April 2008

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This Month's Headlines

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This is our personal note welcoming you to the April 2008 issue of Future of Work Agenda and setting our theme for the month. This month we're exploring just what it means to work, and how workplace design affects work experiences. And our rant focuses on our collective imperative to face up to the environmental consequences of work - not only the buildings we build and use, but how our travel to and from those buildings is actually more impactful (and more changeable) than the buildings themselves.

This month represents a major milestone in the history of our organization and the Future of Work program. We are very pleased to announce that we are transferring the membership component of Future of Work to Executive Networks (EN), a San Francisco-based firm that owns and operates almost a dozen similar professional groups.

We were recently interviewed on NPR. And we've got a whole bunch of public appearances coming up in the next three months.

Our Future of Work corporate members have become convinced that most current methods of workplace design and planning are totally inadequate for the kind of dynamic, mobile economy we live in today. This month we're extending our understanding of the current realities of the work experience by beginning at the beginning with a really basic question that hardly anyone thinks about (at least consciously): What does it mean to "work"?

This section provides you with brief summaries of several recent notes we've already posted on the Future of Work weblog. In each case we also include a live link to the original post on the blog. And we encourage you to become a regular reader of the blog, where we are posting notes, case studies, and links to other important websites on a regular basis.

We end each issue of Future of Work Agenda with a personal perspective - our chance to comment on issues and developments in the world of work that we find important and interesting. This is our "editorial" page, where we enjoy offering our opinions and predictions about what's happening (or should be happening) in the world of work and beyond.

From Jim and Charlie

It's April. No Joke. And we blew it in March.

We wrongly accused March of being "the cruelest month." Now that we've done some serious formal research (i.e., we Googled "cruelest month"), we know to our chagrin that it's actually April that's been called the cruelest month. For those of you who care, it was T.S. Eliot, in The Waste Land, which begins:

APRIL is the cruellest [sic] month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Never let it be said that we don't correct ourselves when we "misspeak."

For us April is actually an exciting, positive time - especially this year. Our biggest news in many an April (or any other month) is that we're announcing an agreement to transfer our Future of Work membership program to Executive Networks, a San Francisco-based firm that manages about a dozen similar networks (though all of their existing networks are focused exclusively on HR professionals). Please read our Special Announcement for the details and our rationale. In a few words, we will continue to provide thought leadership and our research to the group, but we're freed up (free at last!) from the administrative and business development efforts that we been trying to get away from for the last several years.

We're convinced that this new partnership will reap important benefits for our members as well. And they appear to be as excited as we are about the enhanced research and networking capabilities that Executive Networks brings to us.

Now, back to the future - of work. Our feature article this month ("Meaning at Work") attempts to sort out the fundamental challenges of workplace design in the 21^st century by going back to basics. We ask (and attempt to answer) some "simple" questions like, "Why do people work?" and "What does work mean?" in order to uncover the essential elements of the work experience.

Why go there? (Forgive us for sounding like Donald Rumsfeld - remember him? - by asking and then answering our own questions.) We're actually attempting to lay a foundation for a new "science" of workplace and workforce planning that is more suited to the kind of dynamic, "any time/any place" patterns of work that we all experience every day. As we note in the article, it's darned hard to design and "size" a workplace when you don't know how many people will be "in the office" on any particular day, or what they'll want to do when they get there.

The best we can do is to suggest some broad design principles. We hope you'll find our wrestling match with today's world of work at least somewhat useful, and we certainly welcome your comments and suggestions for where to go with these ideas (as long as Where to Go isn't hot, red, and filled with screaming sinners).

Our other current focus is the one everyone seems to be talking about: sustainability, going green, and managing your total carbon footprint. So in our rant ("Go Hide and Watch") we humbly call your attention to some examples of legislation pending in California and Georgia that just might require organizations to be accountable for the amount of commuting their employees do to get to the office. That's right, flexible/mobile work, working from home, and "web commuting" (a term we like that we learned from our clients at Citrix) may well be about to become not just a nice idea but the law of the land. Word to the wise: these folks are serious; and you'd better be too.

And as always, of course, we're also pleased to bring you the Best of the Blog section summarizing our most recent posts on the Future of Work blog. We continue to believe that you'll find ideas and information here and on the blog that you just can't get anywhere else.

