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Office Worker Factories

Dynamic Work — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:49:26 GMT

‘Office Worker Factories’ are on their own deathbed. .

The ‘Industrial Age’ of the 20^th century was defined by factories that produced goods at scale. When you mention ‘Industrial’, people think Rust Belt, smokestack, blue-collar engines of manufacturing. But just as prominent to the Industrial Age (probably more so in the final decades) were the ‘Office Worker Factories’. Behemoths of assembly-line processing by white-collared, college educated ‘knowledge workers’. But just as automation and globalisation has displaced most of the Rosie the Riveters, the same forces have now made redundant the legions of Peter the Paper Pushers. Documented in William Whyte’s classic ‘Organization Man’, regimented In and Out Trays worked on synchronised 9-to-5 shifts managed by overseers.

The ‘Service’ economy (eg. finance, information technology, logistics) has long looked down its nose at ‘Manufacturing’ sector as outdated and obsolete. Little did it realise that the Service sector is just Manufacturing’s younger sibling. Now it too has hit its dotage in the Industrial family.

Seth Godin recently penned a post “The forever recession (and the coming revolution)” which dramatically dissected the decline of the staid, fixed, old infrastructure across all sectors of the economy. Clearing the way is the Dynamic new approaches to business…

There are actually two recessions: The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes…The other recession, though, the one with the loss of ‘good factory jobs’ and systemic unemployment--I fear that this recession is here forever. Why do we believe that jobs where we are paid really good money to do work that can be systemized, written in a manual and/or exported are going to come back ever? The internet has squeezed inefficiencies out of many systems, and the ability to move work around, coordinate activity and digitize data all combine to eliminate a wide swath of the jobs the industrial age created…The industrial age, the one that started with the industrial revolution, is fading away. It is no longer the growth engine of the economy and it seems absurd to imagine that great pay for replaceable work is on the horizon.

I'm not a pessimist, though, because the new revolution, the revolution of connection, creates all sorts of new productivity and new opportunities…Most of the wealth created by this revolution doesn't look like a job, not a full time one anyway. When everyone has a laptop and connection to the world, then everyone owns a factory. Instead of coming together physically, we have the ability to come together virtually, to earn attention, to connect labor and resources, to deliver value.

Stressful? Of course it is. No one is trained in how to do this, in how to initiate, to visualize, to solve interesting problems and then deliver. Some see the new work as a hodgepodge of little projects, a pale imitation of a 'real' job. Others realize that this is a platform for a kind of art, a far more level playing field in which owning a factory isn't a birthright for a tiny minority but something that hundreds of millions of people have the chance to do.

This revolution is at least as big as the last one, and the last one changed everything.”

Skype-mas

Dynamic Work — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:16:56 GMT

Dilbert steps up the incisive wit on the techno-laggards whose outdated approaches are the #1 impediment to the growth of Dynamic Work. Seemed appropriate today having just gotten off a video call with family across the Atlantic for an extended video chat, including a couple of video ‘tours’ of new things to show off, sharing our Christmas Day together. Oh, and the total cost of this space age technology…zero. Ho, ho, ho.

Education Factories

Dynamic Work — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 15:37:52 GMT

Yes, it is back to school season. But Seth Godin’s incisive plea for such restructuring of education suggests that it may be ‘Back to (the wrong) school’ season.

Education factories fill Office Worker factories. Part of many Dynamic Work transformations includes a range of re-skilling and education around new tools, new ways of working, new ways of communicating. But as the world moves inexorably to Dynamic Working (and those not so moving get left behind at their peril), we can start the readiness much earlier. Back in school, for example.

“Part of the rationale to sell this major transformation to industrialists was that educated kids would actually become more compliant and productive workers. Our current system of teaching kids to sit in straight rows and obey instructions isn't a coincidence--it was an investment in our economic future. The plan: trade short-term child labor wages for longer-term productivity by giving kids a head start in doing what they're told... Do you see the disconnect here? Every year, we churn out millions of of worker who are trained to do 1925 labor... As long as we embrace (or even accept) standardized testing, fear of science, little attempt at teaching leadership and most of all, the bureaucratic imperative to turn education into a factory itself, we’re in big trouble.”

