Archive for 8 January, 2008
provisioning for proximity
Sat at my desk trying to tune out the multiple conversations and ringtones going on around me in our very open plan but very jam packed office, I was reassured to read in the New York Times that google have done some research into how information flows inside creative businesses (using themselves as guinea pigs) which supported the good old fashioned idea of the importance of geographical proximity in explaining information flows inside creative businesses. In other words, people talk.
As the NYT put it, ‘The finding that information moved fastest among people who were the closest together is also an endorsement of the company’s “third rule for managing knowledge workers: Pack Them In”.’
You can read the full report here and google’s ten rules for managing creative workers here.