As usual, your comments and reactions are more than welcome. And as always, please send your thoughts to us at comments@thefutureofwork.net.

Special Announcement: Future of Work Affiliates with Executive Networks

This month represents a major milestone in the history of our organization and the Future of Work program.

We are very pleased to announce that we are transferring the membership component of Future of Work to Executive Networks (EN), a San Francisco-based firm that owns and operates almost a dozen similar professional groups. Within Executive Networks our group will be known as the Workplace Innovation and Performance Network, or WIPN.

The two of us will continue to lead WIPN as Executive Directors; however, our role will shift from total management and operation of the group to thought leadership and group facilitation. Executive Networks will provide us with much-needed "back office" administrative support and business development capabilities that go way beyond what we have been able to do ourselves.

Our goals in this transition are simple: First, we want to free ourselves up to spend more time on leading-edge research about the future of work; second, we want to grow the group's membership so we can provide more leverage and generate more meaningful collaborative research; and third, we want to take advantage of the much larger network of practitioner resources that are part of the Executive Networks "family."

We also fully intend to continue our own Future of Work research and education programs, independently of, but completely in parallel with, supporting the new Workplace Innovation and Performance Network.

Executive Networks has formed and operated peer professional network groups for over 25 years, primarily in the human resource management field. EN is a leader in Human Resource, Learning and Talent forums for senior executives from hundreds of the world's leading companies and organizations. More than half of Fortune Magazine's Global Most Admired Companies are members of one or more of EN's peer network groups..

Mike Dulworth, CEO of Executive Networks, is a long-time friend and former colleague of Jim's; we've known each other for close to ten years and worked closely together at The Concours Group. Mike is also a thought leader and author in his own right; he recently published The Connect Effect, an insightful book about the power of personal and professional networking (link is to order information at Amazon.com).

We are absolutely delighted about this new alliance, and look forward to providing the WIPN member companies with significantly increased value as the group grows and connects with Executive Network's other members over time.

We encourage you to become more familiar with Executive Networks by visiting the firm's website. Please direct any inquiries about Executive Networks to either of us, or to Mike Dulworth at Executive Networks.

Announcements and News from the World of Work

NPR Story on Work on Flexible Work Draws on WDC Research

Just as we were finishing up this issue we learned about a feature story that ran on KERA radio in Dallas, Texas, on March 25 ("Working at Home," by Bill Zeeble). It's a great "first person" story about how the ability to work at home has extended one person's career and enabled him to get eight hours of work done in six hours or less.

The story features ARO, an insurance industry call center outsourcing firm that's grown from thirty employees to over 300, 99 percent of whom work out of their homes. The CEO attributes most of that growth to the company's flexible work program.

We are particularly pleased to highlight the story because Bill Zeeble, the radio journalist who compiled it, interviewed Jim Ware as part of his research and actually featured Jim on the air, commenting on the dramatic growth in the number of people working outside of traditional corporate facilities.

We hope you'll listen to the story online (it's just over five minutes long). Jim's on near the end. To listen, click here and then click the "Listen/MP3" button above the story summary. Or you can go right to the link for the audio recording by clicking here. Your media player should then start up automatically. Or you can also right-click the button to download the audio file to your PC or mp3 player.

Upcoming Public Appearances by Charlie and Jim

We've got a very full schedule of public appearances over the next several months. Here's what's on the schedule through June:

We'll have more details about these and other events in the near future.

Feature Article: Meaning at Work

by Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware

Our Future of Work corporate members have recently been exploring their role in the design of work experiences. Our group became convinced several months ago that the current methods of workplace design and planning are totally inadequate for the kind of dynamic, mobile economy we live in today (see "Designing the Work Experience," Future of Work Agenda, November, 2007, for an initial set of ideas about this challenge).

This month we're extending our understanding of the current realities of the work experience and the implications they have for the workplace/workforce support profession. We're going to begin at the beginning with a really basic question that hardly anyone thinks about (at least consciously): What does it mean to "work"?

