A bit late, but here’s a report of my presentation at the EA last week.

Thanks to Dave Mori for organizing this and Andrew for the picture.

 

I’ll be speaking at the Entrepreneur Association on April 7th. More info here.

OK, Mr Bean perfected the art of miniature golf, but this is pretty funny and would work in an office.

I will be joining a forum discussion at the BCCJ on the topic of architecture. 

I’ll be presenting my paper: “Tokyo, a transitional city of networks”, at the Internet Research Conference in Copenhagen. 

This is the abstract of the paper:

Title: Tokyo, a transitional city of people networks.

In 1927 Ludwig Hilbersheimer wrote in his book Grosstadtarchitektur: “The architecture of the large city depends essentially on the solution given to two factors: the elementary cell and the urban organism as a whole. The single room as the constituent element of habitation will determine the aspect of habitation, and since the habitations in turn form blocks, the room will become a factor of urban configuration, which is architecture’s true goal.” 

In Tokyo the single room has indeed become the main factor of the urban configuration, but not as the constituent element of habitation. Habitation in Tokyo is a mere transitional point along a path of single, activity-based cells which the average Tokyoite transverses. 

 The greater Tokyo area (a radius of 50 km from the centre of Tokyo including Yokohama) with a population of 35,197,000 is probably the largest urban area in the world. Tokyo has 247, 250 companies with a work force  of about 12M, which is 22.7% of Japan’s total workforce. Almost 1/3 of these employees live outside of the central area and commute into Tokyo. On average their commute time is 62 minutes, packed into trains which during peak times are 400% over capacity. 

 The work environment is not much better, with a density of about 10m2/person, a third of most European work environments. They live in apartments that are as small as 20sqm to 50 sqm for a family of 4. Japan is well-known for working long hours, however the average Japanese spends more time on shopping and leisure than they spend at home. Major brands such as Louis Vuitton or Paul Smith see up to 30% of their global profits coming from Japan. Thirty million Japanese go to play Panchiko, gambling away about 30 trillion a year, a higher turnover than the car industry. Tokyo has with 160,000 restaurants more than any other urban centre. Paris for example has only 20,000 restaurants, while New York has 23,000. The adult entertainment business in Japan is significant, 1% of GDP. One “sex zone” in Tokyo, only 0.34 sq. km., has 3,500 sex facilities, including strip theaters, peep shows, “soaplands,” “lover’s banks,” porno shops, telephone clubs, karaoke bars, clubs etc. 

 In this paper I want to show what at first glance looks like an incoherent and chaotic urban sprawl, Tokyo really is a city of hundreds of thousands of single activity-defined cells. I would like to show that the connection between these single cells has started a long time ago, today with the raise of digital media the change is shifting vertically with the addition of layers that  “visualize” the network of cells as well as opening these networks to a broader public.

The international ITA workshop will be in Krakow, Poland this year. I will not be able to join in person but I will be making a live video presentation. This year’s theme will be “ICT-supported collaboration and flexible working perceived as vehicles for stimulating local development, supporting entrepreneurship and building a fully inclusive Information Society.”

The tittle for my presentation is “What does regionalism mean today”, in this presentation I want to address the (new) meaning of regionalism today. Cities, and especially larger cities, are known due to their importance in the global economy, or due to their cultural, political or religious importance. The hierarchy and importance of a city acts as an attractor which has been the main drive for the growth of cities. A city is nothing more than a grouping of architecture, and architecture are man-made structures that support human activity. Thus initially regionalism was defined by its architecture, as architecture was the very expression of the region, not only as an expression of the activities that formed the attraction of the place, but also as the materials that were used to construct the architecture which would come directly from the regional context. Today all of this is changing. Success of a city and of a region today depends on the success of its attractors. If in the past the attraction grew slowly and depended on a hierarchical system, today the attraction can be created (almost) overnight. Think of Bilbao in Spain, the construction of the Guggenheim museum has placed this sleepy little town on the global map, or Dubai which is moving from a camel market place into a global city within a few years, or the Chinese manufacturing cities that have and are popping up like mushrooms in the Chinese countryside. 