Dynamic Classroom

Dynamic Work — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:13:12 GMT

Dynamic Work can start in the Dynamic Classroom.

This is ‘Back to School’ season and I have done a few pieces in one of my other blogs (‘Leadership and Management / Turning Adversity to Advantage’) on the timely subject. Both pieces feature endorsements of ‘dynamic work’ applied to the classroom.

Diane Laufenberg’s TED talk explored new modes of flexible learning and complemented, as with Dynamic Work, with the latest technology like laptops which could go between home and class...

“I moved there primarily to be part of a learning environment that validated the way that I knew that kids learned, and that really wanted to investigate what was possible when you are willing to let go of some of the paradigms of the past, of information scarcity when my grandmother was in school and when my father was in school and even when I was in school, and to a moment when we have information surplus. So what do you do when the information is all around you? Why do you have kids come to school if they no longer have to come there to get the information?”

FailureMag’s piece on ‘Geeks’ proposed unconventional furnishing to areas like the cafeteria to promote intermingling and the breakdown of destructive cliques (‘Dynamic Lunch’!)...

“One of the easiest things a school can do is to change the cafeteria seating so that there are a varying number of chairs at each table to accommodate groups of different sizes. And schools can set out a handful of loose chairs so that floaters—kids who don’t belong to any single group—can go from table to table and don’t have to feel they have to choose one group and stay there.”

The Filing Cabinet

Dynamic Work — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:20:42 GMT

While Dynamic Work is growing in mainstream acceptance daily, it is still seen as rather forward thinking by most. Actually, the thinking has been around for decades. Admittedly by one of the most prescient social commentators ever – Marshall McLuhan. One of those seers insanely ahead of his time like Gaudi, da Vinci and Lloyd Wright. In this television interview (thanks Eileen), he describes the heart of Dynamic Work with chilling foresight. He envisions the ‘Internet’ long before its invention described as a variation of ‘closed circuit TV’ (not far off there).

Here he describes the insanity of the current structure of the workplace and how new approaches will change all of this including more distributed working environments...

“In our own world, we are hurrying back and forth across town morning and night to situations which we could quite easily encompass by close circuit. Why do the wheels keep hurrying us downtown? As some people are puzzled by this and have come up with the answer, it’s the filing cabinet. Downtown and the offices that makes it still necessary to rush back and forth from suburb to the office. That it is this obsession with the contents of the file...documents, contracts, data. All of these materials could be available, actually, on closed circuit at home. The stockbroker long ago discovered this. That the telephone enables him to conduct his business anywhere.”

Elaborate Science Experiment

Dynamic Work — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:01:43 GMT

The resistance to Dynamic Working revealed...

Synchronicity, Intimacy and Productivity

Dynamic Work — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:53:28 GMT

Seth Godin has been a real inspiration to me in marketing (‘Purple Cow’ which inspired the ‘Best Of Maldives’ section to my Maldives Complete blog) as well as in Leadership and Management / Embracing Failure.

Godin even offers some sage insights into workstyles and the balance between when face-to-face is important and when getting people out of your face is important. Unfortunately, traditional work environments with their one-size-fits-all don’t readily cater to this dichotomy.

“A shortcut to customer and co-worker intimacy is to respond in real time. A phone call is more human than an email, a personal meeting has more impact than a letter. On the other hand, when you do your work on someone else's schedule, your productivity plummets, because you are responding to the urgent, not the important, and your rhythm is shot. The shortcut analysis, it seems to me, is to sort by how important it is that your interactions be intimate. If it's not vitally important that you increase the energy and realism of the relationship, then insert a buffer. Build blocks of time to do serious work, work that's not interrupted by people who need to hear from you in real time, right now. On the other hand, for interactions when only a hug or a smile will do, allocate the time and the schedule to be present. Confusing the two is getting easier than ever, and it's killing your ability to do great work.”

I’m doing research for Maldives Complete right now (my dynamic work space has taken me to underneath a palm tree in the Indian Ocean) and I often get asked ‘What is the best Maldive resort?’ (there are over 100 of them). My answer is ‘There is no best resort, there is only the best resort for you.’ The same response applies to dynamic working. I often get asked, ‘What is the best work environment?’ There is now best environment, only the best environment for the combination of you and your work to be done.

