Intelligence Weekly: New Ways of Working

In keeping with my strong tradition of lists, here are some things that make the large corporate office working environment sucky:

• You have to travel to get there
• There are people who steal food out of the fridge and lotion bottles from atop desks
• There always seems to be a droning noise in a room filled with cubicles
• The lighting is generally atrocious
• There are lots of, let's say, personalities to deal with
• For some reason, it's hot or cold as hell
• You feel like Big Brother is constantly watching you
• It is difficult to maintain focus on work with so many distractions
• Bathroom: poo and booger smears (What is up with that?!)
• Equipment shared by hundreds of people tends to break frequently
• You must be extremely mindful of conversation topics, the width of your tank-top straps, what your T-shirt says, whether your shoes could be classified as flip-flops, and whether the minutia of your actions might be abusing the company in some way or offending someone who sits a few feet away from you

Although I tend to fare well in a large office environment, it's definitely not my most preferred working situation. Sometimes it can feel a bit as if you're being herded like cattle. Thanks to technology, the limitations of where and how work can occur are gradually diminishing, and the nature and structure of work are changing in ways that people like me will be able to utilize in order to flourish.

Thanks to technology, small business is booming. New ideas are cropping up, and offices are able to keep staff streamlined and to create well-honed teams of people who work well together. I can assure you that as a developer, I will be looking for privacy and quiet in order to produce at my very best. Check out Fog Creek Software for a fine example of a company who is taking this idea to heart.

Teleworking is becoming increasingly common and can save a company quite a bit of money, as well as improve the quality of life for employees who would otherwise need to commute. Not to mention the potential for being able to work in one's pajamas. I submit that this would significantly enhance the quality and productivity of my work. Wink.

I also recently discovered the concept of Co-working, which is a situation in which a group of independent contractors share a work space. Although the concept isn't exactly new, this community method of working is newly available to many people in the tech field. I love this concept, and I hope to do some freelance developing in such a community someday. 

Check out New Work City for a New York based example of how co-working happens.