workplace
clock | March 16, 2009You know I am very interested in the way the Web is changing the workplace, in many instances eliminating the need for having a physical office.
Michael Rosenblum appears to feel the same way about it:
Two years ago, we began a very interesting experiment with a major cable provider.
We built and ran (and continue to run) a hyper-local TV station which is probably the most cost-effective in the country. It's a model for others.
Now, after two years, we are going to start our second one.
When we sat down to do the budgets, the first thing we cut out was the office.
We had an office for the…
clock | January 27, 2009Brian Russell was on NPR Marketplace this morning, talking about Carrboro Creative Coworking. Worth a listen:
clock | December 30, 2008This article is almost two years old, but it is perhaps even more current today than it was when it first appeared:
Pretend for a second that you're a CEO. Would you reveal your deepest, darkest secrets online? Would you confess that you're an indecisive weakling, that your colleagues are inept, that you're not really sure if you can meet payroll? Sounds crazy, right? After all, Coke doesn't tell Pepsi what's in the formula. Nobody sane strips down naked in front of their peers. But that's exactly what Glenn Kelman did. And he thinks it saved his business.
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The…
clock | December 24, 2008I found this quite intriguing:
Those thinking that online social networking is a substitute for face-to-face interactions might want to think again. Recent research in psychology suggests there are some benefits to real-life socializing that the Internet just can't provide; researchers at Stanford University have published a report in Psychological Science called "Synchrony and Cooperation" that indicates engaging in synchronous activities (e.g., marching, singing, dancing) strengthens social attachments and enables cooperation. As most of our online social networking to date is based on…
clock | December 15, 2008Pawel tried, for a year, to be a freelance scientist. While the experiment did not work, in a sense that it had to end, he has learned a lot from the experience. And all of us following his experience also learned a lot about the current state of the world. And I do not think this has anything to do with Pawel living in Poland - I doubt this would have been any different if he was in the USA or elsewhere.
You all know that I am a big fan of telecommuting and coworking and one of the doomsayers about the future existence of the institution of 'The Office'. And you also know that I am a…
clock | December 6, 2008You build a mine where the ore is. And facilities right next to the mine, to extract the metals from it. And a factory next to it that turns the raw metal into parts and objects. And a train station or a port next to it, so you can move the objects to the stores you built where the people are. And you also build a town where all your employees will live.
That's how it's always been done.
You cannot work the land, without living on it and getting your boots muddy. If you are hoarding something valuable, you need to hire night-guards who will actually show up at work. I understand, there…
clock | November 22, 2008This is where I was last night.... it was great fun, lots of people, lots of enthusiasm. Congratulations to Brian for pulling it off!
clock | November 16, 2008There is quite a lot of chatter around the intertubes about changes in the communication environment that happened between the last and this election and how those changes may be affecting the way the new White House communicates to people as well as how the new White House will receive communications from the people.
A lot of people are impatient - they want to see everything in place right this moment. Easy, guys! The inauguration is on January 20th. Until that time, Bush is the President and the Obama communications folks have time to think through, design and implement communication…
clock | October 20, 2008This I first posted on June 24, 2004 on www.jregrassroots.org, then republished on August 23, 2004 on Science And Politics. I love re-posting this one every now and then, just to check how much the world has changed. What do you think? Was I too rosy-eyed? Prophetic?
In the beginning there were grunts, tom-tom drums, smoke signals, and the guy on the horse riding from village to village reading the latest King's Edict. That is Phase I in the evolution of media.
Phase II was ushered in by Gutenberg. Remember the beginning of Protestantism? Luther nailing copies of his pamhlet on the doors…
clock | October 2, 2008Great article in Carrboro Commons today - I know because I'm in it! The concepts of 'work' and 'office' are changing and those in the information economy are starting to adapt to the new world:
Creative Coworking offers a new dynamic:
"People left the office and cubicle and they say, 'OK, I'm going to break out.' ... So you start doing that. You work at home. You want to get something better than the couch, so you get a table. ... You start creating an office in a spare bedroom. That works great for a while," Russell said.