Technorati Tags: Seth Godin,Purple Cow,Maldives Complete,dynamic work

Hybrid Organisation

Dynamic Work — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:45:02 GMT

The bigger they are, the harder they toil.

That’s the finding of a recent study into workplace practices by Microsoft UK’s ‘Hybrid Organisation’ initiative.

“The study revealed that even though the majority of office workers want to work more flexibly, the larger the organisation, the less likely its employees are enabled to do so. Half of the people participating in the study said they lacked access to the most basic technology tools that would enable them to work away from the office.”

I found in my year working on Dynamic Work Ltd that the sweet-spot was organisations around 1,000 staff. Upper middle market. As the Vanson Bourne study highlights, the smaller companies do a pretty good job themselves of incorporating new and flexible ways of working. On the other hand, I found that large enterprises (ie. thousands of staff) simply had too much bureaucracy, legacy, complexity and inertia to get substantive innovations in the workplace moving.

Ironically, at the same time that Microsoft announced the advantages to changing business practices, especially when enabled by IT, it also announced that it was retiring the ‘Business Value Productivity’ service. When I left Microsoft to start ‘Dynamic Work Limited’, my biggest impetus was the opportunity that these BVPS services (provided by partners such as I was setting Dynamic Work Ltd to be) presented. Not only did I feel strongly about the ‘New World of Work’ principles, but I felt that the Business Value coupons would really motivate and help companies to make bold steps in these directions. Conversely, one of the big reasons I chose to discontinue with Dynamic Work Limited commercially (though I continue to do writing and activism like I am doing right here and now), was the eventual realisation that Microsoft was neither supporting the New World of Work initiative nor the Business Value services. These initiatives were brochureware to adorn their websites and and keynotes.

The report has some valid research that provides helpful data points for people trying to make a business case for more dynamic working. Some fine case studies of the likes of Macquarie Bank, Nuffield Health and GlaxoSmithKline. It also features some useful models such as the ‘Follow Me Organisation’ and the ‘Bump Organisation’. Unfortunately, given Microsoft’s erratic track record in this area, the piece itself smacks of being little more than a PR exercise for Microsoft rather than heartfelt or inspired innovation.

Crying Babies

Dynamic Work — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:14:00 GMT

Last week’s Dilbert cartoon highlights a common misconception about Dynamic Work. The notion that changes mean a loss of something when in reality, when done properly, it introduces the addition of something.

This cartoon pokes fun at losing privacy and quiet space, when in actuality a Dynamic Work environment has lots of extra quiet spaces for people to work in. Those quiet spaces might be someone’s home. They might be a quiet remote spot in the countryside. They might be a specially designed work room.

You get the same reaction about introducing home or remote working. People fear that they will lose the camaraderie and serendipity of the office. But, again, Dynamic Work, means adding remote working space to centralised hub working space. There might be less space overall because the choice introduces a big efficiency. But people still have the best of both worlds – a place to hook up and meet face to face, and the options to ‘get away’.

The strip does highlight that there are no silver bullet solutions to workplace design. Only a holistic approach can get the right balance of resources and practices.

Technorati Tags: Dilbert,flexible working,open plan

Burning Pine

Dynamic Work — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 12:12:16 GMT

Yesterday, I met with fellow Microsoft alum Andrew Munro with whom I had endured extensive trench warfare on the frontlines at Microsoft. He has set up a consultancy, Burning Pine, which helps organisations to “navigate the future; exploring the unmapped” which parallels much of the mission and vision of Dynamic Work. I especially applaud his white paper ‘All Gone Home’ which highlights a number of central Dynamic Work themes.

“The prospect of creating a firm which is unfettered by the boundaries of geography, time or organisation is now a practical reality. Imagine people working together but in different parts of the world; covering different time-zones and also different working patterns (your best work is done as the sun rises, mine gets done somewhere around midnight); employees, partner firms and freelance professionals sharing information securely across time and space. Why bother with a physical office at all?”

