I'm a fan of how change can impact productivity. Yesterday my assistant Matt, our January intern (Ryan), and I reorganized the arts suite. It was really an excuse for a major cleaning – vacuuming under furniture, throwing lots of crap away, etc. I wish we'd have taken before and in process pictures. It actually occurred to me to turn on a camera and timelapse the entire transition, but also something I didn't do. I could probably dig up some old pictures from when we moved in 18 months ago, but for now there are pictures of the new arrangement.
The main reason for the shift is that a few months ago I replaced a broken monitor with a nice new one from Dell, but ended up with a glossy screen. I used to have my back to the windows and that provided a nice amount of glare. I also wanted to see if there was a way to open up the space while keeping all the furniture. I think we did a fairly good job.
What changed? The conference table moved slightly. My desk and the seating area flipped sides of the room. Originally when we moved in Lori & Jeni insisted that we do things "catty whompus" with very little square to the walls. It was a nice asthetic but felt cluttered. Everything but the conference table now sits squared off with the walls. A bit institutional, but I like it a lot better.
There are three or four people that work out of our office on a fairly regular basis as well as a stream of volunteers that do projects in here. The space also works as a small studio for video and minor audio work. We have a lot of creative meetings both around the conference table and on the couches.
Things I really like about the new layout. It puts the seating area in view of the window in the door. I was always a bit concerned about meeting with people not in view of the window. It provides a much better traffic flow through the room. It lets everybody see the tv from their desk and gives a better viewing angle from most of the room. We're going to be able to start letting stuff play in the background, have news, etc. It also lets us play xbox from our desks. I also like that the workstations are centralized on one side of the room. Conversation between desks is much more comfortable. Most importantly the room feels much more open.
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