Open Plan Desperation: Entrusting the next Generation of Innovation to Ping Pong and Bean Bag Chairs….Again?

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….)