From my ‘Leadership and Management’ perspective, I also enjoy his ‘Burning Pine’ name and logo which represents the ‘burning’ flash of upside (literally from the sky) of Leadership coupled with the (again, literally) grounded wisdom (limiting downside) of Management. Sweet metaphor.

Technorati Tags: Andrew Munro,Burning Pine,Microsoft,dynamic work,flexible working

Where We Are Available: Facebook Killer

Dynamic Work — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:43:14 GMT

The whole notion of ‘where you are available’, which I vetted a few years ago, is not only becoming more accepted, but is actually becoming a bit of an explosion. The biggest incarnation is the whole Foursquare trend.

Dilbert’s Scott Adams also chimed in on the concept with his own post titled ‘Facebook Killer’.

“Here's the Facebook killer part of my post. As I mentioned, Facebook is primarily a record of your past. Imagine a competing service that I will name Futureme for convenience. It's an online system in which you post only your plans, both immediate and future...The interface for Futureme is essentially a calendar, much like Outlook. But it would include extra layers for hopes and goals that don't have specific dates attached. For every entry to your Futureme calendar, you specify who can see it, including advertisers. If you allow advertisers a glimpse of a specific plan, it would be strictly anonymous. Advertisers could then feed you ads specific to your plan, while not knowing who they sent it to...The biggest benefit of the system could come from your network of friends and business associates. Suppose you post on the system that you would like to see a Bon Jovi concert sometime in the next year. Now your friends - the ones you specify to see this specific plan - can decide if they want in on it. Maybe someone you know can get free tickets, and someone has a van and is willing to be the designated driver. Maybe someone has a contact that can get you backstage passes. By broadcasting your plan, you make it possible for others to improve your plan.”

Adams extends the concept from sharing ‘where’ you’ll be ‘available’ to ‘what’ you will be ‘doing’. That way the people who might want to intersect and augment what you are ‘doing’ can contribute not just by joining you, but perhaps with some other service or support. Adams even sees the direct link with the concept at the Outlook tool as I highlighted. Maybe someday Microsoft will innovate in this area after all.

Technorati Tags: Scott Adams,where you are available,Futureme,Foursquare

Agile Work

Dynamic Work — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:22:31 GMT

Strange how corporate titans who passionately espouse the freest of free-market economics in their politics, then run their own enterprises like a dictatorship.

Yes, the free-market has its inefficiencies and hazards (as the recent economic downturn has starkly illustrated). But to paraphrase Churchill, “It’s the worst system...except for all the others that have been tried.”

Dynamic Work really applies a lot of free-market principles to the internal workings of organisations. Resources are not allocated by status, rank or hierarchy. But instead, they are allocated flexibly and dynamically to those who can make the best use of them.

My new role takes me back to the heart of technology again, but the principles of Dynamic Work share so much in common from this domain. The Piero Technology and Development Manager Sean Hoskins has introduced more Agile Programming techniques into Piero’s development methodology and in his investigation into the area came upon ‘Agile Open’ and their page on Open Space which has a number of excellent and concise principles for running productive meetings which covers dynamic principles including...

Opening
Marketplace of Ideas
Break-out Sessions
Closing
Bumblebees and Butterflies

I particularly promote the principle of ‘all meetings are voluntary’. It is the responsibility of the meeting organiser/owner/scheduler to create enough benefit to the meeting for the participant to want to invest those hours of their time. The most tell-tale sign of a time-wasting meeting is when the corporate 3-line-whip goes out mandating attendance.

Some people will protest that some meetings are required by law for safety and compliance regulations. Not so. The regulations require ‘training’ and this does not have to be done in a classroom environment (Microsoft delivers all of its safety, compliance and mandated training through online courses).

Why Nothing Gets Done

Dynamic Work — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:43:00 GMT

Flexible means stripping away fixed alignment and ownership. All resources are flexible. To be pooled and applied to the work load needed. The concept is central to the architecture of Virtualisation technology. But the approach does impose a new requirement for managing the resources and demands on them. Collaboration software like Microsoft Exchange can be a very useful tool to manage this vital resource with the Calendaring function.

