GigaOM » collaborative space

The future of work spaces: Modular environments

Jessica Stillman — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:56:20 +0000

Tech is allowing teams to be more flexible, hiring folks from far away, sourcing talent for project-based work online and letting team members work from home, a coworking space or wherever will help them be the most productive on any given day. Will our physical office spaces follow suit, developing an analogous level of flexibility through the use of modular enivornments?

That’s what PSFK pondered recently in a post by Scott Lachut who reports that the PFSK Consulting Team has “noticed that office furniture and equipment is being designed with modularity and flexibility in mind, allowing spaces to be customized in the moment to suit the immediate needs of employees.”

“These designs can shift to accommodate solo work spaces or be expanded into larger arrangements for team meetings, giving workers the option of changing the office environment to match their current work style,” he continues. Examples include Steelcase’s Campfire Screens, which are semi-transparent, corner-shaped dividers that can be used to delineate a temporary “room” in an open area, and Buzzispace’s modular solutions, which the company claims create an “acoustic cocoon” that cuts through chatter and offers privacy in noisy open spaces. There’s even an inflatable semi-circle room from Office in a Bucket that Lachut says, “inflates within eight minutes.”

Lachut suggests several ways these types of innovative furnishings might suit current office reality by, for example, by balancing the need for collaboration-encouraging openness with the need for “speech privacy.” But is anyone actually putting the modular office idea into practice in the real world? Boulder, Colorado-based project management tools company Rally Software is one early adopter. The company recently explained to Inc.com how their R&D division designed their own office. Steve Stolt, a product-line manager in the R&D organization, told Inc about his department’s move to new premises:

The folks in R&D knew exactly what they wanted: flexibility. The tough part about space planning, typically, is dealing with the constraints: walls, power and network hardlines. To solve the walls problem, we decided to have “t-walls” built. These are “T” shaped walls on wheels. They come in a variety of different heights, and some have transparent portions like windows, while others have white boards built in. We chose these because someone had seen something similar at the Stanford d.school. To handle the power and network challenges, we ran power grids on the ceiling. These grids allow us to drop a power line anywhere we need it. We also use these grids to run network hard lines. Our desks and chairs are all fairly portable as well.

On move-in day, our desks, chairs and computers were there, carefully piled in the corner. We also had our t-walls and power grids ready to go. Remember when you built forts as a kid? That’s pretty much what this was like. The R&D teams love the new space.

Interested in more ideas on how offices design is shifting to accommodate the future of work? Check out MIT Technology Review‘s gallery of innovative offices for a more mobile and collaborative workforce.

Could a modular approach work for your office?

Image courtesy of Buzzispace.

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Zcope: Collaboration and Project Management Combined

Simon Mackie — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:26:48 +0000

Zcope may have a slightly silly name (apparently it’s pronounced “Scope”), but it’s a collaboration and project management tool with plenty of potential and some useful features.

Like competing project management web apps in this space, such as Basecamp and producteev, Zcope provides the ability to manage tasks and offers an online space to share documents with your team. It’s nicely designed, but what makes Zcope stand out is that it has more complex and useful project management features than is found in many competing apps. Rather than just being able to assign tasks and due dates, for example, you can assign costs to users and track time using the app, so you can see whether your projects are proceeding to budget.

You set up Zcope so that it’s accessed via a specific subdomain, so you can set up yourcompany.zcope-engine.com to share with anyone you need to access your project management platform. Adding other users to the app is straightforward so you can share project data with all the stakeholders who might be interested. Usefully, it has privacy controls: confidential tasks and milestones can be set as “for internal use only,” which means they won’t be seen by customers or others.

One interesting feature is the ability to create project blog posts. It’s not a particularly fancy CMS, but blog posts can be linked to tasks and/or milestones, which could make for a useful collaboration tool to help keep everyone informed of progress on specific tasks and issues.

Zcope does have a few quirks. It’s a German app that’s been translated into English; some of the copy on the site reads a little strangely, and it uses commas instead of periods for the decimal mark. That quirkiness, coupled with the fact it has some more complex project management features, could be somewhat off-putting and make the app a little tricky to figure out. However, despite this, I found it pretty easy to use (it also has a useful FAQ and documentation page). If you’re looking for a solid collaboration tool with features like costs and budget management, it’s worth checking out. Various plans are available depending on the number of users and amount of storage space required; a 30-day free trial is available.

