designcultivation

Light Snowfall

2012-01-13T14:50:00.001-05:00

Early Morning Sun - Dec 2011

Last December I captured a nearby neighbor's tree in early morning light. The sun was coming in and out of the clouds highlighting, then dimming on the spindly branches. A visual treat against the blue sky.

Backyard Sunset

2012-01-13T14:44:00.000-05:00

Backyard Sunset - December 2011

Winter in Vermont brings sunsets such as this bringing our many trees to life. I especially appreciate the subtle gradation of the fiery orange to purplish blue of the twilight sky.

As you know, or don't, I spend a lot of time admiring tree branches and their unplanned figure ground interactions with each other. It continues to fascinate me and inform my design thinking.

What nature gives us I share with you.

Casio G-Shock Watch Design Offers Escapist Fun(ction)

2011-11-21T16:08:00.002-05:00

I have four Casio G-shock watches. I buy them because they are great underwater down to 200 meters. They last a really long time and withstand lots of punishment.

Ok, I'm not a Navy Seal nor am I a deep sea diver. I'm currently wearing a bright red Rescue series watch with moon phases and tides for my location. This along with a myriad of other timekeeping features. I also can look at times adjusted for different world cities in 29 different time zones.

Something about the romance of water and far a way places! And the red color. I'm really a big kid. The red is great fun. I wear this watch everywhere, even when I put on a suit and tie.

Casio G-Shock - G7900A-4

Wearing it reminds me I'm supposed to be having fun and not be so serious. The one thing it lacks (right now) is smart phone capability where I can talk into it like Dick Tracy used to talk into his watch (acutally a two-way wrist radio) I'd imagine it would have to coordinate with a bluetooth ear piece design wise. Is this in the works Casio watch and technology designers? I hope so. Question is can you make a submersible to 200 meters phone watch with a touch screen? Wouldn't that be something?

Keeping Posts Simple

2011-11-20T22:11:00.002-05:00

A Simple Line -Winter's Frosting
copyright Stephen M. Frey, 2011

Is writing a blog post a good idea with an Apple iTouch? Or a similar smart device? I think so.

Here's why.

Maybe it maximizes the reader's experience of whatever I'm sharing and is respectful of their time. Writing from such a device ensures I say only so much as I am not fluent in typing on such a small screen. Yet. Or maybe never. So the device helps focus the writer's attention on saying only what matters most.

The small size also means it's portable so it can go with me wherever I go. Perhaps having it around will make it easier to post more frequently about ideas, trends, people influencing designcultivation.blogspot.com.

The small form factor shapes how you respond to the urge to write about something essentially. Here's a question; what if you adopt this mentality using a laptop or writing an email?

See the recent Email Charter or the movement to keep emails short with voluntary following of the three sentences or five sentences rule (see threesentences.com, foursentences.com, fivesentences.com)? In the interest of promoting quality time away from email you can do your best to adhere to the policy of writing and responding in 3-5 sentences.

Writing in the active rather than passive voice while using simple verbs and adjectives, energizes your text not deadens it. Maybe this will activate the conversation? Can't hurt?

Over the last year I have steadily seen people write emails to me with much simpler language. Usually they have only one or two ideas they're focusing on. Maybe I'm a little slow but I figured out recently they're writing from a smart phone or texting from a cell phone. Detail is out. Brevity in. They don't have a choice. The device drives the communication style.

They also might be using their intuition when they realize they're writing something very detailed and recognize its better to cut to the chase and call someone or visit them face to face about what you're writing about or responding to. Try it, especially before you hit the send button, before you inflict irreversible pain on yourself and others. Life is too short. I have learned the hard way, believe me.

So since I'm not very bright but catch on after a while I'm thinking this is a good idea. So look for simpler communications of all types from designcultivation, Stephen M. Frey on LinkedIN, @designcultivate or @arocordisdesign on Twitter, or arorcordisdesign on Facebook.

I include an image from last Winter in keeping with the spirit of this post. "A Simple Line". That's my mantra for 2012 and beyond. What's yours?

Do you have any communication tips and suggestions balancing the needs of short and long form online media, paper media, especially as it relates to the design fields? Please share!

Some Visual Thoughts about Steve Jobs, the Biography by Walter Isaacson

2011-11-12T13:59:00.000-05:00

What's Your Biggest Workplace Design Challenge in 2011?

2011-11-06T23:17:00.000-05:00

Today I thought it might be interesting to reach out my Twitter Followers and other's I find interesting on the Twitters'phere to find out what's been a challenge to them in workplace design in 2011?

So I did just that.

It's just a kernal of an idea but I thought I'd try to strike up a conversation to those I respect and follow. I tried SurveyMonkey earlier in the year but I thought this time it might be way more fun to try Twitter. Already folks are starting to respond back.

@NickSloggett, a senior visual designer at Photobucket tweeted back what did I mean...Workplace furniture or Design Culture? I replied "As in workplace layout and furniture selection influencing for better or worse a work community's culture, effectiveness and morale."

In other words, in the workplaces you frequent, either your primary workplace, other offices you visit often which may have been renovated or completed recently, what was a big design challenged faced in the process. An example might be a super short time frame, or we were forced to move out of closed private offices into open collaborative workstations or vice versa, or we downsized and had to radically reshape our space or hopefully, we had to hire due to recent growth and we were running out of room....Or we wanted to create a sustainable, eco friendly workspace but that was challenging our budget...

Other examples could be resistance from the work community to change from older style less collaborative spaces to more open spaces? Another could be finding better ways to more effectively integrate technology into your meeting spaces, workstations and exec offices.

Anyway, you tell me what's happening. I'm very curious about the challenges you're facing. Maybe we can crowd source this in a way.

Why Picking Up the Phone Is A Good Thing And So Is Actually Talking

2011-11-02T23:49:00.000-04:00

I saw a link to this HBR article "Don't Send that Email, Pick Up the Phone" by Anthony K. Tjan and read it, then took a look at the dynamic discussion string following it. Wow! The article created quite a stir.

It should.

The article is ultimately about effective communication and learning how to wade through the chaos of our over stimulated information crazy world and remember to well....talk to each other. Not emailing, im'ing or texting your coworker sitting 3 feet away from you or hide behind polished corporatized prose in an email or lengthy voice mails outlining all of the details of what you were hoping to discuss on the call.

Oh, how about those times you've sent an email or a tweet even though your intuition told you to not hit the send button? It's misery right? Often times the after effects take weeks or what seems like an eternity to settle.

I'm guilty of doing this. Alot. I've done all of the above. But I'm seeking to change my ways. It may take time but I'm committing myself to trying to do a few things. Here's some of my response on the discussion thread for the above HBR article and what I hope to practice. Tell me what you think? Do you have any suggestions on communication approaches you find work for you? How do you balance all of the digital overload and still find ways to effectively connect and communicate with others. Please share!

Here goes:

....For me it's not about how you're communicating a certain way but keeping the end goal in mind to achieve a certain outcome, action etc.

An example; In teaching years ago to college age students, a wise teacher shared in order to effectively communicate to students (read coworkers in our context) of all educational, economic and social skill backgrounds its' important to do a few things together, rather than rely on only one teaching approach (read communication approach):

- Know your audience and their communication styles: Adjust accordingly but keep the approach as simple as possible.

- Over communicate to a multiple of senses: Some engage better by hearing and listening, some do better by reading and writing, others need images, still others might need to physically "do" the something your discussing, ie demonstrating, prototyping, visualizing. And most likely, some combination of the above is required.And then I'm challenging myself here to follow the below:

- Be brief in writing, summarizing, requesting. Limit your email writing to three sentences or five as the maximum you'll write. Less is more. It's infectious by the way. Try it!