In day-to-day office routine one of the most critical and often contentiously shared resources is the ‘Conference Room’. While I maintain that most companies are over-invested in fixed infrastructure like offices, for the office space that they do have, there is one primary and bona fide use for it...getting people together. If it is not about getting people together, then by definition the work content can most likely be done distributed. And the conventional resource for ’getting together’ is the conference room. While the whole notion of a conference room, with its classic big table in the centre a fluorescent-lit four walls, tends to be unimaginative and dated, it remains a vital tool. And one of the first challenges is simply getting one’s hands on one.

But a tool is only as good as its users. Even when properly structured, bad behaviour like the common syndrome that Dilbert illustrates above derails the whole system. When people talk about ‘change management’ starting with executive sponsorship, they don’t mean the top guy sending out a cheerleading memo, but rather the leaders leading the way with role model behaviour. That’s why one of my first recommendations for companies that truly want to promote aggressive adoption of flexible working is for the CEO/MD to be the first person to get rid of their office/desk. And to abide by the Conference Room booking protocols. 72AJWHBNJW56

Technorati Tags: Dilbert,conference rooms,collaboration,Microsoft Exchange,virtualisation

The Future of Work

Dynamic Work — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:34:00 GMT

I think most everyone has now seen the seminal ‘Shift Happens’ video slide show which flies through a fact are arresting facts and figures about our changing world we live, work and play in. Hat tip to Katie and Barry whose Portfolio Working blog posted this variation, ‘The Future of Work’, focusing just on the radical changes in the workplace afoot done in the same style.

Technorati Tags: Future of Work,dynamic work,Katie Ledger,Barry Hobson,Portfolio Working,Shift Happens

What do laundromat’s, funerals and camp sites have in common?

Dynamic Work — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:47:04 GMT

...They’re all great place to work. A least according to a recent study by Microsoft on the productivity impacts of telecommuting (as I happen to be recently speaking of Microsoft and ‘Great Places to Work)’…

“Sixty percent of respondents to the Microsoft Telework survey — conducted among 3,600 employees in 36 cities nationwide — say they are actually more productive and efficient when working remotely. With less time spent commuting and fewer cubicle “drive bys” causing distractions, respondents say, more time can be spent on the task in front of them. The catch? By and large, employers aren’t catching on. Only 41 percent of those surveyed work for companies with established remote-working policies, and just 15 percent believe their company supports flexible work arrangements. Despite a wealth of new technologies that can facilitate collaboration among workers no matter where they are, employers are still concerned about whether they’re getting the most from employees. “

The study also included a list of the Top Ten USA cities for Telecommuting (Boston, Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta, Denver, Kansas City, Richmond, Austin, New York, Sacramento, Portland). But the ‘places’ best suited for telecommuting that intrigued me the most were the types of locales people chose to work in. First, the number one selection was ‘Other’ (43%) which combined with the variety of the other 16 top mentions (eg. laundromat, camping, doctor’s office, salon, movie theatre) underscored just how diverse the possibilities are. Secondly, the next highest selection was ‘Family Vacation’. Especially when combined with so many of the other mentions (eg. funeral, amusement park) undermines the fear of so many employers and bosses (specifically called out in the report...see quote above) that staff working remotely will shirk work. Conversely, it seems like it introduces work into whole new parts of the staffer’s life. Now that might eventually create its own problem, but that problem is ‘too much’ working not ‘too little’. If the employers want to get concerned about ‘too much’ working and focus attentions on addressing that issue, then that is an entirely different matter.

(thanks Chris)

European Great Places to Work Double

Dynamic Work — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 08:32:08 GMT

As I have commented a number of times, one of my most profound influences spurring me to set up Dynamic Work Ltd. was my experience working at Microsoft. I not only studied, but I had the privilege of living the ‘New World of Work’ as Microsoft earnestly dogfooded much of the innovative work styles that it preached.