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Working in Teams: Dropbox to the Rescue!

pamelapoole — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:00:06 +0000

The work I do is generally pretty solitary, but in the last couple of months, I’ve had to work with teams more than usual, and it’s been Dropbox to the rescue every time. Even if you think you have filesharing handled with networked computers, Google Docs, or something else, I strongly encourage you to check out Dropbox.

Dropbox is simple, yet rich. And it’s got more going for it than simple file transfer and cloud storage. In fact, what makes it really special is the file syncing. You can work with your Dropbox files and folders locally, right on your computer, and they’re automatically synced with the files on the website. And it will also work with the most popular mobile devices: iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android.

Here are some examples of how Dropbox has come in handy for me lately:

I was part of a team of writers who were covering a major conference. The team leader had a lot of info to organize and share with the writers and her co-leader in advance (session plans, speaker bios, schedules, travel info, etc.). She wanted something that would be more efficient than email, save her some time, and keep her, the team, and the materials organized. I spent 10 minutes on the phone walking her through Dropbox explaining specifically how I thought it would work for her, and she was sold. One of her challenges was that some of the writers were not very tech- or web-savvy; Dropbox’s easy-to-use interface interface was essential to their adopting her system and the tool.
My husband and I manage translation projects. He deals with the clients, I deal with the translators. In the last two months we’ve had to manage 10 projects involving 28 translators, and that can get a little hairy. Even though our computers are networked, we have all the files we use for job tracking in a Dropbox folder. We update the files when it’s convenient, and because the files are all kept in sync we know that we’re working with the most current info. Also, when I needed to get huge PDF user manuals to translators for reference, I just created a Dropbox folder for that purpose and sent them all invites.
A client lost 90 Mb of files that I’d delivered months earlier and needed them urgently. He sent me a Dropbox invite and he had the files in minutes.
I installed Dropbox on my iPhone and another app called PlainText, which automatically creates its own folder in my Dropbox. Twice in the last couple of weeks, I’ve jotted down notes in PlainText on my iPhone while at semi-social, semi-work lunches with people. When I got home, my notes were already stored on my computer and I could follow up effortlessly.

If you want to see what else Dropbox can do, check out Scott’s How I Use Dropbox For Maximum Productivity.

A 2Gb Dropbox is free. Pro accounts offer more storage; a Pro 50 account provides 50 Gb and costs $9.99 per month, while a Pro 100 account offers 100 Gb of storage for $19.99 per month.

How do you use Dropbox?

Photo by stock.xchng user tatlin.

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Qwaq Not All It's Cracked Up to Be

Aliza Sherman — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:00:54 +0000

Call me skeptical. Call me cynical. Call me shortsighted. But I just can’t see what the new company Qwaq offers that is different or better than what is already out there. Here’s how the company describes its offering:

Qwaq, Inc. creates virtual spaces for real work. The company’s product, Qwaq Forums, is the leading secure virtual workspace application for the enterprise, and enables collaboration in ways that weren’t possible before. Designed for enterprises and groups with distributed teams, Qwaq Forums significantly increases productivity by bringing critical resources together in virtual spaces, and allowing people to work together as if they were in the same physical location.

Can someone say “Second Life?” or any other virtual world or virtual world application already out there?

I have a 30-day trial access to Qwaq, have logged into the Welcome Forum and followed the 3 minute tutorial that explained about:

moving around,
my avatar, and
documents.

I’m thinking – hey, there’s nothing to it. Simple and easy is a good thing, right?

Then as I experimented with building my own office – one with a modern, warm “decor” – I began thinking that…there’s nothing to it. Basically, you can “build” a space such as a campus, a conference room (blue for boys, rose for girls?), a gallery, a modern office (cool or warm colors), a personal office and several other configurations. Breaking it down, this is how Qwaq felt to me:

1. Moving around: I can use either my keyboard or arrows to move my avatar and view around. This is basically the same set of controls for Second Life and other virtual world environments out there, so nothing revolutionary here. Moving around as a new user is just as quirky and clunky and takes time to get used to the flow.

2. My avatar: Ugly. I look like colored boxes stacked on top of each other. It is almost embarrassing how primitive the avatars in Qwaq look. I saw a promo image of a more “custom” avatar and it consists of the photo of a person’s face on the top box that represents the avatar’s head. How can you seriously interact with a business colleague when they look like a box with their photo pasted on it?

3. Documents: This may be where Qwaq has a slight leg up over Second Life and more or less of an advantage over other virtual world environments depending on their document integration tools. On Qwaq, I simply drag a document into my virtual office space, and it appears on the office wall about a minute later, either fully readable or editable, depending on the file type.

