was a line up of speakers including DEGW and Ahrend that shared their views on the new way of working and the changing workplace dynamics. I took a more holistic approach and spoke about the importance of social cohesion and the changing role of office spaces. Because after all, why do people go to work?
Right, they come to work for the social activities such as communicating, conversing, collaborating, co-creating, coffee drinking and co-working. The office has an important role to play in physically connecting people in a digital and networked society. It's the hive, where employees swarm in and out at all hours of the day. In the hive, you find your peers, meet people and build sustainable relationships.... the hive stimulates creativity and provides an intelligent infrastructure that is fit to meet the needs of the workers... and yes that includes a pool table, swimming pool, bar, gardens, sports center - anything that keeps your workers mentally and physically sharp, crispy and fresh is allowed.
The Ends Justify The Means and the ends are creativity, innovation, engagement and synergy and what is the definition of synergy according to Wikipedia? ... two or more agents working together to produce a result not obtainable by any of the agents independently. The term synergy comes from the ancient Greek word syn-ergos, συνεργός, meaning 'working together'. That is in a nutshell the role of the office in the future: let the workers swarm in and let them work together in harmony. Below you will also find the presentation I have given... some of the pages (intelligent workplaces and Dongtang) are clickable by the way.