Re: [Coworking] "Open-plan offices were devised by Satan in the deepest caverns of hell" - Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian

[Randall G. Arnold]

Best environment I ever worked in was *mostly* open... very low partitions.  In our case (Nokia service office), people adjusted and noise of any kind was never an issue.  We had glass-walled rooms around the perimeter for meetings, etc.  Amazingly enough, we had a high number of introverts (including myself) who I've usually seen complain about this sort of setup-- none did.  I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to see other human beings instead of being surrounded by a grey maze.   As far as noise, in the tech world you get a lot of people talking OVER the high cube walls, so...   Randy   On November 21, 2013 at 3:56 AM "Will Bennis, Locus Workspace" <wmben...@locusworkspace.com> wrote: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2013/nov/18/open-plan-offices-bad-harvard-business-review   Putting this out there because I suspect what gets posted is generally filtered toward the "coworking positive".    While cubicles are the worst, this article is about shortcomings of open-plan offices more generally.    Putting aside the obvious fact that even if open-plan offices aren't for everyone, they're certainly preferred by many of us, my existing bias has been that most independent workers would do better (in terms of psychological health as well as productivity and work quality) over the long run in a social work environment than in a private/enclosed office. But articles like this make me wonder if that really is just my own bias.    Most of the findings suggested are contrary to what I would expect for independent workers, and I wonder how much the results here may be contingent on working in an organization (where being in an open plan office also corresponds to being lower in the work hierarchy and where many of the people you're working alongside are implicit competitors).   Thoughts? Where does this article go wrong (other than suggesting one size fits all)? Does it suggest that ideal coworking space design would work include ample opportunities for more private work and more isolated collaboration?   Will   -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.   -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.