Coffivity - ambient sounds to block out noisy open office distractions

I am incredibly fortunate to work in an amazingly well planned and thought out open office and hot desk environment. But even with full focus zones it can be difficult at times to concentrate because of distracting background conversations. If this happens to you and you are like me and unable to work along to music (I find lyrics way too distracting), you might be interested in trying https://coffitivity.com/. It plays ambient sounds ... think library, or cafe (thankfully not whale sounds) to help you block out other noise and focus. I use this app all the time, its a lifesaver.


Want More Productive Workers? Adjust Your Thermostat via Fast Company

Cornell University researchers conducted a study that involved tinkering with the thermostat of an insurance office. When temperatures were low (68 degrees, to be precise), employees committed 44% more errors and were less than half as productive as when temperatures were warm (a cozy 77 degrees).

Cold employees weren’t just uncomfortable, they were distracted. The drop in performance was costing employers 10% more per hour, per employee. Which makes sense. When our body’s temperature drops, we expend energy keeping ourselves warm, making less energy available for concentration, inspiration, and insight.

I am all too aware that my personality changes with the weather. When its cold I am miserable. When its hot I'm all smiles. Seems I'm not alone. The wrong temperature can distract us, contributes to errors and even makes us less friendly. And what does this all have to do with soup? Read on at Fast Company for the details of the university studies.

This article came my way via Mark Neely, who is a great source of links on innovation topics if you're keen to follow on Twitter.

Standing while you work? It's called "activity based working" and it's happening right now at Australian Banks

At work ... the effects of prolonged sitting.

At work ... the effects of prolonged sitting.

My previous post included an image of a standing desk at Faceboook HQ, and a while ago I posted a story about a seemingly wacky treadmill desk. What I thought was a fringe trend of tech firms has hit the mainstream at Sydney's Commonwealth Bank headquarters as well as Macquarie Group, GPT Group and Jones Lang LaSalle, Jonathan Swan of the SMH reports.

Doctor endorse the health benefits, and bean counters can cost the savings of the associated hot desk wireless office. Read all about it and a Sydney University study on it at smh.com.au

 

Inside Facebook's new Californian headquarters

Looks like the treadmill desk has made it into the offices of Facebook HQ. I also noticed that the space has realized the central mechanism of facebook -- the wall -- in a physical form, with blackboards, whiteboards, and marked walls everywhere.

View the whole gallery over at SMH: http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/technology/technology-news/inside-facebook...

Architecture for productivity

The other day I pointed to an article on colleagues influence on absenteeism. While sorting through some old clippings I came across another article on the subject from 2008 (there was a reason for me to have kept it all this time). This time, it was about architecture and building design that contributes to a positive work environment.
For up to five hours the night air circulates through the 10-storey building, gradually cooling the wave-shaped concrete ceilings that have absorbed the heat from a day of human and computer activity. It makes sense - who doesn't open the windows at night to cool down their house after a warm day? - but it is revolutionary for a modern commercial building.
...
The office floors are open plan and the lights are set at 150 luxe, compared with 350 to 400 luxe in a conventional office. While some council staff have requested stronger lighting for their work, the gentler lighting is said to have a calming effect on the behaviour of people - one council manager says he no longer feels as though he is working in a 7-Eleven supermarket.
Read the article on the project over at
smh.com.au: Green offices that slash absenteeism

See pictures of the building over at the City of Melbourne website: melbourne.vic.gov.au

The Rise of the New Groupthink

We have all heard the phrase "design by commitee" and we all know that it means a compromised process and result. Yet there is no critique of work environments and practices that result in this group think. We think design by commitee happens in meetings attended by bosses. Could it be that it is happening in every open plan office and brainstorming workshop? 

This is the belief of Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. She published "The Rise of the New Groupthink" in the NYTimes.com

Some highlights from the article to encourage your further reading:

On privacy and productivity

Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. ... introverts are comfortable working alone — and solitude is a catalyst to innovation. ... introversion fosters creativity by “concentrating the mind on the tasks in hand ... ... Privacy also makes us productive. In a fascinating study known as the Coding War Games, consultants Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister compared the work of more than 600 computer programmers at 92 companies. They found that people from the same companies performed at roughly the same level — but that there was an enormous performance gap between organizations. What distinguished programmers at the top-performing companies wasn’t greater experience or better pay. It was how much privacy, personal workspace and freedom from interruption they enjoyed. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said their workspace was sufficiently private compared with only 19 percent of the worst performers. Seventy-six percent of the worst programmers but only 38 percent of the best said that they were often interrupted needlessly.

On the open plan office

Studies show that open-plan offices make workers hostile, insecure and distracted. They’re also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, stress, the flu and exhaustion. And people whose work is interrupted make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long to finish it.

On brainstorming and groupwork

... brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity. The brainchild of a charismatic advertising executive named Alex Osborn who believed that groups produced better ideas than individuals, workplace brainstorming sessions came into vogue in the 1950s. “The quantitative results of group brainstorming are beyond question,” Mr. Osborn wrote. “One group produced 45 suggestions for a home-appliance promotion, 56 ideas for a money-raising campaign, 124 ideas on how to sell more blankets.” But decades of research show that individuals almost always perform better than groups in both quality and quantity, and group performance gets worse as group size increases.
... The reasons brainstorming fails are instructive for other forms of group work, too. People in groups tend to sit back and let others do the work; they instinctively mimic others’ opinions and lose sight of their own; and, often succumb to peer pressure. The Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that when we take a stance different from the group’s, we activate the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection. Professor Berns calls this “the pain of independence.”

Some advice is offered at the conclusion of the article so it's not all doom and glom. Read it at the NYTimes.com The Rise of the New Groupthink

Treadmill desks and the walking meeting

Life saver? The treadmill desk.

It's worth reading this article about the treadmill desk. Don't dismiss it as a novelty. Its an example of how an idea was born, implemented, how its usage changed over time and how the concept spawned a new idea -- the walking meeting.

Then Levine had another idea. If people could work while they were walking, why couldn't they have meetings as well? And so the concept of the walking meeting was born. His plan was that a designated walking track could be marked out in an office using carpet tape. Two people walking together could both wear coloured badges so that everyone else knew they were in a private meeting and shouldn't be disturbed.

... remarkably a Minnesota financial recruitment company called Salo heard about his ideas and decided to put them into practice ... "we found that walking meetings not only tended to be more productive than sedentary ones, they're also, on average, 10 minutes shorter."

Read the whole case study at smh.com.au