Happy Tuesday All!
We look forward to seeing those of you that can attend our “New World of Learning” CEU tomorrow (2/22/12) at CR Architecture during the lunch hour. There is a lot material, but participants in the CEU will get to select what is covered in the most detail to insure we address your needs. Please e-mail dgallo@lothinc.com if you want to attend and haven’t RSVP’ed to insure we have food for any last minute registrants.
Our guest blogger Molly Ritchie, a current student at Xavier University, has been learning about our industry for the past few weeks during her internship with us and will be trying her hand at a few things around here.Below are a few featured articles from other design bloggers within the region that caught our attention at LOTH as well articles from the most recent issue of 360 Magazine on workplace insights. Take a read and feel free to comment below!
Are ‘The Best Places to Work’ really the best?
Marketplace author and Harvard professor Teresa Amabile comments on Fortune Magazine’s Best Companies 2012 list and asks the question, “Are they really the best?” Amabile and her research team analyzed thousands of professionals’ diaries from seven different companies—discovering what really makes somewhere “the best place to work.”
Read the article here à Are they really “the best places to work?”
The Next Office: Why CEOs Are Paying Attention
Executives everywhere are being asked to deliver higher performance from every company asset. Yet they often overlook an asset that’s both highly leverageable and pivotal to the organization’s success: the office. Steelcase president Jim Keane knows that offices must keep up with the sweeping changes in business—and many executives admit that their offices haven’t. This article discusses the new demands the changing economy brings to the office setting, as well as ways of creating the best place for new ways of working.
Read more at Steelcase 360, The Next Office: Why CEOs are Paying Attention
A New Learning Curve
If environments influence behavior (which we know they do), what kind of behavior do you think comes from a typical, rectangular classroom with fixed seats, a podium, and a board bolted to the wall? Lennie Scott-Webber, Ph.D., director of education environments for Steelcase Education Solutions gives ideas on planning and designing innovative learning spaces that encourage active learning instead of passive learning, and discusses the future of education in engagement and collaboration.
Find this article at Steelcase 360, A New Learning Curve
Ecovative Design – a New Way to Make Green Material
Ecovative Design doesn’t manufacture their materials—they grow them. Ecovative Design creates all kinds of eco materials that are grown entirely naturally with no petrochemical inputs, do not displace any food or fuel production and are 100 percent biodegradable and renewable.
They have recently began developing materials to replace dense materials like particle board, and already have a few products including panels, herb planters, bowls and EcoCradle Wine Shippers.
Read more about the Innovator of the Year company herà Ecovative Design
The Dark Side of Creativity
We hear a lot about the benefits of being creative but less about the dark side of creativity. Psychological research has only recently begun examining the dark side of creativity but it’s already turning up some interesting findings.
Read those interesting findings… The Dark Side of Creativity