The Toolbox office space in Torino, Italy.

I got an email a while back about Toolbox, a professional incubator in Torino, Italy.

From the material describing the space:

The project is believed to meet the needs of a city in a phase of substantial transformation.

At a time when, with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection, it is possible to work from anywhere, the question emerging is what professional space is needed for. How is it possible to design a space combining users’ plurality with the coherence of the whole design? How is it possible to mediate between a need for socialisation and privacy, between relaxation and concentration?

From the functional point of view, the project consists in the creation of an open space with 44 individual workstations combined with other services and activities. The goal has been to keep the modular concrete structure unaltered.

The main span of the building has been divided lengthwise by a series of ‘filter volumes’ used as technical spaces for storing lockers and equipment. On one side, there is the co-working space, on the other side, the corridors and the functional ‘box’ containing shared facilities such as meeting rooms, print rooms, informal meeting spaces, mailboxes, a patio and a kitchen.

Sounds good, but what really knocked my socks off was these pictures:

That is just stunning!

What I like about this space is not just that it’s colourful and inspiring – that’s nice but it’s only a start. What I especially appreciate is that it caters to to many different working styles and personalities. Some people thrive in a large open space others hate it like the plague. For some tasks you may prefer one area – for other tasks

The true crime of many office buildings these days is both that they’re drab, uniform and boring but also that they assume that everybody is the same and only offer one type of working environment.

Your take

How about your workspace? Does it inspire you at all? Does it work for you and your wo-workers and does it allow for different working styles for different tasks?

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Check out this comment from Cindy:

I made up a game for my weekly department meetings to refresh and train the staff in a fun and competitive way.(I was managing a despatch department in a manufacturing company)

The Game
I made a list of questions relating to the department, it’s procedures and the stock etc.
I purchased a bag of lollies and treats (a couple of dollars taken from petty cash)
I gave each person at the meeting a bell and the first one to ring the bell and get the question right got a lollie or treat.
The overall winner was the person who scored the most lollies/treats.

This game created excitement because the staff had to beat each other to the buzzer and that got them thinking at the same time. It made them all feel like a winner in the end because everyone ended up with some prizes.

However the best benefit from this game was that if they did not know the answer or couldn’t remember the answer (sometimes a person may have their facts wrong and you have been trying to enforce the correct answer – usually someone who has been there a while and think they no longer need training) that person walked away from the meeting having learnt something they will probably remember because it was taught in a fun environment.A fun way of refreshing and training.
The staff grew to love the weekly quizzes and became quite competitive about it.

Try it at your next meeting
Cheers

What do you think – could this work in your workplace? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in a meeting?

Original post: Five weeeeeeeeird tips for great meetings.

Any job has good and bad things to it. Any job. Yours too. Maybe you kinda like your co-workers, you’re good at what you do and the food rocks – but on the other hand the commute is deadly and your boss is a bit of a jerk.

Here’s the point: Even though all jobs contain good and bad elements, most people over focus on the bad things. In this 4-minute video I talk about why that is and what you can do about it. Click above to watch it.

This is the first video in a series of five that we did for Danish enzyme producer Novozymes. They are already a great workplace, and as part of a campaign called “It’s Great to be a Zymer” wanted a simple, fun way to communicate the basic concepts of happiness at work to their employees in Denmark, China, USA and Brazil. So they hired us to do these videos, which their employees can access on the intranet. They have very kindly allowed us to share the videos with a wider audience.

Our annual conference about happiness at work will be held on May 26 in Copenhagen and if you’re thinking of going, you should probably book your tickets soon – there are now less than 100 left. Read all about it and buy tickets here.

Info in Danish:
Skal 2011 være jeres gladeste år nogensinde på arbejdspladsen? Vil du skabe mere arbejdsglæde og fremragende resultater i din organisation? Vil I af med højt sygefravær, stress og udbrændthed? Skal I have et ordentligt skud energi og engagement?

På Arbejdsglæde Live! konferencen den 26. maj 2011 i København, oplever du, hvordan din organisation skaber meget mere arbejdsglæde og overskud.

Vi har fundet nogle fantastisk inspirerende og engagerede talere til dagen, blandt andre:

• Peter Mikkelsen – verdens bedste fodbolddommer i 90?erne og nu HR chef i Fona
• Steve Shapiro – forfatter til Goal-free Living, 24/7 Innovation og Personality Poker
• Cathy Busani – CEO i firmaet Happy, kåret som bedste arbejdsplads i UK i 2010
• Den altid fantastiske Thyra Frank er igen klar til at vælte salen
• Ole Stephensen er konferencier

Læs mere om konferencen og køb billetter her.