By Way of Introduction

Editor’s Note: officeinsight is adding a number of new columnists to our pages who will regularly contribute on topics important to design. The idea is to create conversations within the industry and a place where you can learn from your peers. Look for periodic columns in coming issues. To that end, we are adding to our stable of columnists. If you are interested in contributing a design column to officeinsight, reach out to Rob Kirkbride at rob@officeinsight.com.

By Way of Introduction

On May 15, 1988, I was preparing to attend my first NeoCon in Chicago. It lasted for a week back then. I was a new employee at a marketing communications agency that worked with one of the largest office furniture manufacturers in the world. I was going to get my first taste of the broader furniture industry at The Merchandise Mart. It was called that back then. Why am I telling you this back-then stuff and why should you even care?

This month I begin the privilege of being a monthly columnist for this fine publication. I think if you are going to read my musings and observations each month, and I hope you will, you deserve to know the foundational experiences that are the grounding for any ideas or insights I can now muster later in my career. And, believe me, it’s later.

Bill Wittland

Those initial years in this wonderful industry were heady. My primary task initially was being the communication resource for a research and development department at a major manufacturer, meaning my job was to learn about all the ideas they were uncovering and then help them tell the story of what they thought about the future of work and the workplace. I think I got the equivalent of three MBAs during that period just by going to work, listening, and doing my job, spinning some messages. Over the course of those years, I also connected to the leadership at IDEO, the product development and design consultancy in Palo Alto. Those inspiring and talented people became sturdy friends, and they deeply affected my disposition toward and understanding of design.

My engagement with the workplace and furniture and design professions only broadened from there. I had the privilege of collaborating with the leading design professional associations, including facilitating the naming session for the newly created IIDA (wasn’t an easy consensus). Those involvements led to working with some of the leading architecture and design firms in the world, those relationships forming a network that has enriched me beyond measure. What a treat. I even expanded my engagements to include the residential furniture world and some of the other related categories, areas such as flooring manufacturers, textile companies, industrial designers, and an assortment of other market segments.

As you’d guess, these years of immersion and expansion within the interiors industry, some called it the built environment, have provided me with an array of experiences and learnings, and connected me to so many wise, creative, and genuine professionals, many of whom have become treasured friends. It is upon that solid-feeling foundation in our industry that I will share here some monthly musings that I hope will provoke, inspire, instigate, and maybe even entertain. One can hope.

A couple of general truths to begin.

If you’ve read any of my previous writings, you will recognize my attachment to a Harvard Business Review article by Robert Luchetti and Philip Stone from 1985, titled “Your Office Is Where You Are.” Nearly four decades ago these wise men articulated insights about work and the workplace that are both profoundly true and remain yet fully implemented, at least in pervasive ways, in our current office spaces. Luchetti and Stone challenged our industry to create workplaces that balanced individuals and teams, concentrated work and collaboration, hierarchically flattened organizations, mobility, enriched cultures, and spaces that effectively promote creativity and productivity. We’re still trying.

Counterbalancing my opinion that our efforts have yet to produce the sort of work settings that have been advocated by so many visionaries over the years, it has been my decided experience that our industry has also generated and shared more insight and foresight about the nature of work and the workplace than any other related industry. Technology people have been faster to market with innovative products, but far less thoughtful and strategic about how those products can genuinely enhance the lives of workers and organizations. Real estate professionals have launched new approaches to the floorplates of their portfolios, but for the most part they have not done so with a foundational grounding in the emerging nature of work today. Human resource practitioners have advocated for new organizational models, but they have not been able to significantly transform the structures of larger organizations. On the other hand, the workplace interiors industry and profession have developed the most expansive body of knowledge about work and have been the strongest advocates for new visions and groundbreaking applications. It’s why you should be heartened by your achievements.

And so, each month I will come before you with some ideas, some of them challenging, some half-baked, some of them passionately presented. Bottom line, I hope they will spark a measure of the inspiration and insight that has distinguished our industry over the many years I have been privileged to participate on the periphery. Thanks for reading.