Presentation about motivation

This is a fascinating study which relates to the motivation of work.

http://www.wimp.com/surprisingmotivation/

Questpoint Mixes it up with Teri Flynn

Richard Andrews interviewed me last week for his green energy website about HubSoMa. Why we designed it the way we did and the sustainable strategies used.

http://questpointnthemix.com/2010/06/11/teri-flynn-a-changemaker-n-the-mix.aspx

Fast Company writes up the Hub

the Hub... where people write on the walls...

Great article by Fast Company about the Hub: http://www.fastcompany.com/1657643/the-hub-in-san-francisco-is-a-sustainable-workspace-for-sharing-ideas

Designing the hub workspaces – (what…no cubicles?)

The members of the Hubs around the world have polled themselves and analyzed and reanalyzed how they like to work. They have invented new table shapes and experimented with sizes and arrangements and desk heights. But no call for cubicles; there is not a single cubicle in any Hub. Why?

A few reasons. Not that many years ago the equipment and information we needed for work activities (telephones, adding machines, copy machines, faxes, computers, company files, data networks, etc.) were generally sizable and expensive; moving equipment to a different location often required technical specialists. People had to work in the workspace where their equipment was and where they had access to work files and information. Cubicles were designed to give an efficient, comfortable work area for people working out of one place for all their work tasks. Cubicles create a decent work platform for many tasks but they don’t work well for collaborative work (or for fostering collaborative work) and they don’t give enough privacy for most phone calls. Cubicles are partly private and partly open… or you could also say, not open enough for some tasks and not private enough for others.

Technology of the last 10 years has untied us from having to work at a single office location. Business tools for most of us, including vast resources of files and databases, fit in a backpack and they set up in minutes anywhere with wi-fi and electrical power. Hub members are accustomed to working from wherever they can work comfortably and makes sense for their business activity. Member mobility means we can customize workspaces to be more ideal for different tasks; not try to force every work task into a single type of workspace. Members can move between areas during their work day as tasks or moods change. We used the direction and input of our members as well as the experience of Hubs across the world to come up with the designs for our task-specific work areas.

1. Privacy Booths: Tiny, sound-insulated private offices with glass doors. For private conversations between 2-4 people, private telephone conversations, conference calls and solo work. On a sign-up basis to use one when a task requires total concentration and sound isolation.
2. Collaborative Work Area: Large open table area with Hub community-designed custom tables shaped for gathering around. For shared working, mentoring, discussions. Also works well for solo work for the person who enjoys the energy of surrounding activity while they work.
3. Work bars: Long counters for working facing the windows or overlooking the Hubland display area/lounge. No eye contact. Designed for solo work.
4. The Hubble: Ideation/brainstorming center as well as meeting room.
5. Meeting Rooms: Configurable for a variety of meeting types and sizes.
6. Hubland: A networking/display/casual meeting space off of the Chronicle Lobby entrance designed for members to have short, impromptu meetings, receive clients and guests, and learn about their fellow Hub members. On a bamboo wall structure, each Hub member has a photo card displayed describing their work. Hubland member walls are designed to give members an introduction to each other so they can more easily get to know and network with each other. Revolving displays will highlight the work of the Hub and the work of individual members in more detail.
7. The Nest: A small loft for taking a break, getting above the action and/or thinking through issues from a different perspective. It has casual lounge furniture for getting comfortable.

In addition to the work areas described above, HubSoMa is the first Hub to have Hublets. These are large project rooms intended to provide Hub businesses with several employees a private, lockable office area where they can work as a separate unit, yet be part of the activity and creativity of the Hub.

But no cubicles.

the Hubble – designed to be the ultimate brainstorming place

HubSoMa is intended to be a place where great ideas are formed and nurtured. Within the Hub, I felt one of the things we needed was a great “brainstorming place”, a perfect room for “ideation”, impromptu idea generation around a topic. Tim Brown, the president of IDEO, is well known as a creativity/brainstorming guru. I studied his rules for great brainstorming sessions and let function lead to the form of a meeting room meant for brainstorming. Tim Freundlich named it “The Hubble”.

• Make sure everyone feels comfortable participating and everyone participates; Every idea is valuable. Leaders, don’t let your knowledge and input dominate.

The Hubble table is round; the ultimate democratic shape, in a continuous round room. There is no “head” to the table or advantage to seat locations; all seats at the table are identical. If there is any difference of importance or status between the inhabitants, sitting at the Hubble table will tend to make all feel more equal, less aware of individual differences.

• Encourage wild ideas; Be visual; Defer judgement

The Hubble is designed to be comfortable for it’s inhabitants yet a little extraordinary too. A translucent bubble room. Glass walls convert activity outside into a moving visual display of misty blocks of color. It is an out-of-the-ordinary room where people can feel comfortable dreaming up out-of-the-ordinary thoughts.

• Number the ideas; Go for quantity; Fill the physical space (using giant post-it-notes) with descriptions, quick diagrams and sketches

In the Hubble, every vertical surface is a writable white board; even the door. Enough room for every thought and idea to be written or drawn. Every person at the table has ready behind them a personal panel of white board that can be filled with thoughts, diagrams or sketches. The round shape of the room makes each panel equally visible to the group. If desired, all can participate in writing their ideas on the walls.
The Hubble was created to be a tool. We can’t wait to see what people build with it.

Designing the HubSoMa

The Hub is a coworking space, event space, and professional toolset for changemakers. The Hub is located in Berkeley and 22 international locations across 5 continents. HubSoMa is the newest and largest Hub space in the world and nearing completion within a week. Teri Flynn is the architect; the design input came from a collaboration of people too many to count.

The HUBsoma has been purposefully designed to become a hothouse for creating and nurturing the ideas that can change the world for the better. This physical building space is intended to be energizing and inspiring for it’s users; a canvas for thought and work.

The final design was a product of specific direction from our members as to how they work best dancing with the constraints and possibilities found in a historic building.  As when you use a found object in an art piece to create new meaning; this space in the Chronicle building was our 8600 s.f. found object. We peeled back the layers of former constructions and discovered we were truly in the heart of the Chronicle Building. There are two floors of office above us and two floors of basement below us; all of the building’s energy systems for air, power, water and communication criss-cross over and through our space.  We purposefully exposed these pipes, conduits, ducts and wiring as a symbol of the energy and work activity which will soon fill these rooms. Our members working and collaborating and inventing below will cause a different, powerful thought energy to coarse through the space.

Originally this was a factory environment where newspapers printed on the basement presses were assembled, stacked and continuously moved in and out.  By uncovering pieces of those original factory finishes and making them part of the Hub, we attempt to reclaim the energy of workers past as we create a new kind of factory for a new kind of working place.

How about a workplace as comfortable as home?

This is the upstairs work area of the Kings Cross Hub in London England. The Hubs are an international network of member co-working sites for socially responsible small businesses. At the Hub, you work how you are most comfortable working… at a table, at a desk…. on big pillows on the floor! A variety of work settings within the space allow for quiet concentration, noisier meetings and impromptu networking with other members. The informal space layout seems accidental but it is purposely designed to break down social barriers between people in order to encourage interaction and collaboration between members. And people just seem to like the environment.