Month: July 2009

Punch the Clock…In the Mouth

Posted on by chase

Over at Alibi.com’s blog, I found a really interesting piece about an artist’s collaboration in Houston called Sisyphus Office.

The goal was for local artists to visit offices and leave behind humorous and interesting art created entirely from office supplies.

On the whole, this is something I can completely get behind. No one likes a boring office, and all the paperclips in the world aren’t going to make a humdrum day any more fun, until you put some creativity behind them.

According to the project’s website and its organizer, David Fullarton:

Sisyphus Office is an exhibition organized by San Francisco based artist, curator, and co-founder of The Thing Quarterly, Jonn Herschend and based out of Skydive, a Houston, Texas gallery.

The artists involved in the project are collaborating with businesses and offices in and around Houston in order to highlight art as an integral and necessary distraction in our day to day life. The artists and offices involved in Sisyphus Office are working physically and conceptually with the notions of existentialism, capitalism, artistic romanticism and deadpan slapstickism as a means to examine the artifice that keeps us clinging to reality and distracted from the void.

Sisyphus Office is about punching the clock, and then punching it again…but harder the second time.

It’s about transcending the mundane through the beauty and absurdity of distraction. It’s about recognizing the comedy in the tragedy of the day to day… and then waking up again to do the same thing all over again the next morning.

I encourage more people to take a stab at making their office a little more surreal. Hopefully this project can be an inspiration.

Interior designer likes uplifting office spaces

Posted on by chase

Found this interesting blurb over at the ArgusLeader. In it, Marcia Young, a commercial interior designer, talks about office design and what it means to have a well-designed workplace. When asked about some essentials that should be included in any office design, she had this to say:

The workplace is constantly changing, and one way to easily adapt is by designing with modularity in mind. This allows the customer to change the configuration with minimal cost and downtime. Other key essentials are good task lighting and ergonomic accessories, such as keyboard trays and storage solutions that fit the needs of the user.

Makes sense to me. The main reason I find this article interesting is that I personally had no idea there was such a thing as a commercial interior designer. I can certainly see the need for such an occupation; most of the offices I have worked in seem very much slapped together on a whim, cramming the furniture and items they already had into whatever space they could wrangle up.

Young also says that the trend seems to be going more toward open-plan design, with a tendency to shy away from the traditional “cubicle farm”. They want something that promotes collaboration while still offering some privacy. This means lower heights on cube panels, more modularity, and so on. Again, I find myself in agreement, and wonder why so many businesses lack the wherewithal to make these kinds of decisions on their own.

Still, if it means more work for Marcia Young, I’m all for it. Adding to the list of things I didn’t know existed, she’s a National Council for Interior Design Qualification Certified Designer. Quite a mouthful, but it’s great that there’s someone out there making sure standards are upheld in the design arena. Check out the NCIDQ here.

Working from Home: What to Ask Your Broadband Provider

Posted on by chase

IT-director.com has an interesting piece from David Heyes, COO of TFM Networks, about some of the less-often-considered aspects of working from home. Namely: is it as simple as plugging your employees into a broadband connection and letting them go?

In the article, Heyes covers five key points you may not have thought of, and that your broadband provider might not like you to think of. Since these points imply something a little more involved than the plug-and-play aspect of working from home that a lot of companies (that want to sell you a “business broadband package”), it’s important to take a look before you dive in:

1. Service: What happens if the broadband connection fails?
2. Performance: What about speed, bandwidth and prioritizing key applications over your network?
3. Security: How important is this to you, including data protection?
4. Health & Safety: What are the regulations for home workers?
5. Maintenance and Procurement: Who provides the home office supplies and equipment?

All in all, the article is a decent breakdown of letting employees work from home. I personally had never considered, for example, how a from-home employee would still be covered by a business’s insurance plan, and how they might have to conduct site visits to make sure someone’s home office was up to spec.

Basically, this is an interesting read for anyone looking to pitch the idea of working from home, or any employers looking to expand into that area. As much as we’d like it to be as simple as throwing together a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet, some computers and a broadband connection, the reality is a little more complicated.