Don’t miss the flourishing Resource Centers of at FastCompany.com where Heath Row is building an exciting stable of regular writers who operate on the front lines of innovation.

I particularly like writers who challenge my preconceptions and help me see things in a new way. For instance, I have worked in cubicles and I prefer offices. (Actually, I currently work in a cube inside my own office, which is very cozy.) At the Design Resource Center, Peter Lawrence points out that open space designs are much more conducive to the adaptability and agility of a company. Communication is vastly improved and ideas flow freely. This was not MY experience in a cube, but then my cube was specifically designed as a low-rent office, with the opening turned to give me some privacy. Peter’s article reminds me that the specific tools of work are less important than the intentions and application. I also love that in this article he describes a couple of CEOs who put their own open offices out in the middle of traffic. I’ve always wondered why more bosses don’t want to do that.

Link: Designing Where We Work  by Peter Lawrence at www.FastCompany.com (not in the printed magazine)

…they did not ask their employees what kind of space they wanted — most will say they want more space with a door. Rather, they involved them in the process by talking about what kind of organization they wanted to be and what they needed to do to get there.

In these and many other examples, many employees were initially against the idea of an open office. That is to be expected; it is after all, an environment with which they are completely unfamiliar. It is important to note that in each of the companies cited here, and in many other examples, the concern they had been most worried about, distracting noise and conversations, turned out not to be a problem at all. Very often, the general ambient noise was such that one could not understand individual conversations, and they therefore were not distracting. For an example, observe the people in a Starbucks: About half are meeting with one or two other people, while the others are reading or working on their laptop, all in the same room.