- Listen to your tummy ( I mean intuition): If you're about to write something and it makes you feel funny, or unsure, take notice! STOP yourself! Consider alternatives such as leaving it in draft to return to later or plain just don't send it. Get a second opinion. Or better yet, make a call or set up a face to face to discuss.

If you fail to heed your own body telling you something you'll only goof things up for you and others. (of course like many, I'm guilty of not listening to my inner voice and I've paid for it dearly personally and professionally)

That's all.

What do you think? How important is a blended communication strategy to you and your team in getting things done? Do you miss talking to people face to face? How effective are you when you're more direct and personal? Do you Skype or use Facetime as an alternative to physical face to face meetings?

Other thoughts? Please share!

Innovating Our Way Through Lunch at Tech Jam VT 2011

2011-10-30T23:30:00.002-04:00

Recently, just this past Saturday I ate my way through the most innovative lunch and learn session I've experienced in years. I sat near the front of a very receptive crowd upstairs in the recently vacated Borders retail space now hosting for two days the fifth annual Tech Jam VT.
While eating we waited for what was soon to become a very unusual and informative learning session to begin. Even though technical difficulties delayed the start, those waiting didn't seem to mind. The added time gave us all extra moments to talk to one another and mingle a bit with nearby exhibitors.
We were there to listen to representatives from Google and Dealer.Com to speak and share insight on "Fostering Innovation in the Workplace"and hopefully learn some things to apply to our businesses and workplaces. Organizers designed the session to be highly interactive with panelists briefly highlighting key aspects of how innovation happens in their workplaces followed by ample time for audience Q&A.
The panel was brought to us by the organizers of the 5th Annual Tech Jam VT. It featured Craig Neville-Manning, engineering director for Google New York and Matt Dunne, head of community affairs for Google (a former Democratic Gubernatorial candidate from Vermont). The panel also featured Luke Dion, senior director of product development and Mike DeCecco, director of business development both from Dealer.Com the major sponsor of TechJam.
Craig couldn't physically be there because of family obligations and the Nor' Easter pounding at that moment the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas. Craig joined us by live audio and video feed. It really didn't matter and actually added to the vibe in the room.
Luke and Mike from Dealer kicked off the session by highlighting how key aspects of their fast growing company culture and workplace supported their work in a "Google Lite" manner. Through a combination of open collaborative work areas, meeting spaces, common areas like cafes, wellness spaces and yes even a full-size indoor tennis court and an open door management style they set the stage for innovative interactions at the core of their innovative work culture.
Through a seemingly extraordinary focus on people, place and process Dealer fosters a spirit of openness, creativity and trust. Bright high intensity colors and a sparse modern feel of the spaces echo the dynamic pulse of the business and cheerfulness of their team based approach to work.
As their space forms the physical backbone of the business their Life program supports the softer side by helping employees eat healthier, exercise more and take care of their minds and bodies in a more holistic people centered approach. Similarly they said "Their work culture is set up so no one is more special than anyone else". They practice an open door management style where management's job is to provide the best inspiration and resources to their teams and quickly "get out of the way and to let them do their jobs".

Matt Dunne from Google followed Luke and Mike. Matt echoed how Google seeks to foster innovation in its work culture by creating similarly designed and tricked out workplaces as Dealer.com. (And since this is amply covered elsewhere I'll focus on other themes ) Matt shared how Google wrote into its corporate bylaws when going through with its IPO years earlier that the company was intentionally going to do things counter to conventional wisdom and short term corporate profits. He also illustrated how Google fosters a company culture grounded in an openness where every employee has a voice.
As Matt said, (I paraphrase here)..." every Friday Google executives hold an all company meeting called TGIF where all of its 31,000 plus employees around the globe participate together. Executives update those watching online on key product developments and news. Googlers from all over write in interactively on a shared team space key questions to discuss and vote on them. Larry, Sergei or others answer the highest voted questions until they run out of time. Executives don't control what questions they answer." This crowd sourcing surely reinforces Google's refreshing corporate openness focused on business issues not personalities or politics.
Matt also shared the seminal Google Ten Things We Know to Be True, more a manifesto than a business philosophy. I came across these a year or so ago and found them refreshing then as I did Saturday when Matt presented them. They are:

Focus on the user and all else will follow.
It's best to one thing really, really well.
Fast is better than slow.
Democracy on the web works.
You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
You can make money without doing evil.
There's always more information out there.
The need for information crosses all borders.
You can be serious without a suit.
Great isn't good enough.

My favorite is number 10. As the last line of 10 says, "Ultimately, our constant dissatisfaction with they way things are becomes the driving force behind everything we do." By not striving for perfection but rather innovation through iteration and getting in the middle of big challenges Google inspires businesses large and small, global and the very local. I know because Number 10 helped focus my business thinking over the last year on mostly one thing, working with inspiring companies to design and help implement extraordinary workplaces.

Craig Neville-Manning, engineering director of Google New York added onto what Matt said by sharing a how a number of years ago he had the "itch" to head back east to New York and Google said fine do it. He started with 15 engineers then and has 1200 today. He also said Google constantly grapples with an issue especially resonant with new hires and seasoned veterans alike. "Google is so large how do I innovate and be creative?"

Speaking to this, Craig spoke about how he hosts Friday Beer 4:30's or something like that. That's where engineers and others have five minutes to demonstrate something they're working on. (Mike from Dealer.com said they do something very similar. They call them Hacker's Fridays ) The point of doing this weekly is to foster creativity, brainstorming and getting ideas out in a down and dirty way. Quick feedback is given allowing for further iterations and refinement to follow.

Doing this creates a near term goal allowing just enough time to rough out ideas and prototype them but not perfect them. It also provides a time and day specific deadline. Successful ideas borne from this process swim their way up the corporate food chain making their way into products and services we see in Google's ecosystem. They move fast in creating new products and are willing to fail early and often.

Audience members at this point were given the opportunity to ask questions of the panelists. A software developer asked how do separate the wheat from the chafe in this kind of process? Luke and Mike from Dealer.com answered by saying they have built a process called Hacker's Fridays similar to what Craig does in New York.

They do work team reviews of ideas bubbling in the minds, work benches and sometimes extracurricular creative activities. Another Dealer.com team member working the audience microphones added "Creativity outside of work fuels creativity at work." Good ideas percolate from this process finding traction with managers and executives working really hard to "get out of the way." Dealer's open door policy really helps here as well.

I asked the panelists how from a workplace design standpoint is there any "secret sauce" to the physical design of their workspaces in supporting innovation for audience members to really hear in regards to how much to focus designing their spaces are certain way over other ways. And also was there more of a focus on collaborative space than personal workspace?

Mike from Dealer.com said "it was really important to take away barriers to collaboration by letting people be themselves completely, lower walls within teams, have bright energetic colors to motivate a dynamic mood." He also said "It's important to have a range of private task areas, spaces for brainstorming and creativity, some more private and others more public."

Matt Dunne said Google works really hard "to provide a mix of open collaborative zones, private personal hi-focus task spaces, adequate meeting and conference spaces as well as great free healthy food coupled with high energy, maybe less good for you food." He also mentioned the Google 15 like freshman 15 in college where new hires put on weight at first with all of the free food and goodies but over time realize they need to strive for a better balance of diet, exercises and taking better care of the whole person. And Google works really hard to support its employees by providing extraordinary resources in its facilities, benefits and building an open and highly responsive company culture.

