I say it a lot and I will keep saying it. CRE is a hard field because it touches so many areas of both business and the economy. It is absolutely impossible to be right all the time on all topics. Being right all the time is often interpreted as being dishonest about when you…
Selective Apathy has a certain appeal to it.
As I was writing up my post from yesterday the tag for Selective Apathy caught my eye. It’s particularly fitting for me right now as I watch the changes going on around me, with me, and within the industry. Sometimes it is important to let go of the things that don’t matter today and focus…
Generalists versus specialists – where do you fall within the spectrum?
Before starting out today, I just want to say thank you again to everyone who ventures around these parts regularly and welcome to those here for the first time. The traffic spike yesterday from Duke’s post is absolutely incredible and humbling. First, I can’t imagine the number of readers he gets daily and second the…
Welcome readers, one and all!
I’d like to thank Duke Long for putting this blog in his Top 50 CRE Blogs of 2015. For the many new people, I try to write daily but it usually averages out to 2 to 5 times per week. Sometimes it’s CRE, sometimes it’s workplace, sometimes it is business theory and other times it…
Productivity is not once size fits all.
The Holy Grail of workplace design is “productivity improvement.” If anyone can figure out how to measure the actual impact that a floorplan has on employee performance that person will become an overnight billionaire. Productivity is the name of the game because if we can make employees more productive then our businesses become more successful…
The Story you walk into a meeting with will influence the message you hear back.
Understanding the changing needs of your customers is important. One of the best ways to understand what they are looking for is to listen to feedback during sales meetings. A good sales meeting is a conversation so their side of it should give you the feedback you are looking for. This sounds good in theory…
Quick, how many employees were in your offices last week?
Corporate Real Estate is hard. Our job is to provide space to a business that doesn’t give us all the information we need or real control over how space is used. It is a reactionary game that we play. Trying to forecast how much space we need next year without an accurate forecast of the…
I write this while sitting in sand….
Vacations are an important part of the working process. If you never get away from your job then you never realize that things will continue on without you. The secret to happiness is knowing and embracing how the world will move forward without you. The best you can hope for is to do the best…
Why your employees matter – the Reddit case study.
I’m not an active Reddit user but I have certainly used it on occasion. It’s been the source of a lot of interesting (I think that is the right word) exchanges and information. Yet the firing of a single employee for unknown reasons (at the time that I write this) has seemingly set the entire user…
Easter Eggs in technology development are a must.
Wikipedia defines Easter Eggs (in software) as: An Easter egg is an intentional inside joke, hidden message, or feature in an interactive work such as a computer program, video game or DVD menu screen. The name has been said to evoke the idea of a traditional Easter egg hunt. Easter Eggs (done right) make users smile….