This workplace innovation at Microsoft led its Microsoft Europe division to receive the accolade of #1 Great Place to Work in Europe last year. The innovation is just as relevant today as it was last year and Microsoft Europe has gone on to win the ‘Great Place to Work’ award (Large Companies, ie. over 500 staff) for the second time in a row this past earlier this year in an imposing repeat and strong endorsement of the power of new ways of working.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Great Place to Work,New World of Work

Dynamic Changes

Dynamic Work — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:35:06 GMT

Sometimes the dream overwhelms the vision. I have long maintained a vision where people worked more flexibly and dynamically. Dynamic Work Ltd. was a great undertaking to translate that vision into a viable business of helping organisations move in that direction. I was delighted with the support, interest and progress which reinforced my vision that this is the direction the world is going. However, the dream opportunity for me professionally and personally has presented itself.

As a result, I have taken the decision to cease offering Dynamic Work consulting services in order to take up the position of General Manager to a company called Piero. In use by 30 sports broadcasters in 20 countries, Piero is a platform for adding graphic effects and even 3D recreations that illuminate live video and highlight commentary.

Sometimes you can have your vision and your dream as well. As it happens, Piero has a heritage linked tightly to BBC who are UK innovators in the field of flexible working through their ‘BBC Flex’ programme and other initiatives. I look forward to working in an environment receptive to innovation where I can continue to live the vision as I follow this dream job.

I plan to continue posting to this blog regularly for those many readers who continue to take an interest in this dynamic topic.

Technorati Tags: Red Bee,Piero,BBC

Dynamic Work Surfaces

Dynamic Work — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:59:21 GMT

Dynamic Working can take all forms. It’s not just the digital tools, or human work practices, or work spaces that can be made more flexible and dynamic. The physical tools of desk, chairs, work surfaces, tables and a whole lot more can also be dynamic. Some of the best examples are inspiringly demonstrated in this video tweeted by my entrepreneurial muse and creative inspiration, Hugh Macleod.

WheelerKanik (the Dynamic Work partner in design) has done some outstanding designs for a recent Dynamic Work client which exploit modular desking components.

Technorati Tags: Hugh Macleod,WheelerKanik,design,dynamic work,Resource Furniture

World Cup Time Out

Dynamic Work — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:18:24 GMT

Not all time is created equal.

This reality is the problem with conventional time-motion productivity analysis. Perhaps in the 20th century Industrial Age of the assembly line manufacturing plant and paperwork factories and even a simpler, more routine home life, hours were more consistent. But the hour one spends getting married, watching a child win their first sports game or watching your favourite team in an international competition is not the same as 60 minutes sitting in traffic, sitting in a routine meeting or ploughing through administrative chores.

In a truly ‘free market’ of hours, staff and employers would have the ability to trade hours according to their value. A staffer might trade 2 hours of conventional work for 1 hour off to watch the World Cup. A company might trade 2 hours of conventional work for 1 hour of crisis handling on the weekend. In fact, the employer sort of has this kind of ‘marketplace’ in wage workplace where they can pay time-and-a-half and double-time for highly valued time periods.

Unfortunately, most workers usually do not have a corresponding ability to bid for time off. The problem is more difficult with exempt workers. They are paid a fixed salary and can be almost an implicit assumption that ‘all time’ is the company’s time (depending on the culture).

While the grand spectacle of the World Cup has given rise to a bunch of reports of ‘lost productivity’ fear mongering amongst the chattering fourth estate. “World Cup Could Cost UK £4 Billion” Most of these attention grabbing articles are based on out-dated logic that an hour is an hour. That people will find ways to watch the games, the games are during conventional work hours, ergo time is lost and time is money so money is lost.

More enlightened and innovative companies are using the World Cup to introduce some special work practices and bonuses to its workers like Asda and Screwfix. One of Microsoft’s leading partners and winner of the UK Best Place to Work 2010, Softcat, is showing how it is done by hosting World Cup viewing parties in their offices. No one is skiving off work today at Softcat! (and probably hardly ever do with that kind of enlightened approach).

Businesses should be looking at the World Cup as the least expensive staff morale opportunity to come along. Because fans will highly value their time watching the games above all else, they will value the hour given to them much more than the hour of elapsed clock time actually costs the company.

A classic win-win. Just like the England-USA 1-1 result for me as a UK-USA dual citizen. Perfect.

