Why Do You Go To The Office?
Every day people endure rush hour traffic, mediocre coffee, and the interruptions that come with office life. Equipped with a laptops and cell phones, many workers could work from elsewhere. So, why to do they go to the office?
“All work is social,” says Larry Prusak, author and director of IBM’s research lab. While mobile technology untethers workers from their desks, nothing trumps face time when it comes to developing and deepening relationships with others.
René Shimada Siegel writing in Inc magazine recently observed, “We’re all in the people business. We’ll only be successful if we really get to know our customers and colleagues.” To do this, Siegel advocates meeting in person, offering 5 reasons to forgo Skype, emails, and texts.
People chose the office for a reason. For those of us who design and furnish offices, the challenge is to make them places where people want to be.
There’s also the issue of serendipity. Social serendipity in real life is not uncommon at work. I keep meeting people and finding out all sorts of things about my colleagues through our daily interaction. The kinds of things that pop up won’t come up in an email or tweet or indexed search.