We'll then go on from there to think about the impact of workplaces on work experiences, how individual needs and work styles affect that equation, and finally suggest some tangible/tactical implications of these ideas. Bear with us, because we're going to try to do all that in just a few pages. If we're successful, we'll be stimulating your thinking (and ours) in ways that will eventually produce a whole lot more ideas - but we'll worry about that later.

The Meaning of Work

Dictionary.com defines work as "exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil." We've always found it interesting that "work" has been associated historically with distinctively negative concepts like "toil," "exertion," and "drudgery." Of course, that's completely understandable, since for many centuries "work" mostly meant physical labor, and much of that was hard, strenuous, and basically unpleasant. Think of "working on the railroad," or spending your days in a steel mill, a mine, or digging ditches. Even jobs like flipping hamburgers or being a retail clerk have their share of drudgery and toil.

But today many of us (well over 40% of the entire workforce) engage in "brain" work rather than "brute force" work. So-called knowledge work clearly involves a very different kind of "exertion," and even though it carries its own kind of stress, it doesn't often wear out our bodies (and souls) the way that physical labor does.

The good news is that many (though hardly all) knowledge workers actually enjoy, and even thrive on, their work. We're fond of asking people "If you couldn't call it 'work' what words would you use to describe what you do for a living?" The answers typically range all over the place: "fun," "thinking," "creating," "playing," "solving problems," "helping others," "designing things," "collaborating."

We are obviously focusing here on what Richard Florida first dubbed "the creative class" in his now well-known (and well-written) book The Rise of the Creative Class (link is to ordering information for the paperback edition on Amazon.com).

And the two most important things to remember about members of the creative class are that, first, the work they do is the most critical source of wealth in the economy today; and, second, that they are individually and collectively "in control" of their own work. You can't "manufacture" knowledge the way you make a car, a bar of steel, or even a loaf of bread or a hamburger (though there is clearly basic knowledge and skill required to complete each of those tasks). Creative work is much more internally driven (and controlled) than physical work - and that has huge implications for how organizations and managers have to operate if they want productivity and quality.

For these "creative class" folks work isn't really something separate from living. And it can certainly be energizing and highly satisfying. That's not to suggest that work is always positive; there can be plenty of problems, challenges and frustrations in most work experiences, but we'll deal with those issues a bit later.

Our point here is that in this so-called "Information Age" a substantial portion of the workforce "works" by thinking, solving problems, writing, researching, and communicating. And we do that work in a variety of ways, in a variety of places. We aren't bound to place in the same way that factory workers and agricultural workers were - and still are (they usually have to go where their equipment is, or where the crops are growing). The formal term we've begun using for "any time/any place" work and workers is "location-neutral." As we're fond of saying, you no longer have to "go to work" to get work done.

But most of this is obvious. What's the point?

We believe the most fundamental question about 21^st-century knowledge work is, "What does this kind of work mean to the people who do it?" Put another way, why do people work? What motivates and engages them? What make a work experience meaningful?

First, why do people work? Obviously, they do it to earn a living. But every survey we've ever seen suggests that income is actually a only secondary or tertiary factor in determining why people take a particular job. While we all need a basic income, for most knowledge workers there are many jobs they could take that pay enough to live on, and plenty of choices available. And in spite of the current economic softening - we dare not use the "R" word - we think that's only going to become more true as the workforce shrinks due to the millions of Baby Boomers who will be leaving the full-time workforce over the next decade.

The hard cold reality is that individuals are going to be in a "sellers" labor market for the foreseeable future. That means employers are going to have to meet their employees' needs and demands or find themselves without a viable workforce.

It's our sense that there are at least four significant components of the work experience that matter to people and make their work meaningful (listed below in no particular priority order):

1. An opportunity to make a difference - to have an impact on the world, on the company's customers, on the company's productivity and performance;

2. A sense of personal control over their work environment - the ability to determine where, when, and how they do their work, and having access to the resources (equipment, information, funding) they need to get the work done effectively;

3. Colleagues and friends who share their values and commitments - the social environment provides not only a welcome context for work but also a source of identity, recognition, and validation; and

4. A fair and equitable "deal" with their employer - they can trust their managers and believe that the company is treating them fairly, measuring their performance appropriately, and rewarding them equitably.