Matt also said "We used to have more Segways but people started getting creative with them and got hurt. We have lots of scooters, sleeping pods to help Googlers get needed rest." He also mentioned the famous "20% time where engineers work on personal projects they're interested in developing either alone or with others and the other 80% of the time they do their normal jobs. This creative freedom breeds bottom up innovation." A Google is unafraid to prototype its products its also unafraid to try things out in its workplace and be open to different ways of working and thinking about work.

Another audience member asked how Google thought about the state of US education and how to get more young people into technology and engineering and in general up the ante in regards to educational excellence. A big question with no easy answers for sure. Craig from Google New York took this on talked about how Google and others like Computer Science Unplugged.org approached this. "By getting kids away from screens and doing project based learning activities requiring integrated application of science, math, language arts and the arts like holding Trebuchet catapult competitions. They force people to think outside of the box and use a variety of kinds of knowledge."

By doing this kids learn how to make "stuff", get their hands dirty and tackle tough to solve design problems mimicking real world challenges they'll face in the future. Teaching kids skills on problem solving, prototyping solutions to tough questions seeking to make inter-connections would help move the spirit of learning forward.
Thanks for Tech Jam organizers, panelists and all those who turned out to participate in "Fostering Innovation in the Workplace." It really was inspirational for me. As Matt Dunne said, "Google has thousands and thousands of LEGOs all around its buildings across the world. Googler's love to play with LEGOs and its indicative of their culture of always trying new things" and never being satisfied with "Great"." or merely good enough. Neither should we!
Whether its LEGOs or something else which inspire you, be sure to cultivate your creativity, spirit of innovation and your sense of wonder! And I'm so looking forward to next year's Tech Jam. It surely won't rest on its laurels. Hopefully what I shared here with you might be of use to you and your design and innovation journey! Let me know what you think or if you have other stories or insight to share.

Dear Klout, Can You Help Me?

2011-10-28T17:32:00.000-04:00

Dear Klout,

My Klout score algorithms must be out of wack! My badge score has gone from the thirties, forties & now in the teens in the space of days? Should I stay with you if your algorithms create daily changes all over the map? Each day it seems I'm in totally different categories with back histories & trending showing completely different patterns. If the Klout Badge is to be trustworthy this shouldn't happen. Right?

However, if you're a dynamic ever growing social media tool this might be happening. My question is if its unstable like it has been recently will badge holders like me go elsewhere? You might explain on your website more in detail how and why things change so much.

Here's some details.....

A week or so ago my score seemed to really connect to the amount of activity I'm doing with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and my daily checking in reinforced that, it appeared. Then earlier this week my badge number and scoring profile changed substantially I feel for the worse as I don't think it means so much to me in regards to reinforcing my media activities as @designcultivate. The trending and reporting for @designculttivate seems much simpler and basic than it was even a week ago and feels kind of "off".

Then this afternoon it was briefly 18 and then back to 40. Now that's aggravating even to me an even keeled kind of person. If many are disgruntled like I your advertisers and add on networks you use to compile badge scores will get nervous, you don't want your income sources nervous right? One word, Netflix? We don't want to go there.

Best, Steve

What Steve Jobs Means to Me and Us

2011-10-06T11:11:00.000-04:00

Losing Steve Jobs today is sad for so many. I grew up with Apple first as an upstart hip some would say way out of bounds computer company in the early 80's. My dad worked for IBM and was everything Big Blue. So of course when I read about and saw early stuff about Apple, the two Steve's, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack I was all ears.
Steve and Steve inspired me then to think outside the box, that's its ok to innovate, heck you can even start something in your garage. Maybe you didn't know how to run a business but if you had an idea, ingenuity and a whole lot of chutzpah you could imagine and act on making a better world.
Today I am parent of 13 year and 11 year old boys and am so excited to share with them some of the interesting, game changing Apple products and tools so many of us seem unable to live without, our iPods, iTouches, MacBooks. My boys ironically feel the same I did way back when about all of these things. They're inspired as I am only for different reasons I think.
Peering down into our new iTouch screen light lighting up their eyes and faces they see a world of possibilities I never dreamed of when I was their age. As they dance circles around me showing intuitively how the iTouch works, where to find things in the interfaces and such, I say to myself under my breath, what technologies and how will they be living with them as they age and mature?
How will they work? Will there be "offices" as we understand them today? Will their kids when they are the same age as they are now and they're adults seem the same to them as they do to me? Given what I've seen the answer is so far is a resounding yes. Saying so cause the hair on my neck rise in excitement and my pulse quicken.
Reflecting again on the passing of Steve Jobs and thinking about the world of possibilities before us, the sense of invention and inspiration surrounding us I can't think of a more fitting epitaph and legacy for this giant of technology and cultural change. We owe so much to you and your drive to explore. We'll miss your unbounded passion, always surpassing the boundaries of the possible, seeking new places filled with invention, innovation and more gracefulness.

Thanks Steve.

Workplace and Innovation - Some Thoughts

2011-09-30T17:26:00.002-04:00

Fall is upon Vermont in its wondrous glory. We transition from the outward focused time of summer to the more inward reflective moments we experience with the change of seasons. Maybe this is why even in adulthood we're still wired to "back to school time".

A Fiery Maple Tree - Crimson Abundance

Maybe that's why I so much enjoyed a recent seminar on Innovation, Culture and Workplace issues given by Rich Benoit from Steelcase's Applied Research and Consulting group at Business Interiors, their local dealership in Northern Vermont.
Rich started the conversation out by asking us about what innovation, an all too common buzzwords in business circles today meant to us. A participant shared how they thought inventions are things we consumers don't buy while we willingly pay for innovations such as iPads, iPhones, Sony Walkman's from a generation or two ago, IBM personal computer and iMac's. Similarly the Toyota Prius also comes to mind. The phenomena of Google and Facebook were also touched on by our group.
This ice-breaking question led Rich to share findings from Steelcase's research about different innovation types moving from the incremental betterment of an existing product to the reductive, then to the break through to expansive and self-evolving. The earlier examples our group came up with were mostly in the breakthrough and expansive category. These products and services all altered how we live, play and work. In some way they acted as game changers deeply resonating with consumer culture and the marketplace.
What then is the secret sauce for cultivating work cultures which innovate? Everyone talks about innovation being critical to business success but how do leaders make it happen? Surprisingly Rich said effective workplace design done well can help set the stage for work cultures to innovate.
First off, as Rich shared with us and as found in the illuminating white paper published by Steelcase last fall "How the Workplace Fosters Innovation", you must understand the DNA and behavioral tendencies of your organization before proceeding to deeply into workplace design. Essentially you must know how your work culture ticks and why it works your way rather than another. This is critical when designing buildings and interior spaces filled with expensive workplace equipment and furniture. Wishful thinking with miss matched design choices can short circuit best intentions for organizational change and innovation efforts.
So how and where do you and your organization begin? It's simple. Seek to understand what kind of innovative organization you are now and identify the culture of innovation you can realistically become over time. By combining best practices in work process, workplace design and integration of work tools supporting work and the workplace you can build organizational muscle memory expanding capabilities in collaboration, team and individual effectiveness, and enhancing speed of ideas and products to market.

