From time to time, we add articles of special value that aren't likely to be as widely-read as they should be. This one is titled "Mobility and the New Placemakers," by Dr. Franklin Becker of Cornell University, who heads the International Workplace Studies Program there. It is a very timely and insightful look at how new work patterns will shape the offices and other workplaces of the future.
[If you're at all concerned with the way that offices will evolve and develop in the future, you will definitely find the following article interesting and valuable. It is one of the most forceful and cogent arguments for the need to take a broader view than most of us take about work and workplaces. As Frank Becker argues here, mobility is the driver, and "new placemakers" outside the employer's organization will help define the workplaces of the future - Gil Gordon]
(Be sure to check out the International Workplace Studies Program site (URL is iwsp.human.cornell.edu); it's a valuable resource in this field.)
MOBILITY AND THE NEW PLACEMAKERS
by Dr. Franklin D. Becker (email address: fdb2@cornell.edu), Director, International Workplace Studies Program, Cornell University
(This article is the second in a series of occasional articles exploring the nature of the Synergistic Workplace, and its relation to the communities of which it is a part. It appeared in the November 1997 IWSP Review, the newsletter of the International Workplace Studies Program.)
When I'm asked what the "office of the future" will be like, I think of hog futures and wine futures. You know how this works. You talk to a friend who knows someone who read somewhere that the price of wine is going to skyrocket. So you buy a dozen cases of wine at a fixed price for the 2003 harvest - and hope the price the wine sells for in five years exceeds what you paid for it today.
Office futures are like that, too. You try to guess which way corporate life will go, and then speculate on what kind of workplace to buy as a bet against that. You may want to stick with the wine. Or follow Peter Drucker's advice in a recent Harvard Business Review article "The Future That Has Happened Already." *
"....it is pointless to try to predict the future....But it is possible - and fruitful - to identify major events that have already happened, irrevocably, and that will have predictable effects in the next decade or two. It is possible, in other words, to identify and prepare for the future that has already happened."
* Drucker, P. (1997). The Future That Has Happened Already (Harvard Business Review. Sept.-Oct., 20.)
As I survey the workplace, the one, single, indisputable fact of the workplace that we can see today and that will transform the office of tomorrow is mobility.
Underwhelmed? Think about it. I am not talking about hoteling, non-territorial offices, team spaces, or any other current office design approach. I am talking about a simpler - but more pervasive - concept:
People doing significant parts of their work in different places. This says nothing about office size or space ownership, just that the likelihood that most work is done from the same place each day will decline. One other critical component of mobility is unpredictability. Precisely when - and for what period of time - you will be in different places is not known far in advance.
What's different, then, are three things:
Recognizing that mobility is the pattern, not the exception. Unpredictability is fundamental to mobility The scale of mobile work has and will dramatically increase.
The last factor, the scale of mobile work, demands a new workplace infrastructure that explodes conventional workplace boundaries, inside and outside the "office." Inside the office, we increasingly expect employees to choose to work in different settings within a building: a workstation, conference room, break area, a cafeteria wired for power and LAN. The technical infrastructure to support movement among these settings ranges from wiring every possible place to work to providing wireless communications. Just as significantly, the management infrastructure, via formal and informal policies and practices, is also changing to emphasize job performance rather than status or work location and time.
But mobility goes beyond this. People are constantly on the go, to clients and vendors and branch offices and business partners located across the boulevard or on another continent. These mobile workers need space on demand, paper and supplies, technical support and training, places to receive and send mail and to meet and socialize with colleagues, customers, and clients. Providing the necessary infrastructure creates new business opportunities, and transforms the provision of space and services.
Establishing the infrastructure to support mobile work out of the office is bringing into play all kinds of new placemakers. For example:
- Kinko's now provides everything from workstations to videoconference rooms;
- Places like Mailbox, Etc. provide mail and related services;
- Companies like Steelcase and Marriott team up to provide "Rooms that Work" in the hotel environment;
- Office supply stores like Staples and OfficeMax and Office Depot offer not just office supplies and equipment, but assistance in setting up small offices or home offices.
And then there are the legion of small computer-support companies that do for the mobile worker what the in-house tech support people do in the main office. The upshot is that mobile workers - and the organizations employing them - increasingly depend on people outside their organization to support the people within it.
These new placemakers offer large organizations a challenge: How do you influence a business you don't own or control, but depend on? The challenge, as Drucker argues, is to recognize tomorrow's patterns in today's activities and events.