Technorati Tags: World Cup,Asda,Screwfix,productivity,Softcat

Minimus

Dynamic Work — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:55:00 GMT

While Dynamic Work can entail flexibility of many forms, one of the most prevalent is ‘Geographic’ mobility. One of the major constraints to such mobility is simply lugging stuff. If you have heavy tools you depend on, it is sometimes easier for you to go to the tools than for the tools to go with you. The electronics miniaturisation revolution (laptops, notebooks, PDAs, phones) has obviously been the primary enabler to greater mobility. But now workers are moving from carpal tunnel syndrome to sore backs carting heaving backpacks and computer bags.

For this challenge and others (eg. tighter restrictions on what travellers can carry on planes), I had always thought that a great business proposition would be somewhere that just sold the smallest versions of everything. To me, ‘small’ and ‘lightweight’ are increasingly critical USPs in an increasingly mobile world. As I investigated the area, I came upon an outfit that was inspired by the same vision and have executed it brilliantly – Minimus. While a number of online e-tailers carry some travel sized items and dabble in this concept, Minimus is the world leader by far with over 2000 products on offer and a range of services.

So impressed was I over Minimus that I got in touch with their founder and CEO Paul Shrater to learn more about the business. We shared similar visions and business approaches and the conversation has evolved into a partnership. While Minimus is strong in the US market, it has not really done much overseas especially due to the high costs of logistics and shipping. As a result, Dynamic Work has signed on to be Minimus’ agent and representative overseas to assist with a number of opportunities that have been presented to them.

If hauling your bag around is one of the considerations keeping you office bound, then have a look at www.minimus.biz for some great fixes to that problem.

Technorati Tags: Minimus,mobility

By Royal Proclamation

Dynamic Work — Mon, 31 May 2010 09:23:46 GMT

With all of the UK election and coalition mayhem sorted, the UK government can now get down to the business. The official starting pistol is the opening of Parliament quite literally crowned by a “Queen’s Speech” which sets out the new government’s challenges and agenda. The text included the expected subjects of foreign policy priorities, various proposed reforms and attention to the economic issues. But right up in the first ten initiatives stated was...

“My Government will remove barriers to flexible working...”

Technorati Tags: Queens Speech,Opening of Parliament,flexible working

The Flexi Decade

Dynamic Work — Tue, 25 May 2010 00:10:00 GMT

In my introduction to Dynamic Work, I speak of the surging business mega-trend towards flexibility in the current years...

“Dynamic Work is becoming as much of a business imperative for the new millennium as was embracing the PC in the 80s and embracing the Internet in the 90s.”

An organisation which shares my assessment of this trend is one I have supported for a number of years now, Working Families. They focus their lens on the trends in business around how businesses approach family issues which they distilled into...

1980s – ‘Movement Begins’ – “Work-life balance was primarily a ‘mother’s issue’ championed by women who wished to return to work. Interest from organisation centred on childcare as they sought to recruit and retain women.”
1990s – ‘Family Friendly Years’ – “Flexible working of all kinds evolved as a way for employers to enable women to reconcile work and family life.”
2000s – ‘The Flexi Decade’ – “Technology starts to have a more significant impact in changing how and where work is done, and employment regulations help support this change. Increasingly flexible working is seen as making ‘business sense; and linked into employee engagement and heightened performance”

Management By Sitting Around

Dynamic Work — Fri, 21 May 2010 12:07:57 GMT

Management By Walking Around’ (MBWO) has been meandering through the corridors of management gurudom for at least as long as I have been in the business these past two decades. Supposedly, it was first introduced by HP founders Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett and later popularised by management guru Tom Peters. The notion was that a manager who did not sit in his corner office, but instead came out and mingled with his team got two benefits. First, the staff would be inspired by a more regular, more direct relationship with their leader. Second, the manager would have a more direct, more spontaneous, more immediate understanding of the business and its issues.

In the world of Dynamic Work, the imperative to get out of the expensive, space-inefficient dedicated office is even more acute. But the prescribed alternative...’walking around’...might not be the best approach. Perhaps in an environment with hustle and bustle and toing and froing, the manager could slip stream right into the eddies of activity. But modern knowledge work is a bit more sedentary grounded around the central tool of the PC. The PC anchors the knowledge worker who then pivots to phone, to other tasks and to chatting with colleagues.

