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Everything is Awesome! Lessons from the Lego Movie

Our family has a significant Lego collection. I still play with my Legos from childhood. I have two young sons whose favorite gift is a new Lego thing to build. So, if you knew us you might have guessed that we would be at the new Lego movie on opening weekend and we were. Spoiler alert: I am about to share the story line so if you want to be surprised, come back and read this after you see the movie. The story follows Emmett Brickowski, a typical Lego mini figure construction worker who gets up every day, consults the […]

The open office debate misses the point: attraction, retention, and colored T-shirts

Dr. Rebecca Bigler, director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Gender and Racial Attitudes Lab, has done a number of experiments with preschoolers and colored T-shirts. In one, she took a classroom of 4 and 5 year olds and put half in red T shirts and the other half in blue T shirts . The children wore these colored T shirts for three weeks but teachers were instructed not to notice or mention the colors in any way. At the end of the three weeks, children were asked to evaluate the skill, abilities, characteristics, and intelligence of each group. When asked “how many Blues […]

How to ride an elephant

The bulk of my work is done with second stage companies. These companies have made it through the early start up survival mode and are now interested in positioning themselves for the second stage of funding. They are defining their culture, aligning customer experience, creating value by becoming more clear in their identity. In these companies, the CEO is inevitably the driver. There is a clear vision from the top and the C-suite team is doing the work to make it happen. Even when it is a ground up employee involved initiative, the C-suite makes the call, raises the flag, […]

Move! or at least rearrange the furniture.

My family moved 23 times before I graduated highschool. As I think back on all of the places we lived, what I remember are the stories. I remember chasing my sister around and around in the house where the bedroom hall was connected to both living and dining in a big loop. In the split level home at about fifth grade, I remember gracefully descending the stair-landing-stair combination in my elegant dress up princess gown playing beauty pageant. In another home, I remember trying to figure out whether an umbrella would actually work as a parachute, like in the cartoons, […]

Hierarchy of start ups, architects, and furniture

The conversation went something like this: me: We may need to fill in with some furniture from Ikea to hit the budget. Client: Ha! I am hoping to upgrade to Ikea! I laughed because sometimes, that is just so true! When you are in start up survival mode as a business, you are at the bottom levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. You can’t really afford to care about looks and if you hire an architect to help with your space, it is only because you have chosen a business or space where by law you have to have a permit. Your […]

And the Survey Says….

Research shows that people are better at conceptual thinking under high ceilings and better at decision making and execution under lower ceilings. Think furniture stores where you can imagine your entire house with new furniture under high ceilings and then are guided to a counter under dropped lights or lowered ceiling alcove to select the fabric for the sofa and sign the purchase agreement. What does that mean for office design? Different job descriptions? Different tasks? Different departments? Research shows that you are significantly more likely to launch a social relationship with a stranger each time that you run into […]

When a Slide is More than a Slide

I work with a variety of companies, helping them negotiate the changing physical landscape of today’s workspace. With my more conservative clients, it is almost predictable that at some point in the process someone will bring up the slide at Google’s offices. It is something that they use to illustrate the excesses of the new “play at work” landscape, something that is a perfect illustration of dumb design trends and definitely something that they do not want. No slides. This week I had the opportunity to talk to a senior level Googler and asked, ” so, what is with the […]

More Flies with Honey than Vinegar

I have seen a number of interesting discussions debating employee freedom vs the importance of building an office culture through proximity. What bothers me about that is the “vs” part….why not both? The basic assumption of the “vs” argument is that if you want proximity you have to force it and that just isn’t true. Retail and Hospitality have long used the physical space and programming to draw people to them. As the freedom of choosing when and where to work moves from employer to employee, the design of offices need to focus on providing the amenities, look, and feel […]

Darth Vader or Dragons? Leadership in the Networked Age

This diagram was drawn by Paul Baran and his team at the Rand Corporation in the mid 1960′s. It was used to illustrate the idea of a communications system that would survive in the case of damage from a nuclear war. This diagram and the resultant technology became the architecture of the internet as we know it today. There is more to the story of course but what fascinates me about this image is the number of times I have seen it in business books and articles recently. The diagram on the left is the old centralized business organization. The […]

Hero’s Quest

There are three main kinds of hero myths found in cultures around the world. The first has the hero following something, an animal or light or wisp, and as time goes on, the hero finds themselves in an unfamiliar place. The wisp that they were following turns into a fairy queen or some other being that then demands some action in exchange for some benefit. The second hero’s story has the hero choosing to take on a heroic task. The hero knows that the journey will be long and difficult. They know that they may not win or even survive […]