I believe it is mobility, and the new placemakers serving it, that are the best harbinger of what the Office Future has to hold.
[If you're at all concerned with the way that offices will evolve and develop in the future, you will definitely find the following article interesting and valuable. It is one of the most forceful and cogent arguments for the need to take a broader view than most of us take about work and workplaces. As Frank Becker argues here, mobility is the driver, and "new placemakers" outside the employer's organization will help define the workplaces of the future - Gil Gordon]
(Be sure to check out the International Workplace Studies Program site (URL is iwsp.human.cornell.edu); it's a valuable resource in this field.)
MOBILITY AND THE NEW PLACEMAKERS
by Dr. Franklin D. Becker (email address: fdb2@cornell.edu), Director, International Workplace Studies Program, Cornell University
(This article is the second in a series of occasional articles exploring the nature of the Synergistic Workplace, and its relation to the communities of which it is a part. It appeared in the November 1997 IWSP Review, the newsletter of the International Workplace Studies Program.)
When I'm asked what the "office of the future" will be like, I think of hog futures and wine futures. You know how this works. You talk to a friend who knows someone who read somewhere that the price of wine is going to skyrocket. So you buy a dozen cases of wine at a fixed price for the 2003 harvest - and hope the price the wine sells for in five years exceeds what you paid for it today.
Office futures are like that, too. You try to guess which way corporate life will go, and then speculate on what kind of workplace to buy as a bet against that. You may want to stick with the wine. Or follow Peter Drucker's advice in a recent Harvard Business Review article "The Future That Has Happened Already." *
"....it is pointless to try to predict the future....But it is possible - and fruitful - to identify major events that have already happened, irrevocably, and that will have predictable effects in the next decade or two. It is possible, in other words, to identify and prepare for the future that has already happened."
* Drucker, P. (1997). The Future That Has Happened Already (Harvard Business Review. Sept.-Oct., 20.)
As I survey the workplace, the one, single, indisputable fact of the workplace that we can see today and that will transform the office of tomorrow is mobility.
Underwhelmed? Think about it. I am not talking about hoteling, non-territorial offices, team spaces, or any other current office design approach. I am talking about a simpler - but more pervasive - concept:
People doing significant parts of their work in different places. This says nothing about office size or space ownership, just that the likelihood that most work is done from the same place each day will decline. One other critical component of mobility is unpredictability. Precisely when - and for what period of time - you will be in different places is not known far in advance.
What's different, then, are three things:
Recognizing that mobility is the pattern, not the exception. Unpredictability is fundamental to mobility The scale of mobile work has and will dramatically increase.
The last factor, the scale of mobile work, demands a new workplace infrastructure that explodes conventional workplace boundaries, inside and outside the "office." Inside the office, we increasingly expect employees to choose to work in different settings within a building: a workstation, conference room, break area, a cafeteria wired for power and LAN. The technical infrastructure to support movement among these settings ranges from wiring every possible place to work to providing wireless communications. Just as significantly, the management infrastructure, via formal and informal policies and practices, is also changing to emphasize job performance rather than status or work location and time.
But mobility goes beyond this. People are constantly on the go, to clients and vendors and branch offices and business partners located across the boulevard or on another continent. These mobile workers need space on demand, paper and supplies, technical support and training, places to receive and send mail and to meet and socialize with colleagues, customers, and clients. Providing the necessary infrastructure creates new business opportunities, and transforms the provision of space and services.
Establishing the infrastructure to support mobile work out of the office is bringing into play all kinds of new placemakers. For example:
- Kinko's now provides everything from workstations to videoconference rooms;
- Places like Mailbox, Etc. provide mail and related services;
- Companies like Steelcase and Marriott team up to provide "Rooms that Work" in the hotel environment;
- Office supply stores like Staples and OfficeMax and Office Depot offer not just office supplies and equipment, but assistance in setting up small offices or home offices.
And then there are the legion of small computer-support companies that do for the mobile worker what the in-house tech support people do in the main office. The upshot is that mobile workers - and the organizations employing them - increasingly depend on people outside their organization to support the people within it.
These new placemakers offer large organizations a challenge: How do you influence a business you don't own or control, but depend on? The challenge, as Drucker argues, is to recognize tomorrow's patterns in today's activities and events.
I believe it is mobility, and the new placemakers serving it, that are the best harbinger of what the Office Future has to hold.
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