Svein Bergum: research findings and introduction to the topics of digital natives, and ICT for sustainable development

Rich Ling: Telenor R&D. Social cohesion and the use of mobile communication.
Sociology and the electronic revolution
The interaction of technology, society and social cohesion is one of the major projects of sociology. 50 years into ICT (transistor developed in 1947). Cities are still the same as 50 years ago, workplace same, education still the same. Not as big of a change as during the industrialism.
Putnam and the loss of social capital. There are fewer people (in the US) where people feel they can confide in. Social cohesion: people you can talk to, have dinner with etc… is becoming more fraid at the edge. That which holds people together. According Durkheim it is ritual. According to Freud ritual is obsessive behaviour. Durkheim looked at Aboriginals and saw that it is a mutual recognition that holds the societe together. A common mood. Often there are barriers of those who are not part of the group. Ritual is a catalyst for social cohesion. Most successful rituals are copresent. (For example dating and the use of messaging. Use email before and after the date. Mobile technology allows to extend the face to face presence.
Third parties bringing other people together like priests, rock musicians or politicians. Goffman these rituals are happening all the time, ritual is a continual part of daily life.
Face to face interaction is important. Mobile communications means that we call to people, not to places. We are able to have more continual and nuanced interactions with one another. Mobile communication allows us to play out rituals via mediation. Gossip is a ritual interaction, there has to be a common mood, it marks the boundaries between who is inside and outside of the group, it marks minor transgression of social norms, it is used in the way we work out power relations and it can fail.
Mobile communication can enhance the in-group solidarity, interaction is more frequent. Togetherness and outside “threads” help to develop local ideologies and enhances groupness. Increased mobile communications helps to create stronger social bonds. If there is too strong of a social coherence it becomes a mafia type of group and will miss out on what is happening outside of the group.
Mobile telephony and bounded intimacy.
Mobile communication is encouraging social cohesion. We are living is a quasi gemeinschaft society. Mobile communication is facilitating solidarity and cohesion within groups. Implications for business groups: team building cohesion on for example on a project basis, but up to a point when the project has been done.

The digital native and the future workforce: Marianne Levinson, Futurist and Chief of research
The digital natives: born in 1990-2001, large generation because of the revival of family values. Project, trophy and curling children (wanted children), parents assist them in any kind of matter. Not selfish, but individualistic: everyone has the right to fulfill their dreams. Be famous, it does not matter what (like Paris Hilton).
Huge circle of acquaintances: 4-8 close friends, 30-50 text friends, 100-200 msn friends. Each digital native has a huge personal network with people in different parts of their own city, country and some of them world wide. Have the possibility to send messages on regarding for example issues at the workplace to hundreds of people. Google everything, almost born to live online: news, information, shopping, chatting, download music and create their own music and videos, do all of this at the same time. Excellent digital skills, fast and adaptive.
Expectations to future employers: what’s in it for me? Want to meet different people, leaders, job functions and workplaces. Comprehension and willingness to understand the things that they care for, leaders that can motivate them and be their star. Companies are held hostage by talent. (Karaoke Business).
Give me a direction and show me that I do a meaningful job. I can always find a grown-up to help me. In a world full of information about companies and people, they trust their family and friends. Their trust will come from what their family and friends know about companies.
Digital immigrants:
Baby boomers (1946-1964)
Generation Jones (mid 1950-1965)
Generation X (1966-1979)
Generation y (1976-1982)
Leaders and challenges: Huge challenge to be able to motivate these different generations as their values are so different. Leadership will be more complex than before.
Generation of 2002: surveillance from birth, no distinction between real and virtual. Famous before they are born.
Google chosen as the best workplace to work. It is fun to work at Google, work and fun need to go together.

Peter Arnfalk: ICT and telework for sustainable development, Swdish National Policy. Telework for transport savings in the Swedish National Strategy for ICT and Sustainable development.
Sustainable development. Can telework support sustainable development? Potential: less need for passenger transport & office space. Reduced environmental impact. Hard to say that telework reduces transportation. Crucial variables differ: the definition of telework, the impact on transport. Environmental indicators: life-cycle impact or ecological rucksack: transport, infrastructure, housing, office space, life-style (food, clothes, leisure travel etc…).
Conclusion promote more sustainable telework arrangements, state should act as a forerunner, establish a telework policy 2007 for all state agencies, support a spill-over effect to the private sphere.
1998 ministry of employment in Sweden create a handbook (395 pages) on the implementation of telework, including the change of 2 laws. After this the environmental ministry during 2002-2004 including a workshop in 2003 with about 100 conclusions such as assessment of current economic policy framework, assessing initiatives already in place, more research on telework. After this the government’s IT policy looking into the problem as well.
Outcome: major labour policies have been removed, no support for transport, energy and/or Co2 saving effects.

