Finding Space

Time to think. A place to think. Your own little space.

An artist uses a studio. A great business person has an office. As the world continues to untether because of laptops, tablets, mobile devices and persistent connectivity, those studios and offices have become moving targets. Musicians can record from their laptop. Any business person with a mobile can make their art in the corner cafe. The truth is that we – as Marketers – have never had a better time in our profession to be able to find the right space to come up with the right ideas.

It’s all about the gear… and what you do with it.

Someone recently asked me how much time I spend at the office. It actually gave me pause. Even though we have two Twist Image offices in different cities that I spend quite a bit of time in (if I’m not travelling, my days are usually spent in one of the two offices), for some reason, I consider my MacBook Pro my "real" office. Over the years, the construct of a physical office means less and less to me as my ability to generate ideas, create and think about the clients we work with and the industry I serve is increasingly less about where I am, and much more about the people I am collaborating with and my access to the information I need or tools to create. 

MacBook Pro as office.

Yes, I’m in love with the look and feel of my Apple MacBook Pro (it’s a piece of design beauty), but more than that, I often look at the closed computer and think to myself that if I were a painter, this computer would be like having a small portable studio with every type of canvas, paint, brush and color available at the touch of a finger. That’s a powerful thought… and it’s true. We used to find a physical space to get our work done, but even that is changing.

The future of work and space.

In April 2008, The Economist ran an article titled, The New Oases, that looked at how our new-found mobility was in the process of redefining and changing our physical work spaces: "In the 20th century architecture was about specialized structures–offices for working, cafeterias for eating, and so forth. This was necessary because workers needed to be near things such as landline phones, fax machines and filing cabinets, and because the economics of building materials favored repetitive and simple structures, such as grid patterns for cubicles… Buildings will have much more varied shapes than before. For instance, people working on laptops find it comforting to have their backs to a wall, so hybrid spaces may become curvier, with more nooks, in order to maximize the surface area of their inner walls."

It’s a fascinating time to be working… however you define it and wherever you’re doing it.