We need to be more precise when using the terms hybrid, remote, and return to office. These terms are holding back the conversations we are trying to have across corporate real estate by greying out the middle ground strategy options. Hybrid – It’s a word we all landed on during the pandemic to describe something…
RTO thinking that is SO close to understanding this new world
Fast Company published an article confusingly titled The return-to-office mandate is here. So is the open office. One has to go. To pull some background forward, the author states they are someone with dyslexia and ADHD who has struggled to work effectively from traditional corporate designed offices. Right off the bat, sentence number one, we…
Why I love corporate real estate
It’s been almost two months since I started on a change in path and stood up 4th Spaces. In those two months, I have received one question more than any other: what do you like doing most? At first, it was a tough question to answer on the spot. There is so much that goes…
Battles over encryption matter more than AI over the next decade
The Verge had an article last week titled “Apple ordered to open encrypted user accounts globally to UK spying.” I stopped everything I was doing as I read it. Read it again. And then read it a third time. As I understand from this article, the UK has demanded that Apple create a back door…
Considerations for Moments of Spark and Connection in the office.
The single best reason I come across for why offices are still critical to business strategy is that they are enablers of collaboration. Specifically, when people are together, it can generate moments of spark and connection, leading to innovation and creation. I cannot fault this reasoning because I have personally felt and experienced those sparks…
It is not always possible to solve the biggest problem facing you in the moment.
I have spent some time reflecting on my posts over the past year. There has been a strong workplace slant to them. On reflection, this makes a lot of sense. The problems facing CRE professionals are down to how to design and build an office for the post-pandemic world. For most of my time on…
Power, Community, Empathy.
Welcome to 2025! This is the year we finally get a direction, figure out together where corporate real estate is going, and make a plan to get there! Or not. I’m not sure anymore to be honest what is going on. As I write this, it is nearing the end of January. Not even a…
A surprisingly difficult question to answer in the current world: what is the role of the workplace in how employees work?
Most everyone reading one of my posts works in or around Corporate Real Estate. This self-selected group has probably spent an inordinate amount of time in their career thinking about what a workplace is, how they are designed, how employees use them, and the attributes successful workplaces have. But one big fact has been brewing…
CRE leaders need to stop thinking in terms of weekly occupancy and shift to a monthly framework.
Most conversations I have with people about workplace occupancy include the phrase “days per week in the office.” Over the past two years, this way of thinking about occupancy has become increasingly problematic when considering how people actually work. It can be hard to overcome the hybrid propaganda about 2 to 3 days per week…
It is time to retire all “Return to” concepts. If your Return has not yet happened, it probably is not going to. #CRE
The world is now mostly two years beyond the end of almost all COVID-era restrictions. A “New Normal” has been established through intentional action or unintentional patterns forming. Headlines that continue to talk about Return to Office or Return to Work (with Amazon causing the most recent ruckus) are missing the point about how people…