How can we stay focused in an era of open offices?
Work Featured in Article for Dropbox Work in Progress blog
… Many point to the way Bell Labs designed a space to promote a cross-pollination of ideas. “The research scientists had their own labs and their own rooms and offices," says Brook. “But they couldn’t go anywhere else in the building without engaging in a very long walk in this hallway in which they would inevitably meet other scientists, other researchers along the way and bump into them. There was this sort of serendipity built into the architecture of the space.”
It allowed for the kind of “coactive vicarious learning” that helps people apply what they learned, and improves the way knowledge is shared across the organization.