Real Estate/Virtual Office Information - Gil Gordon/Telecommuting

		Real Estate/Virtual Office Providers Real Estate/Virtual Office Tools

"The Agile Workplace: Supporting People and Their Work" is the title of a 150-page report released in mid-2002 by GartnerGroup. It is described as follows: "In July 2000, a team of analysts and researchers from Gartner and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) School of Architecture and Planning launched a one-year project to study the "workplace industry" - the industry that includes the corporate organizations responsible for housing the workforce, and the firms that design, build, furnish and operate work environments. The workplace industry also includes those portions of the IT industry that provision, connect and support the tools and communications networks which are fundamental to work in the modern economy. Finally, the workplace industry encompasses the corporate managers whose policies influence how and where people work." Information on the report and how to order it is available . BASELINE magazine's August 9, 2002 issue includes the article titled "Trading Places at P&G," a good review of the company's virtual-office program. Center for Environmental Design Research at University of California - Berkeley conducts research on various aspects of design and facilities usage. One program of particular interest is the Center for the Built Environment. CIO Magazine's September 1, 2000 issue includes an interview with Hall Davidson about how the modern office workstation is a "death trap for creativity." CIO Magazine's May 1, 1999 issue includes the article "IT Builds Its Dream House" with some interesting drawings of "ideal" office space for a corporate IT department, with the assumption that many people on staff will be telecommuting or otherwise working remotely. COMPUTERWORLD's March 20, 2000 issue included the article "Touch Down" about the use of hoteling office space for IT professionals. CoreNet Global makes available its report about the networked virtual workplace titled "Corporate Real Estate 2010: Enabling Work in a Networked World," available on this page. CoreNetGlobal is the portal site for information that previously had been on the IDRC and NACORE sites, dealing with corporate real estate trends and practices. The CoreNet site includes an Information Center with resources, links, etc. Delft University of Technology's Department of Real Estate maintains a site with a comprehensive inventory of telework-related real estate and virtual office material. The site also includes ordering information for their excellent book THE OFFICE, THE WHOLE OFFICE, AND NOTHING BUT THE OFFICE. ECIFFO W3 is the Web version of ECIFFO Magazine, published in Japan. The magazine is described as a "research and information journal dedicated to explore the possibility of office designs from diverse points of view." The Web site (in English and Japanese) contains highlights from the current and past issues as well as related information. e-JOV is the "Electronic Journal of Organizational Virtualness," edited and published at the University of Berne. It is described as the "Homepage of the Virtual Organizations Research Network." The site contains a wide array of articles and links on all aspects of the virtual world - virtual organizations, virtual offices, virtual commerce, and more. THE EUROPEAN OFFICE by Juriaan van Meel was published in January 2000; this book is the result of extensive research on European office design and provides a good overview of the state of the practice of alternative office design in Europe, with implications for office design everywhere. This book is published by 010 Publishers. FAST COMPANY's July 2000 issue includes the article "Real Tools for Virtual Teams," with a review of various Web-based collaboration tools. (You can find links to providers of many such products elsewhere on this site.) FAST COMPANY's April 2000 issue includes the article "The Office of Future" which is a profile of Regus Business Centres, a UK-based global company that provides a range of alternative office facilities and administrative services. The article includes some interesting perspectives on the role of the office and on the use of alternative offices. FMLink is an information resource for facilities managers and corporate real estate professionals. It includes articles, research reports, legislative updates, and more. The Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany is managing the ongoing "Office 21" research project that is examining many aspects of office design and the interaction of technological, social, and design factors. Future@Work was an exhibit in Seattle that showed examples of new office designs and the role of technology in alternative officing. The exhibit was open through the end of 1999. The Future of Work project is an applied research program whose purpose is to "develop a new understanding of the factors affecting workforce and workplace productivity." "Getting the Most Out of Getting Together: Sometimes there's nothing that works as