Inspiration in Sky Blue and Yellow

Rich shared an interesting graphic which is also found in the white paper on page 5. It shows the spectrum of Models of Innovation ranging from centralized do it from within efforts to off-site to more decentralized examples relying on outside consultants to provide innovation to the most decentralized of them all, the network model. Wikipedia is a great example of a service and product being built in a peer enabled user community located in the cloud. In this model there is very little physical workspace as the service is dispersed across the internet in a virtual community.
These models of innovation also sync with the developmental age of the business or organization. An early stage do it yourself garage innovator may naturally need to transition to differing models of innovation to stay successful as the company matures, takes on more employees, begins to grow into larger more independent workgroup and expanding its facitilies. As you can imagine matching physical design to ever evolving businesses, their leadership models and work cultures can be very tricky. I believe successful work cultures try new things, are willing to fail and "fail forward", believing in the quality of their ideas, people and their core business offer.
Rich then showed a variety of tantilizing images aligning collaborative workspace with these different Innovation Models. The physical design very clearly depicted the Innovation Model in design of informal, formal meeting spaces, how much openness there was versus closed broken up spaces, how furniture and tables were organized, surface heights, lighting design. For me it was extremely gratifying to see the translation of the Models of Innovation spectrum into physical form.
The presentation led me back to re-examining the white paper more closely as I'm working with a variety of work cultures now located on various parts of the Innovation Model Spectrum. I want to be sure to guide them to workplace and workspace design aligning with where they are today and where they hope to be tomorrow and years to come. This research I believe will help me help them. Maybe it will help you too!
Thanks Rich and the team at Business Interiors, an Office Environments of New England company for this learning opportunity. The experience satisfied my back to school needs for learning and helped to build greater awareness how I can best help our customers in the coming months. I say be sure to focus on understanding how they tick and why and then take this learning to work together to shape appropriate high performing work spaces helping their organizations to soar in years to come!

Choosing Office Task Chairs - Aeron by Herman Miller

2011-09-26T12:29:00.002-04:00

As part of what I do from time to time I try out office task chairs. I do so because I used to have an old-fashioned wooden office chair which while swiveled hurt my back while not being adjustable. I have set off on a quest to try out various task chairs made by some of the more renowned manufacturer's in the country. As an architect working in workspace design it's important to cultivate a real understanding of what's out there and how the chairs really work. Good task chairs especially I believe are less about good looks and more about performance, helping us do our work more effectively.
Ironically the chair I begin with is the iconic Herman Miller Aeron. Bill Stumph designed it. Click on the link I provided and you can find a video of him telling the story of its design. It's a compelling and timeless one for those seeking a look into the process of innovation, product development and market adoption.
The local dealership, Creative Office Pavilion located in downtown Burlington lent me this seat to try out for a couple of weeks. I've really enjoyed this chair and if you're someone who spends a great deal of time multi-tasking in front of a computer, phones, desks, drafting tables (for me) this chair may be for you.
It's innovative and very ergonomic, with a generationally trendsetting webbing called the Pellicle, which provides a firm yet giving, breathable back and seat to sit in. Overall the chair is fairly light weight and easy to adjust. The yellow block you see in the back ground is the foot rest I use to accommodate my higher work surface and not dangle my legs which strains my back with nothing to rest upon. I recommend tinkering with this with any seating you're looking at.
I find the seat controls easy to use and understand to adjust the chair to my body type and liking. The lumbar support you see transparently behind the seat back webbing between the two rotating arms really, really works for my back. The wide proportions of upper part of the seatback work well with my broad back and "give" with me as I move side to side. The armrests rounded shapes are easy on my forearms when doing heavy duty repetitive tasks such as typing.
Environmentally the chair has Green guard certification, it's 94% recyclable and 66% of the chair's materials are derived from recycled sources. It's a silver MBDC Cradle to Cradle certified chair. As the Aeron Environmental Summary states, "[The]...Aeron is composed of environmentally safe and healthy materials, is designed for material reuse in a closed-loop system, such as recycling or composting, and is assembled using 100% renewable energy."

For all of these reasons I recommend this chair.

Next month I'll write about another chair in my quest to cultivate a clearer, real world understanding of the best of the best of task seating out there. If you have any Aeron stories or comments I welcome them. Have you had any challenges with the Aeron in your workplace or success stories to share? Don't hesitate to let us know.

Voices of 9.11 - The Power of Story

2011-09-10T17:15:00.001-04:00

Voices of 9.11 (excerpts) from Ruth Sergel on Vimeo.
I visited the New York Times Portraits of Grief, a Day of Reckoning - the 9/11 interactive area sharing stories from people affected by the events of 9/11. Towards the end there were links to other sites with similar stories to tell. These short vignettes speak to the universal power of story and of our shared humanity.

The stories chronologically march forward from dawn before the events took place through into the evening in a montage of story at different locations around the northeast. Yes they are painful at first but somehow in their telling they create a state of gracefulness rather than grief per se. At the end of the collage of excerpts of stories from that day those who collected them shared the reflection that no matter how apocalyptic the events seemed at the time a shared sentiment by those telling their stories was "life moves on".

Perhaps life moves on yes, but it is important to never forget. I say channel the emotion which will no doubt well up in your throat towards positive ends. Find someone you love and tell them how much you appreciate them. Do something kind for someone in need for no reason other than it's the right thing to do.

Together let's move forward recognizing we can't change the events of the past. However we can channel the stormy emotions we feel toward positive ends rather than focusing on the negatives. While much has changed due to the events of that day the strength and beauty of our shared humanity powers us forward. That's all we have isn't it?

Thoughts on Design - It's People and Smiles, Not Stuff

2011-09-09T22:00:00.002-04:00

Design is about bringing smiles to people's faces. It's not about the stuff. So often we lose ourselves in the details as architects, designers, planners. Yes, the little things matter, a lot! But for me smiles power my work.

What do I mean?

I ran into someone today who I've been involved in a design project with. He's a leader of a user group who've I've been working with together with my other team mates. He was smiling today. He said "I am really excited about where things are headed for my area. We've finally got things rolling in a good way."

This in turn made me smile. As you might guess the team I'm working with has been working really hard to facilitate a positive design outcome. After numerous meetings, seeming breakdowns in design and lots of re-design we'd finally arrived at an approved solution. I shared this with some of my other collaborators afterward. They smiled too!

Of course, this means we get to go to the next stage of detailed design and cost estimating. And yes we'll be making changes. Some will be hard to make. We'll have to let go design elements we deem essential. This doesn't always produce happy results but I do celebrate the positive steps along the way.

And, as I have come know, "sacred cows make the best hamburger".

As many of you may or may not know, designing places and spaces for people isn't super easy. In fact it's a pretty hard thing to do. The design process is often a very circuitous path where clarity is absent, ambiguity reigns and logic doesn't always apply.

I live for the smiles we can create along this challenging path and at the end when what what we've done together is finally built and ready to be used. I smile when people move in to their new spaces and start using them. I smile when I see people collaborating in their new buildings and spaces in new and different ways at work than they've ever done before.

The places and spaces I create in collaboration with others are mere vehicles of our every day lives. For me if what I help to shape brings smiles and laughter, productivity and focus to others I am grateful to be of assistance.

Like I said at the beginning, it's not about the stuff, the glamour, the glitz of powerful intriguing materials, ego, being "right", being the sole creator of the design...it's about helping people live, work and play more gracefully than before.

And, it's about the smiles we give and receive along the way. In a way, that's what we really are left with anyway. The smiles and the memories we make together and the work we do, the satisfaction it brings

So remember, when you get caught up in the details next time in the heat of design, don't forget to smile and be grateful for where you are, who you are working with and how far you've come together.

An Artful New Sign For Montpelier's Drawing Board

2011-08-07T20:35:00.001-04:00

Note the picture frame and paint brush blade sign
at upper left, note 4th of July banners aren't
always there!

About a month ago, our local artist materials and framing store, the Drawing Board in Montpelier, VT installed a new decorative sign supplementing the tasteful sign band already in place above the store. The sign intrigued me with its artful whimsy and simple yet complex design.

