thank you dave for sharing. veeeeery interesting. max On 23 Feb, 15:17, David Troy <[email protected]> wrote: > Back in November about twelve folks from Baltimore involved in space design > were flown out to Grand Rapids to visit Steelcase's corporate headquarters on > their corporate jet. Needless to say it was an awesome day trip. > > There were a few take-aways I've been finding myself referring to often > enough that I thought they were worth sharing here: > > 1. Corporations are downsizing their spaces and preparing for Gen Y's > willingness to work more flexibly and collaboratively. GE's global standard > for space-per-worker is now 70 sqft. Accenture's is 50 sqft. This doesn't > mean each person gets a phone booth; it means they're not providing space for > all their employees anymore. They expect people to be working from home, > shared facilities, coffee shops, airports, and client sites. > > 2. Coworking spaces are a lot like restaurants, and you probably don't want > Mexican or Italian every day. They think a major city should be able to > support 12/25/50 coworking spaces over time, and that you'll make your > decision about which one(s) to go to on a daily basis around the design of > the space. By "design" I am talking about "design constraints," not just > layout and furniture. Who's attracted to the space? Is it coders or fine > artists? Which group do you need to be inspired by / move with that day? This > turns the "space competition" question into a moot point. We don't think > about a Thai place being in competition with a taco joint. In the same way, > we should be preparing our cities to handle multiple coworking facilities and > welcoming new entrants and multiple experiments. > > Other tidbits of interest: > > a) Steelcase owns IDEO, the creative consulting / "design thinking" firm. > > b) Steelcase's more whimsical/coworking-targeted brand is Turnstone, which > has been referenced here. Turnstone is very interested in supporting > coworking. > > c) They have a "wormhole" video link between Grand Rapids and IDEO's office > in Palo Alto. We've been talking about doing this between some coworking > spaces but haven't quite gotten it going yet. > > Thought y'all would appreciate these ideas. > > Best, > Dave > > -- > Dave Troy > Beehive Baltimore > Community Coworking in Baltimore, Maryland
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