We may sound idealistic, but this is not just our opinion; these factors have been found repeatedly and consistently in numerous surveys and other studies of employee satisfaction, engagement, and productivity.

Individual Shades of Meaning

It's trite only because it's true: one size misfits all.

Certainly not all individuals would rank those four work environment factors in the same order, or even experience the "same" work environment identically (experience, after all, is ultimately highly personal and subjective). And more importantly, we all have individual work styles, individual skills, and differing ways of balancing our work, family, and personal interests. We believe those individual differences are far more influential in determining the quality of individual work experiences than is generally recognized.

Some of us are introverts who work alone or on individual creative tasks more effectively (or at least choose to do so more often than not), while others are clearly extroverts who crave interaction and communication with others. Some of us are analytic (so-called "left brain" types), while some are more emotional and creative (right-brained). Some are rational in their problem-solving approaches, others are more intuitive. We each do "our best work" in our own way.

As most of our readers know, there many psychological "inventories" that measure these kinds of individual differences. Probably the most well-known (and most widely used) is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator© or MBTI (currently owned and distributed by CPP, Inc.). But there are many other popular diagnostic instruments; we've often used the TAIS (Test of Attentional and Interpersonal Style) that was developed by Dr. Robert Nideffer and several colleagues, and is at the core of Future of Work Senior Fellow Robin Pratt's professional practice (TAIS is available from several sources, including Dr. Nideffer's firm, Enhanced Performance Systems).

Thus, the "same" work experience can have as many different meanings as there are individuals who "share" that experience. While there are certainly dominating cultural norms and values that often obscure or overwhelm individual responses to an experience, there is a growing recognition that individual work styles do have a meaningful impact on personal productivity and satisfaction. And they make a much bigger difference in knowledge work than they do on an assembly line or in other more routine, structured production jobs.

It's also important to recognize - and plan for - the simple fact that everyone's workplace needs change over time - whether a day, a week, a month, or a year as both their "micro" tasks (e.g., from hour to hour) and their longer-term project work assignments change. As we suggested some time ago, knowledge workers don't need a workspace, they need many workplaces (see "Musings on Knowledge Work and Place," Future of Work Agenda, July, 2006).

We've seen lots of utilization studies that document how a particular workspace or an entire office facility is used over the course of a day or a week, but we have yet to see a meaningful analysis of a "A Day in the Life Of..." that tracks in detail the way an individual moves around over time and switches from one kind of work to another.

By the way, we find it instructive that the workplace designers and services professionals at Hewlett-Packard are beginning to tell HP employees that the entire office floor (or even the whole building) is their "workplace."

Implications for Work Experience Designers

Yet - and this is where we've been heading all along - most workplaces are still designed and built as if we were all the same, doing the same things, and experiencing work in identical ways..
But we all know that work isn't like that these days (if it ever was). Increasingly people come to the workplace (or don't) on their own schedules, engage in a wide variety of work activities (some individual, some involving meetings, and some in collaboration with others thousands of miles away) in a wide variety of places (both inside and outside corporate facilities).

Thus, if we are correct in our sense of what people look for in, and at, "work", how should we design workplaces that meet these various and multiple needs? Workplace planning has become particularly difficult in a world where you don't know with any certainty how many people, or which ones, will be in a particular facility on a given day, or what kinds of spaces (individual workplaces, collaboration space, meeting rooms, learning spaces, informal lounge areas, or whatever) they will need to be effective. What's a designer to do?

We conclude by suggesting several design principles that we think will help lead to more effective work experiences.

First of all, make the workplace flexible. And by "flexible" we mean more than just a chair that is height-adjustable. Even cars are more flexible than most offices. You can adjust your car's lighting level, temperature, and sound, and customize it with plants (yes, in cars), seat covers , and even the scent of your choice. The more individuals can reconfigure their workplaces moment by moment, the more they'll feel in control and the less they'll be demanding endless moves, adds, and changes from the workplace professionals.

Second, pay close attention to the social experience of the workplace. The social context may be more important for some than for others, but nonetheless we all get social satisfaction from the work environment. Every workplace we've been in lately would benefit from more "social" spaces - and more social events as well. We all bemoan the demise of the "watercooler effect" in central facilities and the detrimental impact of that loss on innovation, but office designers (and the senior executives they work for) somehow find it difficult to justify spending capital for an informal, Starbucks-like "café" on each floor.

