Open Plan Desperation: Entrusting
the next Generation of Innovation to Ping Pong and Bean Bag Chairs….Again?
So I've been recently disturbed, again, by the seeming resurgence in Open
Plan office design, and the belief that primary colors, asymmetrical
symmetries, Star Wars models, Ping Pong, and free range animals in the work
place will somehow bring about the genesis of the "next big thing".
However, this time, Mia Disturbia Seguito comes from the lurking fogginess of
implausibility that even the most-post-modern, cognitively vacuous ( is that
the same as “open plan minded”?) Rancheros of free-range “thinkers” seem to sense
(spooky right?).
The Lofty echelons of the
adolescent Arroganti are bereft with confident bewilderment, observable by the
less enlightened, but not so much by the euphoric kiddies on the Meta Cognitive
Short Bus to Destination Open PlanLand( man that is awkward grammalogy from me
even).
But still, to call into question the
radicalism that spawned a 99% failure rate 10 years ago, flies in the face of
repetitive innovation, but there are those who sense that the inspirations of a
prior generation, that spawned a near perfect failure record, may not be quite
exactly the right catalyst, again, but famous architects must remain famous
despite convictions that may be somewhat clouded, possibly even lacking in the
same sort of certainty that sent start-ups clambering to the nearest "Land
of Misfit Furnishings" during the dot-com Uber "something" over
a decade ago. Even worse, as some of you may recall, "legacy"
companies, fearing that they would not be able to compete for Generation “I”
talent, started feverishly converting perfectly good workspaces into nurseries
and romper-rooms. It was as if it became instantly "obvious", that
creativity could not happen in the absence of a Ping-Pong ball incessantly
pinging and ponging through the airwaves. Suddenly, unless you were sitting on
a yoga ball or in a bean bag chair, it was clear to everyone that nothing
Innovative was going to happen any time soon.
The good news however is that in these shagged-out spheres( no, some were
square I suppose, but many would also argue, or at least *should* argue, that
"square" is a state of mind, which is certainly not all bad,
especially if you are tasked with creating square things), is that it was well
recognized, thanks to some basic principles behind the development theory of
"fail fast", that many of the idea hatched in these synthetic
incubators would indeed fail, in fact, most would fail. But the believers in
the gods of foosball as a medium to a higher plane of innovationism, still
clung to the belief that unless you stood on your head, finger-painting ideas
in a sand-box, the 1 in 1,000,000 idea that just might work, gasp...., might
never actually be thought of in the first place.
Is it not possible that the difference between the “Innovationist Haves” and
“Innovationots” could be rather easily sussed out by putting each of appointed “Innovationists”
in a simple, white room, bland in character, lacking in sensory chaos( maybe a
prison cell?), like an immersive blank canvas.
Wouldn’t we find out straight away who is inherently capable of filling
the canvas with something truly impressionable?
Well, it seemed to work very well for the Impressionists.
It’s not like they started painting their
masterpieces on top of brutally chaotic canvases already stuffed with “stuff”(
yes I do know it was common to re-use canvases and planks, but that was based
on economy, not Ensperation Desperation Disorder( EDD…errr…) .
In fact, their brilliance materialized, gasp(
again), on a blank canvas, and I don’t believe for an instant that the Sistine
Chapel’s reliefs were inspired via divine bean bag, nor were they painted to a
sound track of fooses, pongs, and mock conversations in Vulcan( or
whatever).
But I have seen this dilemma
put to the test empirically, because I once had the opportunity to conduct a
little experiment on a dozen or so PhD’s, and the results were not surprising…..using
a double-blind model( in which I had both my eyes closed….actually I was
cringing, but whatever…), I found that some people, regardless of the
environment, simply cannot conceive of innovation( but you can in fact lead
them to believe that they have…but more on that later).
Nostradamus, Da Vinci, Einstein, a few guys also pretty good at thinking of
new "stuff", also had elaborate requirements for their surroundings
in order to generate even the slightest inkling of thought beyond the
primordial "I'm Hungry". In fact, I believe it was Nostradamus (he
may have been a quack, but he had no lack of creativity), who had the grandiose
requirement of a single lit candle in his chamber, and this was the source of
some pretty innovative thinking, and I doubt very much that even if you
illuminated his chamber by stuffing it full of lava lamps, you would find
revealed much more than a desk, chair, wardrobe, possibly a bench. So how was
this possible? Such simplicity defies all modern logic that affirms that
without sensory chaos, nothing new can be conceived!
Part II: Failure is always an option, and quite often
the best one at that.
(To be continued….)
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