Exterior store signage design can if done right serve to really extend the brand promise of the business. Done wrong it does nothing but drive people and business away on the street. Your store sign is the first thing many see about your business. It's your symbolic front door. It should be memorable and unique while tastefully designed and communicative.

In the case of the Drawing Board, their new blade sign protrudes out of a corner brick pier in line with their sign band further enhancing the original signage in three dimensions.

Being a cultivator of good design, I took pictures and promised myself I'd ask the owners about it later and share what I found out. So I sent them a few questions which Judy Brown, a co-owner of the store with her husband Ray Brown kindly answered.

Blade sign depicting the essence of an art
supply & framing store

So here goes....

DC: Why did you add a new sign to the front of your store? Who designed your sign? What was the process you and the store went through.

DB: Ray and I always liked the idea of a blade sign but it was not an option until Montpelier changed the rules fairly recently. My decision was based on a desire to draw attention to the store from the street, particularly to pull people from the center of town down Main Street. I also wanted to add an element of action and fun to the very classical, professional look of our logo and signage.

DC: Who fabricated the sign for you and installed it.

DB: We worked with Sparky Potter and his team at Wood & Wood in Waitsfield. They are incredibly talented and professional. It was a joint design effort. The design that they first came up with felt too conservative and so we came up with the angled frame and color idea.

Other local signs that were inspirational were Capital Kitchen's here in Montpelier and a sign on Main Street in Burlington that always makes me smile; a large scissors at an angle from the building over a hair salon.

Wood & Wood did a great job of getting us through the permitting and engineering. They fabricated and installed the sign. They have a wonderful facility next to The Big Picture Theater off Route 100.

DC: What kind of reaction have you gotten from patrons and passersby? Have they noticed etc...

DB: Reactions have been really positive. No adverse reactions that I know of. The owners of the new pet supply store The Quirky Pet thought it was fabulous because they were planning to go for a permit for what they thought was a quirky blade sign and they said that the town couldn't possibly turn them down if they had approved our sign! They thanked me profusely for paving the way. Our sign is blocked by foliage from the State Street direction right now but will be much more powerful in the winter months.

DC: Any words of advice to others thinking of doing similar retail signage.

DB: My best advice for others is to spend a good amount of time thinking through what it is you want because design changes add up very quickly. Take the estimate and multiply by one and one half for a budget. Having said that I absolutely recommend going with a professional firm like Wood & Wood, getting a great product that you will love and know that it will last.

To take a look at Capitol Kitchen's blade sign click on this link. It's really interesting too!

Jody and Ray, thanks to you and your team for being a socially responsible small business inspiration in our community! You're a business with a big heart!

Reviewing "Toward a Zero Energy Home"

2011-07-18T21:55:00.002-04:00

A few months ago in late spring I read Toward a Zero Energy Home - A Complete Guide to Energy Self-Sufficiency at Home by David Johnston and Scott Gibson. Or shall I say devoured it hungrily. I read it on a cross-country flight in one sitting.

2010, The Taunton Press

The book begins by making a great case for the zero energy house by framing the view through the energy price bubble of 2008 and the need to shift behaviors moving forward. Ironically in the spring of 2011 we were experiencing another price bubble seeded by political instability driven by the unprecedented democratic spring of Egypt, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. Once again prices spiked ever higher over the course of late winter and spring. Fairly quickly it seemed, world-wide strategic oil reserves were tapped to temper the price spikes and people's fears abated but high prices linger. Today, the US Energy Information Agency says gas prices are up $0.91 from a year ago.

If you consult the EIA's interactive tables and build predictions out to 2035 you'll find an average yearly growth rate of 3.5% for residential fuel oil costs. So in about ten years prices may rise 35% over today's already high rates. With the unpredictability of the global geo-political climate and growing effects of global warming, growing population pressures and scarcity in fossil fuels, radically reducing energy consumption is urgent. More predictable energy costs and growth in resource conservation is critical to creating a more sustainable future "softening the hard landing to come" as said by Bill McKibben in his recent book, Eaarth.

While residential delivered energy consumption has been going down historically in a gentle slope since 1990 the EIA forecasts four different scenarios showing reductions. The reference light blue line models this continuing fall while the magenta (high tech usage) and green (best available technology) go even lower.

As energy costs continue to escalate residential users will naturally seek to conserve. The space between the purple and green line is where Toward A Zero Energy Home plays an important role today in driving best practices in zero energy home design into the marketplace towards consumer acceptance.

The book is organized into five chapters; The Building Envelope, Passive Solar Design, Renewable Energy, Heating-Cooling-Ventilation, Living a Zero Energy Life. In each chapter they provide helpful overviews going over the basic components, design strategies and approaches with insightful case studies from around the country relating to the chapter focus. The case studies provide wisdom from the field about how projects develop and mature between owners, architects, builders and energy consultants.

I recommend this book. It tackles a very complex subject and breaks it down to basic elements where the complexity supports the big picture of why certain strategies are valuable varying by budget, climate, owner likes and dislikes, project delivery methods scalable for a variety of situations. Whether seeking to do a custom design and build home, or hybridized process with some level of factory panelization and custom building, or finally, full out factory built and controlled modular home with quick onsite assembly the book has insights valuable for all.

The book also shows how fast moving high performance building science and knowledge truly is. After this book came out, Alex Wilson's published a groundbreaking article in Environmental Building News on the Global Warming Potential of Foam Insulation. Their research led to a wholesale re-evaluation of the viability of using closed expanding cell foam and related insulation materials in building envelopes because of the long-term costs of using fossil fuel as blowing agents. Many of the case studies homes in the Toward a Zero Energy Home used closed cell insulation in some aspects of the building envelope. The new research indicated the need to look more closely at using open cell insulation or other more benign alternatives such as cellulose insulation instead going forward. Hindsight is 20/20 though and admittedly best practices will always be evolving to ever-higher standards.

The authors also covered the Passive House movement, a subset within the Zero Energy home design area, focusing on super high insulation and air-sealing levels dramatically reducing the need for heating and cooling systems or eliminating them entirely. Originating in Germany about 15 years ago as Passiv haus this movement has gained serious traction in the U.S. with use of the Passive House protocol growing around the country. Passive House consultants use the (PHPP) Passive House Planning Protocol software to model building envelope choices, building siting, heating and cooling systems to derive solutions which ultimately can be certified as Passive Houses and used to verify actual energy use later.

The authors did not focus much on life cycle thinking or cradle to cradle systems and did not cover the USGBC LEED for Home process to any great detail or the drive improving national and statewide building energy performance standards. Perhaps this is for a more policy oriented book. Adding a chapter on how to approach verifying performance, commissioning buildings after completion, and what if any third party verification systems could be used and the value they add would have been helpful.

Towards a Zero Energy Home does however do a great job on what it set out to do, develop a set of usable and approachable guidelines to move to a more energy conserving, efficient and independent future.
For those just starting out in this process as a homeowner or affordable housing non-profit with little experience in this area, or seasoned professionals you will find this book a tremendous resource.

Cycle of Creation - Framing the View

2011-06-30T21:00:00.002-04:00

Today I burned an early painting done my freshman year in College under the tutelage of professor Frank Hewitt, a noted Vermont painter who inspired me during my years at UVM where I majored in Studio Art. It's cleansing to let go of old artwork, watching it burn in a fire seeing paint strokes disappear.

Reflecting back while watching canvas curl I remembered a time of exploration of new ideas, new friends, of learning about color, form, shape coalescing about a point of view, a framework of thinking. Whatever the media it always seemed then to be about how to frame a viewpoint while listening to the medium speak at the same time.