Third, recognize and design for individual differences. We believe strongly that designing workplaces to support meaningful work experiences will ultimately lead to work environments that match the desires and comfort levels of each individual member of the workforce. More importantly, we're convinced that those customized workplaces will produce higher levels of individual and organizational productivity.

You might call it mass customization. We all live in residences that are tailored to our individual likes/dislikes, preferences, color choices, and whatever else matters to us as individuals. Why can't we do that for workers who demand more and more meaning from the workplace? There really is no reason we can think of, short of an industrially-based desire for uniformity and predictability, that we can't do it. And, hey, even the people who developed Levittown eventually came to realize that one size does misfit all.

Fourth, think residential. By that we mean, think of an office the same way we think of our homes. We move from the living room to the dining room, to the kitchen, to the den, and to the bedroom and bathroom to meet our changing space needs. With rare exceptions (such as living in a one-room studio apartment, or entertaining in the kitchen instead of the living room), we don't confuse the differing purposes of those rooms - and we make use of all of them at various times. Why can't we think of a work facility in the same way?

Finally, design from data, learn from experience, and adapt as you go. Above all else, pay attention to the way people actually use the spaces they have available to them. Talk to them, survey them, watch them as they move around, and let their workplaces evolve, change, and adapt to their ever-changing needs.

If you look back at what makes work experiences meaningful, these desires for "my space" bear a striking similarity to what people also look for in less secular places. So in closing we want to offer you a look at what one of our colleagues, Michael Trent (of www.thirdplaceconsulting.com), is designing for community churches and other gathering places to meet the social (and less other-worldly) needs of members and visitors.

For some powerful inspiration, please take a look at one of these new environments at The Aspen Group Blog. Now that's a potential workplace of the future that imparts genuine meaning.

Why can't we be that creative about where we spend most of our time the rest of the week?

Send us your comments to comments@thefutureofwork.net. We look forward to learning from you!

Best of the Blog

Here's a small sampling of excerpts/lead-ins from our recent weblog posts. Please get in the habit of reading the Future of Work weblog regularly - bookmark it, or if you have an RSS news reader, subscribe to it. And please contribute as well. We're more than happy to reprint your stories, or to consider featuring you as a Guest Writer.

We believe we're creating a unique knowledge base of what's going on out there today, and what's going to be going on tomorrow. If you want to learn about the future of work, our blog is the place to go (along with this very newsletter, of course). Just click on each headline below to visit the full original blog post.

What kind of workplace is Gen Y looking for? (March 11)

I've been asked that question several times lately. Unfortunately I don't have a good answer, though I've got lots of ideas. But there's hope. I just learned that there's a major study underway to answer that very question. The study ... is being conducted by Johnson Controls, in partnership with Haworth.

Is Video Conferencing Finally About to Take Off? (March 18)

Many folks, me included, have commented that videoconferencing is a technology that's been about to become an overnight success - for the last thirty years. It's puzzled many of us that it's been so slow to "come of age."

But we might just - finally - be at a point where the quality and cost are making videoconferencing more acceptable, and more widespread. There's an interesting story in today's San Francisco Chronicle about the fact that Marriott is about to cut a deal with Hewlett-Packard to install HP's Halo system in hotel locations around the world ("HP to deploy 'telepresence' gear at Marriotts").

I'd Rather Not Do It Myself: Let a PEO Do It Instead (March 19)

One of the toughest challenges any small business faces is coping with the complexities of paying employees, withholding taxes, submitting quarterly tax payments to state and federal agencies, distributing W-4 forms at year end, and sorting out all the benefits options. With more and more professionals going into business for themselves, this aspect of launching and managing a business is going to be a major headache for millions of people...

Senior Executives in the UK Expect a More "Virtual" Future of Work (March 21)

I just came across a report of an interesting (but not all that surprising) report of a recent survey of senior executives in the UK. The survey identified a widespread belief that the future of work will include a significant increase in "virtual teams" and highly mobile individuals. Nothing new in itself, except that the survey respondents were senior business executives, not academics or technophiles...

