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February 09, 2006
Free your mind and the ideas will folllow
Which conference room do you think inspires better creativity?
This one:
Or this one:
The second room is the work of Paul Williams, ex-Starbucks marketer and now a creativity consultant and evangelist.
He helped his former company convert a drab conference room into a creativity lab at caffeine headquarters in Seattle. (More info about his services is here.)
If you're going to brainstorm the next Purple Cow, the right environment makes a big difference.
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Just *looking* at that second conference room hurts my brain. I get what he's trying to do but I think I would be looking for creative ways to get out of there as soon as possible.
You are being polite and not revealing the location of the first conference room so I'll say where it is -- it's Yahoo. (Purple chairs, dead giveaway.) But there's a false dichotomy here. Our conference rooms are where people exchange information with each other, they're not "creativity labs". We don't really need a bunch of books or toys or orange bean-bags for that (we need: coffee!). Ultimately if I trip over a space-age table on my way to the white board, something isn't working.
I'll send you some cameraphone photos of where the real creative stuff gets done at Yahoo later if you like.
Jeff,
I'm not being polite about the first room picture, I'm just ignorant. I didn't know that it is a Yahoo conference room. Late last night, I grabbed a photo from Flickr of a what looked to me like an average corporate conference room. No disrespect to Yahoo intended.
Please do send over the photos of the Yahoo creative spaces. It would be cool to see them.
Jackie,
Don't listen to the naysayers, the second room does two things as soon as you look at it. First, you smile. Second, you feel happy (thank you color). Anyone who cannot see these things, drinks way too much cheap arabica coffee and thinks all meetings are for serious business.
Honestly, I'm bored to tears by the first one and my brain hurts looking at the second one.
I would sigh heavily upon walking into wither one...
*either* (sorry)
Here's a picture of where a lot of my most important work gets done -- it's Yahoo's Sunnyvale cafeteria, cleverly named Url's.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreymcmanus/100578167/in/photostream/
This photo was taken at about 9:45am on a Thursday. People aren't there to eat breakfast; they're having meetings and getting stuff done.
Url's is not dazzling, but it is spacious, the wi-fi works and the lattes are delicious and free. It's where a lot of people go to get things done away from their cubicles. I park myself here for a good day and a half each week. I never know who I'm going to run into in there, but I know that when I'm planted at a booth in Url's, I'm accessible to others and good things often come from that. Since most good creativity comes from collaboration, I look at Url's at my creativity lab.
No question, the first conference room supports creativity. The second does actively interferes with it.
First conference room: natural lighting, plenty of central table space to spread out materials and gather around, at least one computer in the corner for research, editing, and so forth, smaller tables around the edges, chairs which look adjustable and potentially comfortable, and a white board. The second conference room is a nightmare. It screams at you with loud incompatable colors, one table at knee height, miserably uncomfortable-looking couch and chairs, unpleasant artificial lighting, and a hideous rug. There's not a single place you can look without being visually attacked. There is no chance of calm or focus or happiness in this room.
Is the second room really meant as a space for people to use? It looks like a bad designer's over-the-top attempt to put one over on gullible magazine writers, or a parody of unusable design.
I like both rooms but for different reasons. The tradtional room can serve important purposes related to the administrative, more organized, more on-task elements of creativity. The fun room could be used to complement this. Both together would be more powerful than either alone. Also, we all have different comfort zones, and the session leader could use either room to make us stretch if that was a goal. Lastly, while the environment is important I strongly believe the tone set by the conductor, and her/his emotional charisma and people skills are key for creativity to flourish. A great facilitator in a dorky setting is much preferred than the other way around because we've all had that much too often :-)
Ran and John make great points. Having access to both of these environments would be better than any one alone.
I'd be comfortable working out of the first one on a regular basis for a *month* straight, and out of the second one for a *week* straight. (the time spans might not be exact, but you get the idea)
I posted a while back on my blog about creative workplaces and the role of disruption:
http://www.jackcheng.com/archives/2005/06/06/the-design-of-business/