Whether painting, drawing, sculpture or later in the last fifteen or twenty years, architecture and designing environments for many people, this framework and point of view has remained critical. It's inspirational actually watching an old painting perish in the flames knowing in my heart a new one is soon to be born with a new story to tell.

It speaks to the cycle of creativity we all experience in our lives where endings are always beginnings. It's not easy to always see and understand but it's a fundamental part of our existence.

Concerned about social media and technology? Maybe a good idea.

2011-06-27T21:38:00.003-04:00

What often is missing in diving into social media activities is 'actually thinking' about what we're doing and reflecting on what our values are and why we're using these services/ tools etc.

How is doing what we do in this space helping out at home, at work and within our community, in the grandstands watching your kids play sports? Are you better for it? Are you sure? Really! Just because you can use it doesn't mean you should! That's a great phrase to take to heart especially if you haven't actually thought about why you're using these tools.

William Buist at the Societal Web posted about this issue and raised some very interesting points. As he says social media gives us new and heretofore unforseen ways to communicate with each other, and its problematic. Just because we can "update our status" while at a meeting, or "text friends or have long drawn out phone calls" while at our sons and daughters ball games is this multi-tasking positive behavior? The technology allows us to do this but should we do this?

I know this dates me, but my dad and mom (pre cell phone days) actually watched me and participated in my games, or helped out coaching. Now I do the same and watch all kinds of parents, older sisters and brothers and younger work their "smart" devices at the game. Their bodies stand facing the play but they're far away, disconnected from the visceral present. If this is the "positive example" my generation of parents is truly capable of I'm thinking this isn't so good.

Recently I plucked one such parent off of his phone he'd been wearing by the side of his face for the past five games and asked him to be a third base coach for a few innings while I umped. The guy was super animated and really involved with his kid for the first time I remember all season. I learned this guy has so much too offer the kids, the team and our community. But he sits back and uses his "smart phone". I know its tranquilizing, almost narcotic in its influence. I want an Ipad too! But I'm going to wait until I get my head around this issue more clearly.

And now that we're so deep into this how do sensibly tame this addictive behavior? Or does it (meaning social media) control us, especially if we don't take the time now and again to think about it critically? Often, we're missing the fact we can have a face to face conversation, or a phone call rather than Tweeting about something to someone or Facebooking it. Or doing another LinkedIn update.

Why not go to someone's house and have dinner and connect..? Or taking a walk with someone and talking. You can't easily do a Goto meeting session or AppleFace Time while walking can you? It's hard to do two things at once? But yet we try...it's exhausting to multi-task.

Part of this is temptation of the new and the cool. It's the joyful exuberance of using our new tools, the smartphones, tablets du Jour, the apps and buying into the "lifestyle" choices being shown us in the advertising we see where ever the media source. However, there's relatively few voices stating "let's think about this" and examine what we're doing collectively etc. leading to setting up a goals and values discussion and learning how to recognize what's missing in these new interactions.

What kinds communities are we really building, families, teams etc. when social media seems to an important aspect holding everything together? Caring about this is important to our communal well-being. What do you think? How is social media impacting your life? Think back five or ten years ago, how much time were you spending talking face to face to people versus today? What would happen if your smart phone disappeared for two weeks? Or your iPAD? Would it change your life for the better? Or the worse?

Remember, just because you can use the latest and greatest tech gadgets and software services doesn't mean you should. Take a moment to think about it every once in a while. Talk it over with your family, your coworkers etc. You'll find there will be lots to discuss.

Mindmapping Vermont's Energy Planning, a Beginning

2011-06-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

Brainstorming Vermont's Energy Planning c.Steve Frey 2011

I missed the VT Energy Plan June 1st workshop and information gathering session held at National Life last week. So I thought I'd contribute a mind map or visual brainstorm of my recent thoughts about the planning effort and areas of focus I see as important to ensuring a sustainable and bright future for generations to come. Check out a link to Renewable Energy Vermont's recent interview on VPR for other perspectives.

So often in our overwhelming information overloaded world it's helpful to find ways to distill the issues quickly. Visual thinking offers a quick pictorial way to lay it all out there and show connections and relationships not easy to make easily in writing or speaking. Thus I offer these two brainstorming sketches which while inherently incomplete offer a "take" on the issues and opportunities before us in our great state.

We have precious natural resources here in Vermont with first and foremost the bright passionate and well educated people in Vermont. I wonder if there's a way to crowd source feedback to the public service board in parallel to helpful meetings being held across the state? By using Twitter and LinkedIn and other social media sites perhaps we can collect together perspectives and ideas not easily obtained otherwise. Last night on Twitter I started a hashtage called #vermontenergyplan to help track the conversation. I also used the hashtag #vermont as well. Put either of these tags into Twitter's search function and you will see this growing conversation!

By tackling this effort with an integrated and systematic planning, public and private partnerships and ultimately actions we take, we can build a more sustainable visionary Vermont.

Designing for Acoustics in a CoWorking Space or Other Open Work Areas

2011-06-08T12:29:00.002-04:00

A recent workspace with carpet tiles, offices with sidelights
and transoms. (Located at AllEarth Renewables)

Recently I responded to a question of the Google CoWorking Group about ways to more effectively design for acoustics yet engage the sense of community CoWorking is known for.

How can such spaces meet the needs for louder members who often talk on the phone yet still create an inclusive, collaborative work community space? Often CoWorking spaces have open work areas with members working side by side on rolling large tables like the libraries at Colleges of yesteryear. Working out in the open, while extremely social and collaborative can have its challenges especially if you need to make an extended phone call or someone nearby does.

One common solution is behavioral, people talk more softly and respectfully or they take the call outside to a porch or outside area. Sometimes taking the call in a nearby office or conference room also works. But what if you would like to stay sitting at your work area and talk more loudly or can't move your materials so easily? It's kind of a pain to schlep binders or papers outside if you need to refer to them etc.

So here's a few design strategies which can apply also to open work areas in more traditional office settings. Some are fairly simple, others are more complicated and have some cost. However if you abide by the maxim of you get what you pay for that's a good place to start. Building awareness of using reflective and sound absorptive materials and space planning strategies is a good place to start. Generally, consider doing a combination of solutions and trying out different ideas, "tuning" you space over time.

Wall Hanging by Joyce DiCianna, HR Manager at
AllEarth Renewables, Furniture by Pompanoosac
Mills. (AllEarth Renewables)