Qwaq offers true document integration in a virtual space whereas Second Life users, for example, still struggle to find the right tools to handle a PowerPoint presentation versus a collaborative document or whiteboard. They do include voice capabilities, and although I haven’t tried it, I’m venturing to guess it is much more stable than Second Life’s voice feature.

They also have a useful feature: a 3-D pointer that works similar to a real-life laser pointer so collaborators can draw attention to something.

Despite the cool pointer, I can’t help but think that Qwaq is a watered down version of the more elegant, graphically enhanced and feature rich environments of virtual worlds. Even a cartoonish world like There.com at least has avatars that appear to be people rather than cardboard boxes. And any meeting space in Second Life that is well-designed makes Qwaq’s virtual spaces look like…cardboard boxes.

If I’m going to be doing collaborative work with my clients or team members in a virtual space, I would much prefer that space to have some degree of aesthetics in addition to functionality. Otherwise, I might as well just use 2-D collaborative Web-based tools because they simply…work.

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Lenovo X300: “an exercise in balance”

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:16:41 +0000

No doubt you’ve already read a few reviews of the Lenovo X300 notebook, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to point out one more because it’s from Sal Cangeloso over at Geek.com. James and I both have the pleasure of knowing Sal; he’s a fantastic device reviewer who provides a judicious viewpoint and that’s why I enjoyed his review. Sal hits upon one of the main themes of the X300 in a way that I think our readers will appreciate:

“The ThinkPad X300 is an exercise in balance. It’s designers were tasked with balancing performance and usability with size and weight and they did an excellent job. Sacrifices were made, like the dropped expansion slot and the lack of a card reader, but on the whole the system is extremely impressive. “

Other reviewers have looked at the X300 by comparing it to other devices, which is the obvious and easy way to go. But Sal’s thought above echoes a central theme that we’ve hit here time and time again: mobile technology is about compromise. It’s a great read so if you’re considering the X300, you’ll want to hit it. Nice job, Sal. Now if we could just get Lenovo to include a small screwdriver with every purchase, I think we’d see a few more sales. ;)

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No More NBC Shows on iTunes?

Liz Gannes — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 07:47:51 +0000

NBC Universal is saying it won’t renew an agreement to sell its television shows on Apple’s iTunes, according to the New York Times.

NBC is iTunes’ No. 1 supplier of digital video to Apple’s online store, with 40 percent of total downloads. The situation has a sad irony to it, in that my favorite NBC show, The Office, was said to be saved from being canceled last year due to its unexpected popularity on iTunes. I’d been planning to download it from iTunes like I had the last two seasons, but I guess I’ll have to make other plans.

Luckily, there are increasing numbers of legal outlets to find full episodes of NBC shows online — including the yet-to-launch project NBC is involved with, now called Hulu. Die-hard fans won’t have to look too hard to find another way. But it’s silly that the content isn’t available where people like to enjoy it.

NBC is reportedly demanding more flexibility in bundling its programming together, and talks with Apple are said to be continuing, so it’s possible the iTunes situation could turn around. The original deal doesn’t expire until December, so at least the 1,500 hours of current offerings (and possibly the new fall episodes?) will be available till then.

NBC’s move follows a similar one in July by Universal Music Group to drop its long-term arrangement to sell music on Apple’s terms.

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Gary’s on the clock

Om Malik — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 16:06:00 +0000

Finally the noose is beginning to tighten around Global (Double) Crossing promoter, Gary Winnick. The New York Times has a brilliant article in today’s edition about how Gary is now fighting with the same dudes who financed his scam. I love this quote by Judge Gerald Lynch overseeing the case: “I am prepared to look at this case as, with all respect to the people involved, a bunch of crooks getting sued by a bunch of bankers who are too dumb to stop throwing money down the toilet.” The article basically highlights the Horatio Alger type rise, fall and rise of Winnick, that fat kid from Long Island. Susan Kalla, a telecom analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey, sums up my feelings when she says, “I believe this guy has set American business culture back greatly. He wasted billions and billions of dollars that could have been spent on far more useful purposes. He’s set innovation in the industry back by a decade because he, and others like him, beat investors down so badly.” The article is a great read, even if a rehash of the old stories. If you read Broadbandits, then you are quite aware of the scope of the fraud. Anyway if you have not read Broadbandits, buy a copy.

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