Performance enhancing spaces…

…Just think, take a pill and be able to come up with more good ideas, faster; or rub on a cream and be able to better recall the numerous details of last week’s meeting. It works with sports…, at least that’s what the headlines are saying regarding certain star athletes. It appears there is some connection between conventional enhancement and performance…so why not design a space that enhances performance in the office?  I think it’s because of how we define ‘performance’, as well as what we know about the drivers of performance.  It’s brain over brawn.  Not that brawn is all you need in sports, far from it, but the performance enhancing substances only really help with brawn.  There’s no magic brain pill that I know of.

There are certainly things which contribute to the brain functioning at a higher level, or at a lower level.  Sleep, alcohol, sensory stimuli…,just to name a few. Lucky for us…, being in the physical space business, the context of place helps the brain as well.  In his book, Inquiry by Design, John Zeisel declares, “Memory begins for a person when they have an experience and perceive what happens, WHERE IT HAPPENS (I took the liberty to capitalize this), who is there, what their role is in the experience, and the feelings they have at that time.”  And without memory – we are literally lost.  He also quotes Schacter who says that physical environment is therefore essential to memory reconstitution.  An amazing little piece of the brain acts as this memory trigger…, the hippocampus.  I think we would all agree that if we had the ability to remember more, our overall performance should go up.  Better place, better memory, better memory, better performance…, hmmmm…!

A couple of my posts have alluded to what contributes to what I would define as a well designed space – planned around its intended use/activity, more horizontal and vertical display, and others.  The purpose here is to convince you of the payback (the ‘value’ to the user), which is to improve individual and team performance.  As an example…,our research shows that when a space provides for the visual review of alternative solutions side-by-side by a group or team, the group will more quickly come to a shared understanding (‘group mind’ we call it).  This is a good thing…, as a team with a shared understanding is able to move more efficiently through a process than one who is not.  The space and the activity have literally increased the performance of the team.  I can relate very directly to this.  When participating in a room with a single focus, where we slug through a couple dozen slides, with no ability to Google supporting/contrasting data, we spend an enormous amount of time asking questions, debating opinions, etc.  We lack the facts.  Then in a second room, with multiple display screens and the ability of everyone to contribute to an idea by displaying their digital references, we get to the end result faster, and with greater conviction.  It just works. The space, as the neuroscientists would claim, is creating a visual map that corresponds to our mental or cognitive map, which augments or enhances our brain’s behavior (performance). And when it comes to performance enhancing substances to boost sports performance, or effective space planning to boost office performance, only one is legal…

Brawn or brain…?

Comments

[Max]

I totally agree with you

[jackybpp1]

None that I am personally aware of, but I have never used an iPhone or iTouch. I did a Google search for iPhone wifi and came up with these good tipshttp://iphonenow.info/edge-wifi-use-on-your-iphone-how-and-why/ that might help you out.

"You don't stop laughing when you grow old; you grow old when you stop laughing." -- Michael Pritchard