well as people meeting face-to-face" is the title of an August 2001 article on the Knowledge Management site. The article argues persuasively for the value of getting a dispersed team together from time to time, and offers tips on how to do it the right way. IDC's Mobile Advisory Council is a free opt-in group whose mission is "to assess the wants and needs of users and buyers of mobile products and services." Market intelligence and reports on the group's site is generated from answers to periodic member surveys. "The Integrated Workplace" is a major project in the Office of Real Property of the U.S. General Services Administration. The goal is to "promote a more comprehensive way to develop quality workspace." Various reports and resources are available from the project site . The International Workplace Studies Program at Cornell University is a global research and publishing program on all aspects of alternative officing. Prof. Franklin Becker directs the program. Also, see Prof. Becker's "Mobility and the New Placemakers" article which is available to download. Kinko's has designed its stores to meet the needs of mobile workers, in terms of services offered and workspaces provided. In the December 1997/January 1998 issue of FAST COMPANY, there is an interesting article about how Kinko's has redefined its mission to help self-employed professionals "remake how they work and live". KLR Consulting has an interesting assortment of office-design and facilities-related articles on its site. David Lawson is a British journalist whose site includes several articles he has written on various real estate topics. METROPOLIS magazine's November 1998 issue includes a series of articles about alternative officing designs, problems, and possibilities. The Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted the "Workspheres" exhibit in early 2001; Gil Gordon's photos and commentary on the exhibit are available here. "The New Teamwork" is the title of an article in the February 18, 2002 issue of BUSINESS WEEK; it describes various conferencing and collaboration tools that enable dispersed teams to work together. Nortel Networks announced on February 8, 2001 that it is partnering with other companies and the local community to develop the communications network for a proposed "e-Village" on the outskirts of Fresno, Calif. "Located in Madera County, Calif., this planned, high-performance Internet village for telecommuters is expected to be one of the world's largest and most sophisticated Master Planned Communities (MPCs). It will ultimately include more than 30,000 homes, along with office, business and hospitality centers." Occupier.org is a research organization which maintains that "we simply must understand the connection between corporate real estate and facilities on the one hand with organizational output and business performance on the other." Office Solutions magazine's June 2001 issue includes the article "Hoteling Checks In", which is available on ZDNet's June 1, 2001 edition. Roadnews.com is a very thorough and extensive resource for the "computer-equipped traveler." The site includes tips on international Internet access, dealing with hotel phone systems, lists of Internet cafes, and much more. Road Trip America ^(r) is an online newsletter and information source for the mobile worker who relies on wired or wireless connections from just about anywhere. SALON Magazine on January 21, 1998 includes the article "Floppy with your Frappuccino?" Starbucks, flying under the radar with Circadia Coffee House, woos the tech crowd which describes how coffee-cafe giant Starbucks is trying out a new concept of a shop that offers a more relaxed setting plus Internet access at each table. Site Selection magazine's September 2000 issue includes the article "'Web-ify' or Die: How Cyberspace Is Remaking Corporate Real" including virtual office issues. SITE SELECTION magazine's April/May 1998 issue includes an article by Mark Arend on new techniques of accounting for telework costs, "Cost Measurement for the 21st Century." You can search for the article in the magazine's online archives. SPACE, a real estate and facilities services firm, has created the Knowledge Capture series of seminars to encourage discussion about the future of workplace design and related issues. You can view a description of the seminars and read excerpts of the discussion. Steelcase has an extensive Knowledge Library in the "Tools and Insights" section of its site; this library includes many research reports and white papers on various aspects of office design, mobile work, team collaboration, etc. University of Manitoba in Winnipeg's architecture school is the site of a research project dealing with telework management. The program is partly funded by the International Facility Management Association. University of Oregon's Wearable Computing Research Group maintains a site with information about - you guessed it - wearable computers. WorkplaceIQ is a portal site containing varied information about corporate real estate, facilities planning, related technologies, and more.