Selecting a Good Space: To promote the openness and interactivity found in collaborative environments such as CoWorking Space look for spaces to rent or buildings to buy with a fairly simple building shell hopefully with fairly high ceilings and access to daylight, parking, bus-lines, rail lines and access to the internet. Former street front level retail spaces are often good locations having these characteristics. (Concerned about carbon footprint and sustainability issues? Then select a location easy to bike, walk, take a bus or train to. It's counter intuitive to some, but highly dense urban areas are highly resource efficient and effective with more inhabitants per acre than more rural areas. Finding a LEED certified building is even better, but more on that another time.)
Sound Deadening Floor Coverings: If you have highly reflective floor surfaces such as concrete, wood floors or floor tiles consider installing carpet squares or area rugs in open office / common work areas. There are a number of manufacturer's such as Interface Flor, Mannington, Shaw Contract Group, Tandus to name a few who have solutions which can help treat lively areas with floor coverings. The fibers in carpeting and carpet squares and resilient backing helping cut down sound. These same manufacturer's all offer various kinds of eco friendly lines, recycling and financing programs attractive to owners.
Ceiling Treatments, Sound Clouds, Wall Panels: Another strategy is installing acoustical ceiling treatments like hanging sound clouds over work areas. A simple version of this is installing higher performance ceiling tile from companies such as CertainTeed, Armstrong and USG to name a few. You can use 2x2 or 2x4 or more unique tiles encased in decorative metal trim creating distinct "visual islands" and focal points within a large open spaces. Combined the sound deadening qualities of tiles with attractive linear pendant up and down lighting zones and you can create attractive open work areas. You can also install Tectum or other similar another sound absorbing product directly to ceilings or the underside of floor pans or on walls. If sustainability concerns such as recycled content, sourcing and indoor air quality are strongly desired work with your architect or interior designer to select choices which provide acoustical performance while balancing these concerns. Wall-hangings such as quilts can serve as focal points visually but also provide acoustical relief in targeted areas.
Gradation of Walled Meeting, Teaming and Individualized Work areas: By providing a variety of larger to small closed walled work areas your CoWorking or open areas can integrate both the lively collaborative open areas and "away" spaces into your space. Doing so you can build spaces suitable for small 2-3 person meetings, larger team meetings rooms for 5-12 and smaller highly focused head down quiet spaces. To maximize the investment install sound insulation batts and run the walls all the way up to the underside of the floor or roof deck with foam insulation at the joint to limit sound transmission between spaces. To create a sense of inclusiveness between nearby by open work spaces install large glass sidelights next to doors into these rooms as well as consider transom windows to allow borrowed daylight in and reduce lighting usage.
Varying Ceiling and Wall Surface Angles: In addition to the other strategies, you can further control unwanted echoes and noise communication by varying the reflective or hard surfaces of drywall partitions, suspended ceiling elements, wall panels. Your designer can subtly design these moves into your space without incurring significant added construction cost. Adding this strategy to the design palette also can enhance your space's uniqueness as compared to more standard tenant-fitup approaches.
Avoid placing of Curved Surfaces in Key Spaces: If you want concave curved surfaces as part of the interior architecture locate the center of the arc or curve element outside of the space. Doing this will ensure your space will not echo in these curving areas. Echoing spaces are not great to work in. That's why round or cylindrical interior spaces while attractive aren't necessarily great acoustically without attending to locating their center points outside of the space.

Hope this helps! Remember, work with a seasoned architect or interior designer when designing your spaces. Their involvement can be merely advisory with limited drawings and at a lower cost to full design services taking these and other issues into account to create the high value high performing workplace. But they can help you look at the big picture of all these moving parts. To optimize collaborative CoWorking style spaces or other similar open work areas think holistically about using combination of design strategies like the ones above to create more enjoyable and productive work spaces.

Contact me if you need further advice or have other questions.

Stinkin Tree Watercolor Studies

2011-06-07T14:18:00.000-04:00

Early studies 1 & 2

About two months ago before the leaves arrived I spent alot of time
painting tree compositions. So much so my two boys soon grew tired of the subject matter. They called them "My Stinkin' Trees" thus the name for this series of which I show a few here.

Wherever I looked I saw intriguing possibilities to study figure ground, the upward sweep of tree branches yearning for the sun's warmth. Last year I spent a great deal of time sketching tiny pencil drawings in my Moleskin sketchbook which percolated for almost a year until one I needed to explore what I was walking by everyday and taking pictures of with my camera. Call it an obsession or call it looking closely and learning to love what surrounds us.

Thus began a number of watercolor interpretations of natural and arranged scenes from the woods out behind our house to traveling on snow covered back roads in the hills around Montpelier. I studied various color combinations with this work, along with gradations and various techniques involving intermingling of more sedimentary colors such as burnt sienna or prussian blue with transparent ones like cobalt blue for example. Click on the individual images and zoom in to see what I mean.

Blue Yellow Study

Each image was a meditative experience for me providing a medium by which I could relax in the evening when the kids had gone to bed or on the weekend during calmer times. There's nothing more joyful than participating in the interaction of water + color on paper and reveling in how each image is it's own unique experience while resonating to over arching exploration of branches, figural space and implied shapes battling with abstraction.

The green blue study reads more abstractly as a series of lines or tree trunks cleared branches which were well overhead as these were larger more mature growth with more expansive trunks.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these. More will follow from this series soon!

Green blue study

CoWorking California and Vermont Style: Comparing CoLoft and Office Squared

2011-05-27T10:05:00.008-04:00

Storefront Entry to CoLoft - Santa Monica, California

Walking down Santa Monica Boulevard in sunny California about a month ago I serendipitously walked by CoLoft, a trendy yet down to earth co-working space. It caught my eye as I always on the lookout for interesting workspace environments.


Office Squared Tree Covered Courtyard (courtesy of O2)

Hailing from Vermont I was familiar with one in Burlington called Office Squared or 0² who I had yet to visit at that point but had mental notes to do so soon. CoLoft's easy going open converted retail storefront with high ceilings and ample day-lighting greeted me. Energized with enthusiasm to see new ideas like this at work, I retraced my steps opened the door and walked in. People typed away on laptops all around, talking on smartphones with some engaged together in quiet yet intense conversations.

Simple workstations set up on elegant sawhorses with straightforward table tops were standard. Here and there desktop computers were set up with double screens with workers staring intently into them. Someone came up to me and there I asked If I could take pictures of the inside. He said no as it was against CoLoft policy to respect and protect the privacy of their work community. I asked if the owners were there and could I talk to them?


CoLoft Interior by Brandon Wise, Originally printed in Santa Monica Daily Press

Shortly after Avesta Rasouli, one of the founders of CoLoft greeted me. I told him I was a vacationing architect just walking by and did he have a moment. He sighed and said, "Unfortunately I'm in the middle of a meeting where I'm looking at expanding my space. Take a look at our website and email me. We'll talk later." And so I did. That moment was a perfect diagram for the growing coworking phenomena, fitting within the "Sharing Economy" as so eloquently identified by Rachel Botswan and Roo Rogers in their exciting book "What's Mine is Yours – the Rise of Collaborative Consumption" published in 2010.

The book talks about the rise of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption fueled by the growth of the internet and dissolving of barriers in trade and communication across geography and time. The rising fluidity of our how easy it is to communicate, organize, work together and shop manifested itself in businesses like Ebay, Craigs List among others. The sharing comes in recognizing there often is available capacity or excess capacity sitting idle of cars, sofas in apartments, hotel rooms laying empty, workers with time on their hands, money underinvested, land available for gardeners. The internet enabled unlikely new configurations of commerce and entrepreneurship impossible to envision only a generation ago. Within this larger movement of the sharing economy coworking emerged.

Botswan and Rogers identified how this movement began with the Spiral Muse Group in 2005 or so whose founding members who ranged from at home professionals, consultants and independent contractors, who realized they "yearned for some form of working community where they could cross-pollinate ideas face to face." Up until then they worked a nomadic existence in coffeehouses and libraries and other spaces but soon found those places wanting for meaningful interactions and places to work effectively. Thus coworking as defined in Wikipedia as "a style of work involving a shared working environment, sometimes an office, yet (with) independent activity." Coworkers often share values or sets of ideals energizing their individual work yet are transformed by "synergies" of unlike but motivated professionals working together, percolating ideas and challenges off of one another.

Coworking spaces can be full off cooperative style intentional working communities to independent businesses run by entrepreneurs who seized the opportunity to develop alternative work settings catering to this new breed of independent tech savvy workers. They realized the most critical aspect of these kind of businesses was not the space or access to shared resources but fostering a true sense of community and connection between members. They are generally not for rent larger scale Office Suites like HQ Global Workplaces or business incubator type spaces as they tend to lack the community appeal of coworking spaces while having many of the same amenities, yet in a more corporate setting.

