Knowledge is a funny thing. A lot of people would agree that a firm’s competitive advantage in today’s business world is based on knowledge generation and transfer. Often the word ‘flow’ is used. But how something abstract like knowledge could flow (like water down a river) or be transferred (like money) isn’t quite as clear. Some scholars…
I’ve recently read Scott Berkun‘s excellent book ‘A Year Without Pants‘, where he reports from his experiment of working for Automattic (the wonderful guys behind WordPress). He was tasked with the introduction of team structures into the perceived chaos of an entrepreneurial, DIY-minded and bazaar-like organisational culture. The book is remarkable on various accounts: It…
Myths and common preconceptions about offices and workplaces abound. We are almost constantly bombarded with supposedly new ideas about management, workplace design, workplace trends and the general debate on the ‘future of the office’. Quite often it is merely terminology that is reinvented (‘Agile Working’), attempting to add a new sparkle to old (and possibly…
Commuting via public transport in London can be an unpleasant experience: overcrowded trains, bad-tempered fellow commuters, stuffy air – not to mention all hell breaking loose when trains get delayed (for whatever reason). So how does the daily commute feel when you are in special circumstances? To make life easier for pregnant women, Transport for…
Latest figures from a large survey of workplaces (the so called Leesman Index) suggest that tea, coffee and refreshment facilities are important to 91% of employees. This sparked a debate on Twitter among some of the workplace consultancy community and made me think again of one of the workplaces I studied in depth for my…
On twitter (thanks, Colin!) I recently stumbled upon a wonderful video produced by ARTE, in which the German designer Erik Spiekermann sketches his ideal office. It is fantastic to see someone sketch their ideas live (and funny as well to see Spiekermann struggle to draw a cool looking espresso machine – he later admits it…
I still clearly remember how odd I found the typical British lunchtime routines, when I first moved to London a few years ago. On my first day at work I joined my colleagues out of the office at lunch, only to find they just went across the road to the local Tesco supermarket to buy…
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