Suggested measures for eco-efficient design of telework:
1. Make employers responsible for traveling and commuting,
2. promote policies for efficient telework

National status for e-Work in the Netherlands. Philip P. Todd, e-Work
The Netherlands still a front runner, over 25% of the working population involved in eWork. Stimulators for ework in the Netherlands:
1. Traffic jams
2. sustainability, CO2 reduction
3. HRM factors (labour shortage, eLife, recruitment, retainment, absenteism) When is a eworker really ill?
4. Main reasons for employees to eWork: work quietly, overtime…
Promote eWork: organize conferences, research projects, lobbying, eWork award.

Wendy Spinks: main findings from the workshop
Are we at a cross-road? Mature markets and new countries, not all at the same level.
The work boundary has been used a lot, work-life boundary. Is becoming an increasingly important issue. Teleworkers are like the pendulum of a clock. Multiple locations, multiple job functions, the degree of flexibility. Spacial and cognitive space need more research to become tools to use.
Teamwork versus traditional telework (individuals working at home) whereas teamwork can be a dispersion of teams working together virtual and in real locations.
Stop to promote telework as a rational management solution but from now on use it as an ideology.

Svein in his goodbye note said that he is having the same feeling as after the Winter Olympics of 1994.

These are rough notes of day 2:

Keynote presentation
Distance work in public organizations: in the intersection between technology, organization and politics. Hanne Heen, Work Research Institute, Norway and Wiggo Knudsen, Norwegian Public Road Administration. Three case studies:

Sunnaas Sykehus: telemedicine, distance work, assistance to medical research. Hospital with 500+ employees, very specialized treatment of spine injuries, 1990 data revolution, various IT elements were tested, but not all of it worked, however simple things such as the use of internet worked. Collaborated with US and Swedish hospitals, constituted a revolution.
Returning the disabled to a work situation, treatment from a distance.

Labour inspection: 400 employees, inspectors follow the work-force work from home with very good results. Problems with security, tried firewalls. Too much focus on technical issues, too advanced, too much focus on technology. Mobile office inspector, use a laptop and a telephone, went round doing inspections in a systematic way, forms to be filled-out, then send to secretary who would finish the documents.

Evaluation of home offices in the public roads authority. Quite successful, but projects were not pursued or canceled. Of the 10,000 employees production department split off, and the remaining 6000-4000 employees would be slimmed down. Regionalization, as a result new ways of working, dispersed work modes explodes: in 2002:20% in 2006: 60% of the employees work in a dispersed way. Distant work should be used to obtain the aims of reorganization. Project was opportunity drive, later on became politically driven. Driving forces behind distributed organizations: new public management reform, to appear modern, willing to change, to develop new forms of management, development of impersonal control systems, technology push.

Remarks: Facebook (programme?) that should give visibility to tele and distance workers.

Stream 3A: User driven innovation in new workspace design: Eva Bjerrum and John Brøndberg Simonsen, the Alexandra Institute, Denmark.
People not at their desks but at home, traveling, in the city etc… New office design is not a change agent in itself, the concept of work is biased: the only real work is individual, by yourself, and result based.
Danish dairy board. Methodology: questionnaire, workshops towards attitudes and expectations and implementation of the new office design. 1year later post evaluation review.
Workshop: took pictures to talk with managers about these pictures and asked about associations with these pictures.
POE: 89% appreciate the new office design, 85% agree that the new office design support work better, 66% talks more to colleagues, 69% believe they become better at informal meeting.
Observation: a lot of light, a good atmosphere, empty spaces, many different materials, flexible rooms seldom used. Although these rooms were requested at the start of the project.
Methodologies:
Snapshots: register on a floor plan in 5 minute periods what is happening in the office,
Episodes: detail written descriptions of what is happening in a space,
Workshop 2: Unfreezing the organization
Use all the space, change behaviour, desk sharing, rethinking the space, more flexible IT and telephone systems.