In Our Humble Opinion: Go Hide and Watch

Commentary by Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware

Go hide and watch...

It isn't polite to say "I told you so." But then again no one has ever accused us of being polite - not to mention politically correct. So, hey, we told you so: In Our Humble Opinion (right up front this month), public policy is going to jump up and bite your business right in the butt (that's our highly professional way of saying "Watch out!").

The boyz are off this month. Who knows, they just up and disappear once in awhile (it does seems like they're takin' a lot of vacation time lately). However, Cooter did leave us a pile of stuff as he was jumpin" into the pick-em-up truck. And our thanks to Cuz'ns Richard and Chris for pointin' us in the right direction. So here goes nothin'.

The future of work (and places too) is going to be soooo green it will hurt your eyeballs to look at it without proper shades! Somebody finally gets it and is moving aggressively to make environmental sustainability a reality. Fat cats, and the "good 'ol boys" (affectionately known to us as our esteemed legacy leaders) had better move over right quick-like.

So here's our report from the field. Cooter (the data dog) left us two juicy morsels to chew on. One from Kal-ee-forn-ya and the other from Hotlanta (Georgia). In Our Humble Opinion (twice already!) this is just the tip of the (melting fast) iceberg. Okay, okay, pardon the global warming dig. If your company is going to do a major real estate deal (either lease or build) in the next two years you'd be smart to dumb-slap yourself and wake up (does that make any sense at all?).

Here's the basic point: Employers are going to be held responsible for the impact their employees have on the environment in the communities where they are located.

Hello! Get that? It means in very simple terms that you (you employer, you) will be paying some of your hard-earned good money to local governments for the pollution (and other nasty stuff) your employees create getting to work, working in your facility, and getting their buttocks back home. Want to have your office complex 100 miles from where your people live? Fine, but you are going to pay through the wazoo for that "luxury" (and in a few years that's not going to be a luxury, it's going to be universally recognized as downright irresponsible).

Want to get a good deal on a building that eats electricity like a starvin" dog in a hen house? Go ahead, but look out for the energy police. This issue is going to get serious, and a lot of people are going to be saying, "Boy, I didn't see that one coming" and "What do those gummint burro-crats think they're doing?"

We're here to give you fair warning. Now, let's get down to it. We'll start off gentle-like, and then smack you silly.

But first, a slight digression; you know how we are. Here's a short lesson in public policy. Public policy butts into business in two ways. First there's the "nice guy" approach: "We'll give you something if you do what we want." Second is the gorilla approach: "Do what we want or we'll whack you around big time."

Now, public policy usually only kicks in (at least here in the US of A) when enough voting citizens (not counting the 30% who are effectively brain dead) get fed up and realize they're getting screwed by some business or other.

When that happens they start hollerin' and, worse yet, voting people out of office. That's what gets the gubment types upset, so they finally start doing something for the people (umm we mean, for those folks who kicked their butts).

So, now we have the cost of gasoline through the roof, pollution so thick you can taste it, and generally a growing suspicion that the environment is going to Hades in a small hand basket. Put that together with a general distrust of public officials and you get - you guessed it - a revolt on your hands (now isn't the time for it, but just wait and see what the financial meltdown does to incumbents next fall).

So here's an example of the good guy approach. Dateline Georgia: Tax credits for "teleworkers."

The state of Georgia is offering to give employers up to $20,000 for costs related to program development and an additional $1,200 for each new teleworker. The Georgia state government is allocating a total of $2 million in tax credits for this program, each and every year from now on.

Okay, you say, it looks like they're paying to set up programs to reduce work-related commuting. Yep, that's exactly right: they are indeed-y doin' just that. This program is the carrot; the stick comes next. Check it out on the LexisNexis web site.

Our point is that the Georgia state gubment is enacting policies aimed specifically at reducing work-related commuting. The camel has stuck its nose under the tent. Fightin' this one is about as effective as a rubber-nosed woodpecker in a petrified forest.