For those unfamiliar with this trend over the last ten years it's really taken off with coworking spaces now all around the world in most major cities. Fast Company in May published a brief article called Brave New Coworking World where they wrote about the 5M project, a four acre campus with three initial tenants serving up a hybridized version of coworking with Hub SoMa (a more traditional coworking space), TechShop (a so called do it yourself workshop) and Intersection for the Arts (an arts incubator type space). As FC says this growing campus offers both traditional office features with non-traditional options for prototyping and small scale manufacturing of business ideas and products. A veritable dynamo of entrepreneurism and as the website says "radical collaboration".

View of Office Squared Reception Area

View of Office Squared Open Work Area

Office Squared Open Area & Conference Room

Returning back to Vermont, I visited and had multiple conversations with Jen Mincar, the owner of Office Squared. O2's storefront is sandwiched between tall mid-rise turn of the century buildings with a beautiful tree covered plaza in front for outdoor events. Jan said her business is growing like "gangbusters" providing an integral component to help grow Burlington's creative economy saying also her business constantly evolves to match the needs of her members.

CoWorkers Collaborating at Office Squared (courtesy of O2)

She reinforced the coworking concept by saying"despite the electronic age, as human beings, we still need human face to face interactions. We need to see people and have physical connection." She also said she's expanding her offerings to her community to meet more demand opening up private offices above the more open storefront level work space she built out in 2009 along with the building owner, Dave Farrington. They offer independent open work areas, a conference room, a small team room, teleconferencing equipment. Her space is also available for private evening events or larger seminars. I asked who designed who contemporary spirited workspace and to tell me a little story about it. I was surprised to learn it was DIY.

Office Squared In Action - Workshop Session Mode (courtesy of O2)

I learned she did it herself along with the building owner Dave. It was originally corporate offices for a bus company with "hung ceilings, nasty carpet, white walls, rubber base…essentially zero character. She envisioned an open, brightly lit more contemporary feeling space and did the old fashioned way by rolling up her sleeves. "Interior finishes include a substantial amount of reclaimed steel, leftover materials from other projects." She also said "many complement her on the feel of the space, how it's extremely functional yet with a retro-industrial feel."

To find that look she and Dave kept an eye out for the unusual yet functional. As she said "For example, the wood edge on my workstation was waste strips of Baltic birch plywood from an old University of Vermont construction job. The steel I-beam on my desk was reclaimed from a back loading dock at an industrial building in the South End of Burlington. The sink is reused from a dentist office renovation…the metal wall covering in the bathroom was salvaged from old floor coverings from fork trucks in an old building. We exposed all of the structure. I recently replaced 36 75-watt halogen fixtures with 11 watt LEDs and installed a new super-efficient HVAC unit. The Floor finish is a BONA product (no VOC) as well as the paint on the walls."

I asked her now she's been in her space for a while, what improvements might she make. She said "privacy areas are lacking. Everything was left open, even the conference rooms. In retrospect I would have closed those in, however we are expanding to offer private office space upstairs called O2plus http://www.officesquaredvt.com/plus." While upstairs, those who use these spaces still will have access to all of the shared facilities below. She also mentioned it's important to be stay flexible for her members allowing month to month memberships.

Returning to California, I asked Cam Kashani Rasouli also a founder of CoLoft how is her business doing. She said "We are doing awesome. After only a little more than a year, we are pretty much at capacity and now application only. We are figuring out the next steps as we speak. Definitely expanding." Like Jen in Vermont, Cam and Avesto find it's about the people, not about the space. Cam said "let the business change according to the people – listen to them. And make sure you have a passion for people, or you won't love it. We love people and it always feels like we're around friends."

Like Office Squared in Vermont, CoLoft design evolved out the talents of its owners in a more design, build manner. Avesta to the design lead on the space creating a workplace with a "cool airy vibe…something between a coffee shop and an office.". CoLoft's location in the heart of Santa Monica is superlative for them. It's the place to be as far as they are concerned with all of the startups and tech in general in the area, which is their niche.

From StartUp Weekend at CoLoft (courtesy of CoLoft flickr stream)

Asking Cam to sound in on where she sees CoLoft and coworking down the road, let's say in three to five years, she replied "We see coworking becoming the "third place", after home and office, replacing coffee shops in terms of work (not coffee). For me as an independent design professional more in a startup mode myself, I see the sense in this, especially in places like my more rural Vermont. Here rising energy prices are curbing workers appetite for those hour long commutes to the office from homes far away from where the work is.

Like Cam in California and Jen in Vermont, I believe coworking spaces as a business concept will certainly continue to evolve and mature in the years to come. Especially in Vermont with our many smaller cities, villages and towns, there always is a supply of underutilized storefronts with great locations or coffee shops already with numerous workers spending much of their days in their shops. Stepping up the presence of such hybrid workspaces can only be helpful keeping workers closer to home, fostering stronger local business communities and neighborhoods. Workers would be closer to their families and friends and have the choice to participate more fully in community or leisure activities. We would also experience strong secondary benefits such as further reducing reliance on foreign oil and incrementally helping to curb greenhouse gas emissions. It's a deep green initiative.

Thus coworking is a win win environmentally for all locally and an important building block of the surging multi-billion dollar sharing economy articulated by Botswan and Rogers in "What's Mine is Yours". I also believe we'll be seeing more coworking options springing up in communities near you. The 911's or the Millenials who are now in or finishing college will be the next generation at work. As they use smartphones, tweet their status updates and friend or like people or businesses, so to will they likely have the ability to cowork. Today this seems atypical office and work behavior, but tomorrow don't count on it.
To learn more about coworking see the Wiki which not only goes into it more in depth with research studies but also has links to coworking sites and networks around the world. The Wiki also tells you how to get more involved in coworking. For those who Tweet and want to be get involved that way, the coworking hashtag is #coworking. I encourage those in Santa Monica and Burlington to take a look at CoLoft and Office Squared. But given how busy they are please contact them in advance!

A Video Thanks, 200th Blog Post

2011-05-20T17:55:00.001-04:00

Looking for a Green College? Princeton Review Releases the 2011 Guide to Green Colleges

2011-05-17T14:41:00.001-04:00

2011 release announcement of Princeton Review's Guide to 311 Green Colleges from U.S. Green Building Council on Vimeo.

This is really interesting! I guess the Green Movement has really caught on and become mainstream if we're seeing a guide to green focused colleges and universities partly brought to us by our friends at USGBC. So, if you and yours are looking for colleges to apply to with an environmental and socially responsible background this guide might be for you.

Community Energy Guidebook Released for Vermonters

2011-05-15T22:47:00.001-04:00

Earlier this month the Vermont Natural Resources Council released its long awaited Energy Planning Guidebook to help Vermont communities become more sustainable and energy independent. Whether you live here or elsewhere but care about how your community evolves and fights climate change on a grass-roots level check out this manual and video to learn more.
Whether involving weatherization, installing more insulation, air-sealing, replacing aging heating and cooling infrastructure in your public buildings, schools, churches and housing this information is a helpful starting point. Many Vermont towns and cities have Energy Committees working independently of each other yet collaborating together to make a difference state-wide. There's a statewide organization unifying all of the individual energy committees and large and small stakeholders called VECAN (VT Energy Climate Action Network. It's an exciting group who has held numerous statewide conferences.
This document is full of best practices culled for years of experience you and others in your community can learn from and extend forward! The guidebook covers why to do it in the first place, how to generally go about it, engaging the public in energy planning, organizing the plan, assessing community needs and opportunities among other areas. It also shares the latest information about Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Development focusing on existing programs, planning for energy efficiency and adding renewable energy along with barriers impeding progress.
Let me know what you think of the guidebook and if it is helpful to you and your community?