"Then you get a little bored, and your spouse is like, 'Why haven't…
clock | August 24, 2008You know I am excited about Carrboro Creative Coworking. Looking at the pricing list which was released today, I think there will be a place for me there I can afford....
clock | August 22, 200812 New Rules of Working You Should Embrace Today. As you know, point #4 is one of my pet peeves:
4. People don't have to be in an office. This is the one I wish most businesses would get, right now, right away. It's so obvious once you get away from the traditional mindset. Traditionally, people worked in offices (and of course most still do). They go into the office, do their work, go to meeting, process paperwork, chat around the watercooler, clock out and go home.
These days, more and more, that's not necessary. With mobile computing, the cloud, online apps and collaborative processes,…
clock | August 21, 2008Carrboro Creative Coworking, a brilliant local project spearheaded by Brian Russell, is now a reality. The lease has been signed!
Carrboro Creative Coworking now has a lease for office space at 205 Lloyd Street, Suite 101 in downtown Carrboro! It's 3,049 square feet and has nine small offices, two conference rooms, a kitchen, and public work space. The TARGET opening date for CCC is Wednesday, October 1, 2008. Stay tuned for exact dates and grand opening party info. :)
To launch this business I need your help now. Its essential that I pre-sell as many services as I can. This will fulfill a…
clock | August 15, 2008Why Rage? Because Henry inspired me (though Mrs.Gee made him edit out the 'excessive' language). Why 2.0? Because I am all gung-ho about everything 2.0. So there!
So, like Henry, I will now proceed to rage about something....
Hotels
I've been traveling a lot lately, often staying in some very top-of-the-line hotels around the USA and Europe. Lovely hotels. Very comfortable. Very clean. Great service. Good food. Lots of cool amenities. More and more environmentally friendly. Nothing really to complain about. And I certainly do not want to single out Millennium UN Plaza hotel just…
clock | August 5, 2008Today, I have everything I need on my computer, and so do most working scientists as well. Papers can be found online because journals are online (and more and more are Open Access). Protocols are online. Books are online. Writing and collaboration tools are online. Communication tools are online. Data collection and data analysis and data graphing and paper-writing tools are all on the computer. No need for having any paper in the office, right? Right.
But remember how new that all is. The pictures (under the fold, the t-shirt is of Acrocanthosaurus at the NC Museum of Natural…
clock | June 6, 2008....so I never get to the point at which I am driven to behave like this:
One day soon, people will look back at videos like this one and wonder in astonishment that people in the past had to go to a place to work! That there used to be such a thing as the office! And that people wasted time, energy and polluting materials in order to get there! And that there was such a thing as a mental division between 'Work' and 'Life'! And that people traveled short distances every day instead of long trips every now and then, just to see the world... Increased mobility (in physical and cyber space)…
clock | April 9, 2008A May 9, 2007 post, wondering to telecommute or not.
I will be offline for a couple of days so I will not be able to post at my usual frantic pace. Instead, I decided to write something that will take you a couple of days to read through: a very long, meandering post, full of personal anecdotes. But there is a common theme throughout and I hope you see where I'm going with it and what conclusions I want you to draw from it.
Pigeons, crows, rats and cockroaches
I was born and grew up in a big, dirty city and I am not going back (my ex-Yugoslav readers have probably already recognized the…
clock | March 31, 2008Words of wisdom (via):
The internet isn't a decoration on contemporary society, it's a challenge to it. A society that has an internet is a different kind of society than a society that doesn't.
I agree. And people, regardless of chronological age, appear to separate along "generational" lines, with the word "generation" really meaning how much they grok the immenseness of the societal change. It changes everything: politics, economics, media, science, environment, public health, business.... The "old" generation thinks of the Internet as yet another place to put their traditional…