Pushing at the workspace boundaries

This is Jan-Peter Kastelein of YNNO (YouKnow), a Dutch consulting firm developing new ways of working in organisations.

New ways of working have always been of interest to me and I was in Holland to support the Global Mobility Network hosted by Johnson Controls. I hated offices and now, my somewhat itinerant lifestyle, heavily dependent though it is on electronic gadgetry, suits me well.  I don't really thrive indoors - and can't imagine what 'cube-life' would do to me.... I get the impression that J-P isn't much of an office animal either; he told us about how he would rather be scuba-diving and had a heavily strapped ankle - the result of a parachute jump that got a little out of hand... 

Adventuring aside, the critical point for me is how do we make work spaces that are inspiring, enable good conversations, fast change and responsiveness.  As a facilitator I am usually horribly shocked when I arrive at an 'event': the effort taken by most organisations to pay attention to the space that people work in day after day can be truly lamentable. And, I believe that the quality of space intimately affects the quality of relationships and so on to the effectiveness of the organisation...

The YouMeet workspaces, designed by J-P and his colleagues are something different.  Light, airy, imaginative; they are designed to facilitate interaction and creativity.  

 

J-P and the YNNO team are pioneering an 'evidence-based design' process to their consultancy work to show that it really works and the YouMeet space is an example of them walking their talk.

I admire any consultancy that is prepared to do that...