When I run Business Value Productivity Services workshops with companies, the spontaneous and serendipitous interaction between team members is often raised as an extremely critical ‘shadow’ business process. In the open plan environments that predominate in many UK companies, the low partition desk units facilitate this casual interchange and collaboration. To take this principle of MBWO into the modern office, however, I propose that one changes from ‘Management By Walking Around’ (MBWO) to ‘Management By Sitting Around’ (MBSA).

Managers can take their PC work (emails, spreadsheets, documents, online resources) anywhere (save a few exceptions for some confidential stuff). And that includes smack down in the middle of their team. I practiced this approach as a senior manager at Microsoft and the dividends were massive.

More Relaxed Sharing - By my mere proximity and involvement in trivial banter, the staff felt more comfortable in raising small issues on the fly. For many issues, they would otherwise not have wanted to make a ‘big deal’ out of by getting up, coming over to an office and making a pronounced interruption. But often, these small issues served as considerable obstacles to them moving forward. The one minute, quick, casual answer from me saved them many minutes of wrestling with it for no purpose. Also, keeping close to these ‘small’ issues gave me a much better sense of the bigger issues in the team as I had many more data points of real instances of things that were actually impeding progress.
Passive Mentoring - My location allowed for a degree of casual and indirect mentoring. Many team members sat in ear shot. They could hear me on routine phone calls which allowed them to see how I dealt with and articulated a range of subjects. They could overhear the answers I gave to the people who shouted out their quick questions (it was not unusual after I responded to a team member’s question for someone to shout out, ‘what was that you said?...I’m having the same problem...’).
More Natural - I have seen some of the more ‘pointy-hair’ breed of managers try MBWO (see Dilbert above), and often it is awkward, contrived and sometimes downright creepy. These managers have read their guru articles, but just aren’t sure what to do next once they start their pathetic peripatetics. The ‘Sitting Around’ approach is much more natural. If push comes to shove, the manager just goes ahead and does what they would have done at their desk.

Technorati Tags: Tom Peters,Management By Walking Around,MBWA,dynamic work,flexible working

Designed for Collaboration

Dynamic Work — Sun, 09 May 2010 08:00:00 GMT

One of the core objectives of Dynamic Work is to reduce expensive office space. This objective is not because ‘offices’ are inherently ‘bad’...just expensive and often ineffectively used. A simple way to reduce both is to simply get rid of the offices. But the fact remains that ‘office space’ is actually a useful business tool for some critical business functions. The most prominent of which is collaboration. People come to the office not to do email, not to work on spreadsheets, not to write copy, not to cut code. People come to the office to work with other people.

The office is a central meeting ground for staff and team members to come together for joint effort. The issue often becomes ‘if collaboration is the main purpose for paying for expensive office space, then why is that space configured so poorly for collaboration.’ Most office space is designed as a desk/employee parking lot with rows upon row of individual (not group) work spaces. The primary ‘collaboration’ resource is florescent-lit cookie-cutter conference rooms with a great big table in the centre creating a great, big separation between everyone in the room.

One of the areas that Dynamic Work focuses on, often in collaboration with its design partner Wheeler Kanik, is how to enhance the utility of the office space you do choose to use. A great piece on the potential a truly effective space can have is illustrated in FastCompany’s recent piece ‘11 Ways You Can Make Your Space as Collaborative as the Stanford d.school” (thanks Tessy).

Co-Working Across the UK

Dynamic Work — Tue, 04 May 2010 11:13:04 GMT

My piece ‘Dynamic Business Centres’ highlighted the surge in availability and diversity of places for people to go and work in and around London. But the innovation and trend doesn’t stop at the M25. Creative workspaces are opening up all around the UK. Creative Boom has recently assembled its own Top Ten list of the very best in the country: “10 of the Best Co-Working Spaces in the UK”.

THECUBE, London
The Werks, Brighton & Hove
FlyThe.Coop, Manchester
Old Broadcasting House, Leeds
FunkBunk, Leighton Buzzard
screenWORKS, Edinburgh
The Hub, Bristol
IndyCube, Cardiff
Le Bureau, London
Moseley Exchange, Birmingham