Now for the second approach: the gorillanator. The State of Kal-ee-forn-ya (thank you, Ahnold) is going to use public policy - read state laws - as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 80% below 1990 levels. Yep, you read that right - 80% below 1990 The state is currently developing a comprehensive plan to do just that (or die trying - and that's not a joke). Dear hearts, this approach means land use planning, targeting transportation, and requiring green building initiatives. This effort is not some dumb bureaucrat trying to invent a job (Lord only knows, there enough of them) but good old-fashioned legislation. Assembly Bill 32, "The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006," and Senate Bill 97 (which passed in 2007). It's right there on the docket.

We've all seen this before. First the left coast takes a whack at a problem and environmental issue, and the next thing you know it's all over the country. Remember 1967 when pollution control was first introduced to automobiles? It all started in California.

This program will mandate the development of formal (we didn't say "bureaucratic") processes to track its impacts against targets. They aren't just kiddin' around, Bunky.

There's certainly a lot yet to be worked out, but the basic point remains the same. This is the start of the public sector telling businesses that they are going to be responsible for the impact they have on the environment. And that includes the travel of their employees between their homes and the office (or factory). Sure, they will push on renewable energy, transportation efficiency, and building design. But they're also going after land use patterns (watch out, commercial real estate brokers, that means you!). They've finally figured out that it just isn't energy-efficient to move everyone back and forth to and from corporate office buildings for work activities (especially for the folks who are what we've elsewhere called "location-neutral" workers).

Truth be told, we said exactly that way back in February 2007 when we first talked about moving bits instead of butts (see "In Our Humble Opinion: Coping with Carbon" if you doubt our word; actually we think we said it even earlier but with the boyz gone our research capabilities are sorely limited). Write this out twenty times, and stay after school until you memorize it: it takes 57% more energy to move people to a building than the building itself consumes.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires state and local agencies to identify and reduce significant, negative environmental impacts of land-use decisions. That's some pretty potent language, dear hearts. You darn well better get a dog in this hunt - like yesterday. And now here's the big one: Senate Bill 97, Statutes of 2007, and we quote:

By July 1, 2009, to prepare. . . guidelines for the feasible mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions or the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. . . including, but not limited to, effects associated with transportation or energy consumption. The Resources Agency would be required to certify and adopt those guidelines by January 1, 2010.

Do we really have to say more? This isn't tomorrow we're talking about. This is today - or at least no more than fourteen months from today (and that's when you've got to be ready to do it, so it really does mean getting started today).

In Our Humble Opinion, things will speed up a whole bunch on this issue as soon as we get by this little tussle we call an election (you know, that thing we all do in early November here in the ever-lovin' U.S. of A). You'd better study up now on what you can do 'cause around January 21, 2009 (a whole lot less than one year from now), your phone is going to ring (maybe even at 3 AM - sorry, couldn't resist) and Big Bobbie (gotta be gender-neutral for another month or two) in the corner office is going to want an answer, like real quick.

So you may be thinking, "Okay, okay, it sounds good but people won't sit still for this kind of extreme 'solution.'" We humbly submit that you are hiding under a rock if you believe that.

One last example and then we're outta here (until next month, of course): Taken from the San Francisco Chronicle on March 20^th, 2008 ("S.F. moves to greenest building codes in U.S."):

"San Francisco moved a step closer Wednesday to imposing the country's most stringent green building codes, regulations that would require new large commercial buildings and residential high-rises to contain such environmentally friendly features as solar power, nontoxic paints and plumbing fixtures that decrease water usage.

City officials estimate that by 2012 the new green building codes could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60,000 tons and save 220,000 megawatt hours of power and 100 million gallons of drinking water."

Of course, that's "just" the left coast speaking, and they aren't even talking about mandating reduced commuting (or perhaps charging a $25 "entrance fee" to drive a car into the city) yet, but - you heard it here first - they will be. We guarantee it.

Go hide and watch if you want to, but you are not stopping this train.

Please direct your comments to comments@thefutureofwork.net. We'd love to publish your reactions and suggestions. And thanks for listening.

This issue of Future of Work Agenda was produced by Jim Ware and Charlie Grantham of the Work Design Collaborative. We encourage your comments, suggestions, and submission of materials for possible future publication. Please contact us at:

Charlie Grantham, charlie@thefutureofwork.net
Jim Ware, jim@thefutureofwork.net

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