The future is cloudy, but if the industry sticks together and works through the inevitable changes coming its way, it will continue to help the world create better places to work, learn and heal. That’s the message that came out of the BIFMA 360 leadership conference held last week in Florida, the first event in a year of celebration as the organization marks its 50th anniversary.
For the first time since the pandemic began, attendees returned to the event in full force with about 180 leaders making the trek to Amelia Island, a resort community northeast of Jacksonville.
At last year’s smaller 360 conference, which was smaller because of lingering COVID concerns, the topic was “Navigating Next,” this year the group of top-notch speakers focused on the idea of “Future First.”
And that, of course, is where things get a bit cloudy. Predicting the future is difficult, especially for an industry in the midst of post-pandemic office upheaval. Still, a fine slate of speakers did their best to decipher the future during the two-and-a-half-day event.
MillerKnoll Group President Chris Baldwin welcomed his colleagues and competitors to the conference, noting the importance of the industry and organization to the world. He added that the performance of the industry products that BIFMA members have brought to market enable people to work, learn, travel and heal.
“Our industry continues to support customer goals and works to inspire the designers’ vision. The past three years have certainly felt like a perfect storm, but the industry is still strong and still moving forward,” he said.
The event was designed to address innovation, culture, customer markets, technology and strategic partnerships through the lens of putting the future first, said Jeff Lorenger, chairman, president and CEO at HNI Corp. Lorenger also chairs the BIFMA Board of Directors.
“As we heard at last year’s conference, staying relevant is a function of recognizing and responding to change,” he said. “To meet and potentially beat our customers into their future will be key to success. We also heard last year that it will become ever more important for brands to increase the intimacy of the customer experience. Achieving both requires innovation and collaboration at every level. Product design lends itself to thinking creatively. Manufacturing lends itself to thinking systematically. Innovation can flourish in both and is needed in every corner of our industry.”
The opening keynote address focused on “Innovating the Future” and was presented by Josh Linkner, chair and co-founder of Platypus Labs. He said the one thing that we’ve learned out of COVID, in addition to the notion of hybrid work and Zoom calls, is that we can no longer simply rely on the models of the past and expect the same results. What worked 50 years ago will no longer work and it’s incumbent upon everyone to embrace a fresh and new approach in order to meet the challenges of the day.
He challenged the industry to start before it is ready, reduce risk through experimentation and innovate by “breaking it to fix it.” Mistakes are part of the discovery process, he said and companies can often advance by reaching for the weird.
“How many times have you heard the phrase, ‘If it ain’t broken, then don’t fix it?’ Who came up with that phrase? That’s the dumbest piece of advice ever. Why would you wait until something is broken before giving it an upgrade? We owe it to ourselves to do the opposite, to proactively look at systems, products, approaches that might be working fine on the surface. Let’s deconstruct them. Let’s examine them. Let’s find ways to improve them. Let’s get a constant cycle of upgrading and reinventing. Let’s break it in order to fix it,” he said.
Economic insights were provided by Michael Ryan, an economist with S&P Global Market Intelligence. He said the economy is facing a short, shallow recession in the first and second quarters this year followed by slow growth.
Speaker Kelly McDonald, founder of McDonald Marketing advised attendees on how to craft a people-forward strategy. She outlined how diversity plays a major role in creating a people-centric strategy, noting that diversity goes well beyond the color of one’s skin or ethnic background by citing the importance of neurodiversity and differences between introverts and extroverts as examples.
Bob Beck, publisher of officeinsight led a fascinating panel discussion with experts from healthcare, higher education, corporate and hospitality. Panel participants included Walter Jones, former senior vice president of campus transformation at MetroHealth; Melissa Marriott, senior facilities planner at the University of Illinois; Kim Sauvageau, global workplace experience architect at Shell; and Laurie Woliung, senior director of global design at Marriott (look for a separate story on the panel in next week’s officeinsight).
How is the metaverse going to affect the office furniture industry in the next five years? That’s what Don Abraham, senior partner at Kantar addressed during his presentation “Metaverse 2027.” The answer was a somewhat surprising, not much, at least in the short term. But as the metaverse develops, expect it to change just about every aspect of our lives, from how we work to how we entertain ourselves. How the metaverse evolves will depend on who controls it, how safety is handled and whether or not what is developed is actually useful.
“Getting to a useful metaverse from this point forward, we’ve got to spend a lot of time thinking about power. We’ve got to spend a lot of time thinking about safety and we’ve got to spend a lot of time thinking about diffusion. And if you can unlock these three pieces, that’s where it starts to become really clear for what your organization should do when it comes to the metaverse.”
Tim Sanders, vice president of customer insights at Upwork, closed the conference with a presentation about future proofing partnerships. He encouraged the industry to work together to solve common problems instead of just going it alone.
“Rapid problem solving is the only sustainable business advantage you can ever have in life,” he said. “The faster you work through the next problem, the more likely you are to save the opportunity and get it back on track in time. So that’s why I want to talk about partnerships because partnerships are like rocket fuel for moving through those problem hurdles faster and deeper.”
BIFMA President and CEO Deirdre Jimenez also outlined work the industry organization is doing on behalf of its membership, including revising and creating new standards, advancing sustainability and helping the industry attract young talent. “We’ve worked on this for over a year and we will start working on next year’s next week. So it takes a lot to put this together and put it together in a way that’s meaningful and relevant,” she said.
The work paid off. This year’s 360 event included many new faces — including a younger crowd — and a significant number international attendees. The event was nearly back to a pre-pandemic attendance level as well.
Of course, the BIFMA conference wouldn’t be complete without a heavy dose of socializing, which included a speed dining event on the opening night where attendees switched tables after every course. Many attendees also got a glimpse of Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, who was at the same resort for a Republican conference, but was kept at arms-length by Capitol Police.