Hotelling, coworking, and other evolutions of work
By Ari | Jan 23, 08 10:57 AM
I just read Treehugger's post on "Hotelling". Apparently this is an old practice that's come back in vogue, whereby businesses keep a lot of their workforce mobile, rather than providing office space and expecting people to stay there all the time. Honestly, I don't see how it's very different from telecommuting. Except that the name is cuter. Anyway, this earth-friendly practice (as Treehugger points out, it results in "few people commuting, [and] less space being built, heated and cooled") got me thinking about connections between work, play, and learning.
I'm a fan of unschooling (self-education without the institution, or even the structure). The educators who advocate for unschooling point out that kids learn naturally while playing, all the time. And studies have shown that if you let kids learn on their own, they'll learn the material better than if you force it on them.
Work seems to be similar: People actually like working. Nothing like the satisfaction of a job well done, right? (Read Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano if you don't agree.) But if you make people work, and force them to do it under circumstances over which they have no control, it becomes less attractive. Take away the desk, let people roam (or better yet, make the business a worker-owened cooperative), and you've got a recipe for increased happiness, and efficiency.
This isn't a too-good-to-be-true pipe dream, either: Hotelling, telecommuting, freelancing, coworking and other alternative forms of fitting work into one's life are all in active use all over the world.
For an application of similar ideas to a conference/ meeting/ retreat setting, see Opening Space for Communication and Collaboration with Open Space Technology. (Link via Josh A.)
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