FEATURE
developments, which have come faster and faster, separate many of us, bit by bit, from the need to go to the office. So, when we think about the office today, it may be instructive to shift our point of view. The office is just another tool in the tool kit, just like Slack or Zoom. From that perspective, what does the office do that these other tools don’t or can’t? And as we pursue this line of thinking, let’s not assume that creativity, for example, can only happen in a face-to-face interaction in the office. When we were in the office all the time, creativity often took place away from our desks, in the break room or the hall, or out of the office entirely — where you have some distance from work and the next thing on your to-do list. The actual office wasn’t a requirement for collaboration and creativity. In fact, sometimes, it got in the way. Now, if the office is a lab, or a maker space, if the office has facilities or gear not widely available, then maybe the so- called creative interaction can’t happen in any other space. But now we’ve defined a clear and specific use for the tool. We should also bear in mind that our understanding and use of the various technologies are in relative infancy. We need to be deliberate about mastering them. Take meeting software. When you take part in a virtual meeting, you’re on television. Is the camera, is the microphone, on your computer any good? If you spend time in virtual meetings, you’ll benefit from spending a few dollars on a good camera, a good microphone and maybe a light or two. Have you framed yourself properly? Are your eyes on the upper third of the frame? Are you lit well, or do you look like you’re in witness protection? If you don’t look good and sound good, you’re telling your audience they are unimportant. Not a good way to establish collaboration. Can you seamlessly share your screen, use chat, assign a different host, break out into subgroups? When you share your spreadsheet or your PowerPoint, have you taken care to format your material so that it’s legible on a phone? An audience’s attention span with the electronic medium (read television) is much shorter than in-person. Have you broken your presentation into short — seven minutes or less — segments, or are you holding forth for 20 or 30 minutes non-stop? Each of these elements adds up to creating an engaging, professional impression. Doesn’t matter if you’re not wearing pants, you better master these details. After you have some degree of mastery with the technology, then you can ask how to create a desired environment or relationship. Think of it as a translation between one mode — in person — and another — virtual. English is different from Italian; better at expressing some nuances, worse at others, but you can learn both languages and translate from one to the other.
Writer: Is technology doing away with the office? Interviewee: I don’t know if it’s doing away with the office. It’s definitely changing the way we look at the office. Writer: A lot of companies made a point of designing spaces to promote spontaneous, creative interactions. Can we collaborate and innovate over Zoom or Slack? Interviewee: Lotta opinions on that. But before we say what the tools can and can’t do, how about we master the tools? Writer: We haven’t? Interviewee: Uneven at best. In days of yore, that multi-line phone sat on your office desk, not at home. As did the IBM Selectric typewriter. The copier was down the hall. A few years later, so was the fax machine. And you probably had an office computer with a floppy disc before you had one at home. Ultimately, advances in technology made these devices better, smaller, cheaper or obsolete. Today, virtually every piece of what once was “office equipment” — and a whole lot more — is in your phone or your laptop. Technology has always had an impact on how we work, but in the last 50 years, that impact has been nothing short of profound. And the
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