Creative Reaction

Read this opening paragraph from Stand Up While You Read This! in the NYT:

“It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting — in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home — you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.”

Yikes! Owners and Managers, take note and look after your most important asset – your employees.

Aside from the health benefits of working and standing, there are creative benefits as well. Authors Lewis Carroll, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf all wrote while standing. Film Editor Walter Murch (pictured here) famously edits while standing up, comparing his work to gunslinging, conducting, brain surgery and short-order cooking.

“That’s the reason I stand when I edit — I’m fully engaged in my body.”

So what should we do? Seriously consider giving creatives the opportunity to stand while working. Consider installing standing-height counters, standing desks or desks that move to allow both standing and sitting. Both Anthro and GeekDesk offer models that move from one position to the other.

What else? Make sure employees get up and walk around. Hold meetings outdoors or in ways that involve activity. Other ideas? Add your own in the comments.

Let’s be sure to get off our butts!

Last Spring, Wired Magazine had a pictorial on the evolution of the cubicle farm, offering a glimmer of hope by stating that today’s designers are trying to “part the sea of cubicles and encourage sociability”.

Harvard Business Publishing suggests parting them with a bulldozer.

“Cubicle cultures just don’t work… (they) discourage collaboration, stifle employee engagement and, as a result, strangle innovation at the exact time when it’s desperately needed.”

What does work? An environment offering a combination of private space to get work done and communal spaces for collaboration.

Read both articles for short profiles and office furniture companies offering alternatives.