E-working: the facility manager’s turn. Michael G.M. Geerdink, Kalchas BV, and Rosanna Lopes, The Hague University.
Focus on the function of the facility manager in the implementation of eWorking in an organization, due to the direct link between real estate and eWorking. Discussion on role and definition of facility manager. If HR takes the initiative the focus can be too much on the HR side, the IT department too much on IT.
Changes in facilities: desk sharing, clean desk policy, workplace supports specific activities, variety of workplaces, eWork leads reduction of individual workspaces. Change of perception of facility manager.

Stream 4A: Workplace design for distributed work: John Willy Bakke, Telenor research and innovation. What is the role of workplace design for distributed work? Why are companies still in workplace design, architecture and space solutions? Despite the dematerialization of organizations. Teleworkers are the digital nomads, heroes of the digital age. Wrote a handbook: a Nordic guide to workplace design. Thus the question what does workplace design mean for distributed work. The body of the virtual worker needs to be somewhere and that place needs to have certain qualities. Space matters for organizational processes. Workspace is not an empty container for activities. Ordering of space in buildings is about ordering of relations between people. “Buildings stabilize social life (Gieryn 2002), they give structure to social institutions, durability to social networks, persistence to behaviour patterns.” Building communicate with the environment all the time.
Mary Jo Hatch (book): distinguishes the difference between the location (communication, recruitment, transportation), lay-out (interaction, coordination, conflict & control) and design (style, décor).
What is the relation between distributed work and the physical workplace? Distributed work is not an exception that motivates a specific form of workplace design.

Stream 5B: Call centre-business model, Christer Strandberg and Olaf Wahlberg. Are all call centres electronic sweatshops? Call centres are not always an industry. Heaven or hell? growing sector, salient vehicle for customer service in a globalized economy with tougher competition, CRM.
Call centres come in many forms: outsourced or in-house. In reality more employees in in-house call centres than outsourced (80% in-house). Basic assumption of psychosocial work environment is important, key to job satisfaction, commitment, efficiency and customer service. Methodology: used QPS questionnaire for investigate psychosocial conditions, 123 questions and 26 indexes-scales. Data base with QPS data for more than 2000 Nordic organizations. Leadership is very important to cope with stress perceived at work, support from co-workers important. Outsourced call centres’ margin is 3%. Outsourced call-centres turn-over of employees is 1.5 years.
Psychosocial conditions, UK compared to Sweden, people are being taken care off, called the Swedish model. Team managers should be people orientated for success.

The impact of home-based telework on Work-Family conflict in the childcare stage: Wendy Spinks
Family conflict: a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually un
Mainly woman homebased work,
Home-based work: place is at place of living, work autonomy is high, absence of commute.

Struggling for balance: the corrosive effect of consultant’s work and travel patterns on their home life: Donald Hislop, Loughborough University
Work and travel patterns: 2-3 days a week traveling, 1 day in office, 1 at home, often staying over when on the road. Work locations: client sites, cars, homes, own offices. Typical long hours work.
Work Family Border theory (Cambell Clarke 2000): people physically and psychologically inhabit a number of different “domains”, work and family are two important domains, each domain has its own
Domain borders play a key role in shaping inter-relationships: permeability, flexibility, blending, strength (border of domains either strong or weak).
Work domain has negative impacts for consultants non-work domain. Absence from home life, conflict on arrival home, impacts on hobbies and social life, impact on health and wellbeing. Work dominated the temporal domain, unpredictability of the work. Consultants spend a lot of time driving, paradox: travel intrinsic of work but was not regarded as a legitimate work activity (wasted time), partly explains why journeys commonly not during formal “work-time”. Consultant are border crosser but prioritize work when conflict exists.

Job engagement and quality of life: Liv Murud, Lillehammer University,
Job engagement and how it affects quality of life. Job engagement = energy + involvement + absorption
Quality of life=the relationship with yourself + relationship with significant others