When I was very young I believed in some sort of Jetson’s future…You know, where we would all be flying to work in our aircars, and everyone would be forced into wearing lots of stretch clothing… Now I see a future where (thank GOD!) we don’t wear futuristic clothing (OK, it’s may be fine for the young and svelte amongst us…but seriously!). We don’t have any aircars coming down the pike anytime soon…
Our near future will be different from this 1950’s vision…
It used to be that work was a place you went to, over time this has morphed into a thing you do, and with the advent if increasing connectivity and mobile gadgets, many of us can (or soon will) be spending more and more of our productive time in places like Starbucks, instead of some sterile cubicle.
I know of some people who have been doing this for several years (with no ill effect, other than a deeper caffeine habit…).
If you consider how much business is conducted over email, Skype, teleconferencing in general, and how ubiquitous these technologies are (anyone with a smartphone and a WiFi hotspot is virtually wherever you want them to be…), then the obvious result is that there may be some huge advantages for businesses, where they can drastically cut down on maintaining ‘business space’.
In a similar vein, I have seen growth in shared business spaces, often with shared receptionists, meeting rooms, etc. I wonder if there is a similar market for something a bit more formal that the coffee shops which may be as common as mushrooms after the rain, but it is often hard to get work done with small upset children within earshot…
In any case, it’s just a free idea I putting out there…
Is the Traditional Office Becoming Extinct?
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/is-the-traditional-office-becoming-extinct
Are there dinosaurs among us? If a new joint report from Regus and Unwired called VWork: Winning Strategies at Work is to be believed, then yes. The report on the future of the office in an age of increasingly agile work surveyed 600 businesspeople along with several heads of global real estate. Of course, the lumbering beasts it identifies aren’t giant reptiles, but instead traditional corporate buildings, which the report claims are underutilized, inflexible and a bad fit for the work of today.
But like the dinosaurs, which scientists tell us live on as chickens, the office building of the past is unlikely to become completely extinct, but rather to evolve to meet the demands of new kinds of workers, driven by technological advances and a desire for a lighter, cheaper real estate footprint. So what will this new paradigm look like? To find out, we spoke with Bob Gaudreau, Executive VP of Regus and Philip Ross, CEO of Unwired, about the changing meaning of the office in a wired world.
It’s a very important point. We identified only 12.3 percent of people want to work from home, but you can also see in the research that people want a very short commute. So I think what we’re identifying really is that people want to work locally. We’re seeing this kind of new hybrid model where there’s a bit of working from home, a bit of working from the corporate office, but also this move towards third space — new spaces that are in the community — and that’s a very exciting trend.
What will the future workplace look like?
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/19/what-will-the-future-workplace-look-like/
Unless you have been on vacation for the past few years, you are probably aware that the workplace as we know it is rapidly changing. The 9-to-5 grind spent in an "official" office is giving way to the virtual work environment; the at-my-desk-by-8:59 is becoming the on-my-Blackberry 24/7, and the Starbucks coffee break has become the Starbucks "home" office.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Businesses can capitalize on the evolving nature of the office by striking a balance that combines virtual and physical work and space. This could ultimately increase productivity and lower costs without sacrificing company culture or individual motivation.
The Future of the Workplace: No Office, Headquarters in Cyberspace
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3521725&page=1
Imagine a work world with no commute, no corporate headquarters, and perhaps not even an office in the physical world at all,
For Bob Flavin, a computer scientist at IBM; Janet Hoffman, an executive at a management consulting firm; and Joseph Jaffe, a marketing entrepreneur, the future is already here.
"These days we do so much by teleconference it really doesn’t matter where you are," Flavin said.
Like 42 percent of IBM’s 350,000 employees, Flavin rarely comes in to an IBM office.
"We don’t care where and how you get your work done," said Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM’s global health care and life sciences business. "We care that you get your work done."
IBM says it saves $100 million a year in real estate costs because it doesn’t need the offices.
