A colleague of mine sent me a link to a really great web site called “The Cool Hunter.” Here is how they describe themselves:

The Cool Hunter is an Internet-based hub for the best and coolest of everything. Created and engineered for today’s demanding and discerning pop-culture audience – highly invested in stylistic and cultural trends.

Click here to view the amazing offices spaces from Cool Hunter.

They posted an article along with some great pictures of workspaces from different companies around the world. These companies have taken painstaking efforts to understand what type of work environment will allow their employees to operate at the most innovative and creative level. They have also thought through, or maybe I should say thought past, the assembly line mentality that most corporations still exisit in, from an office space perspective.

Think about it - when we went to school how were the desks aligned? They were perfectly formatted in straight lines and everyone even sat in alphabetical order. We were taught not to step out of line, not to stand out from the crowd. The best students were those who blended in, earned high grades, and high SAT scores. The students who were looked down upon were those who didn’t fit the mold of public education. Anyone who stuck their head up was considered a trouble maker and would not be tolerated. Why does it surprise us that the majority of office environments are nicely aligned rows and cubes? We have been sitting in them since we were old enough to attend school. The only exception would probably be kindergarten, but after that the condition began.

Therefore, when you view a web site like the one I linked to above it is almost baffling to consider working in an environment like that. It doesn’t fit the mold. It doesn’t compute with most of the current workforce.

I have a couple of questions

1. Have you ever worked at a company that had an office environment like the ones featured over at Cool Hunter?

2. Did it really make you more creative? Were you able to be more innovative?

3. What would happen to a company from a staff perspective if they began to impliment very different office environments like Coll Hunter is touting? Would people leave? Would it attract a new type of employee that your company was never able to attract in the past?
4. Can I keep my over-stuffed, high back office chair if I am working at a desk made out of a mini-van?

5. Most importantly will I still have a work enviornment where I can plug in my iPod if it runs out of juice during the work day? As long as that is possible I guess I can live with the mini-van in my office.

6. Since we are all reading about the up and coming labor shortage, will an office environment that promotes an innovative and creative culture attract a younger workforce? Will it attract the millennials that Ryan Healy advocates for over at Employee Evolution? (By the way, I am one of the people he is talking about.)

7. Is the return on investment going to be there if a company spends a boat-load of money on an office environment? How practical is this type of decision for a small company who is bootstrapping their way through life?

8. What type of company is optiimal to consider these radical office changes?

9. How will you measure your workforces improvement by offering such an environment such as this?

I am asking these questions because I don’t have all the answers. Feel free to offer your two sense by commenting on this post. Overall I love the idea of drastically shaking up the office space of companies around America. We live in a knowledge economy and should act like it. We no longer work on very many assembly lines in this country. We deisgn them but we don’t actualy work on them. since that is the reality our office environments should reflect our new way of working. A couple of recomendations for CEOs and interier designers:

1. Office environments don’t need to be uniform

2. They need to foster collaboration, team work, innovation, creativity

3. Fitting the mold in life is no longer cool

4. Being different is in an no longer considered wrong

How much longer can we really stand sitting in these boring cubes?

Question: Do you believe that job searching happens by divine providence?

My reason for asking such a thought provoking question is because this topic of divine providence in job searching does not get talked about nearly enough, at least not from what I have seen in the blogosphere. I am sure many of you reading this article today could point to times in your career where no matter what you did it seemed like doors kept closing on you during your job search. And then suddenly, as if by divine appointment a door opened that you never considered. The doors that you were knocking on were doors that in the natural seemed like logical choices and wise moves but for whatever reason they all led to dead ends. And the door that opened and proved to be the most fruitful was the one door that you never even considered knocking on. It was the one that probably never entered your mind or consideration. However, it was the one that brought the result you were looking for right from the start.

The inspiration for this article comes from my brother Ryan. After years of knocking on the most logical doors with little or no results, his unforeseen door opened this week with a new job at Fed Ex Ground here in Pittsburgh! Even though he applied for hundreds of jobs on the Internet Fed Ex found his resume on Monster.com and quickly interviewed and hired him. He didn’t know about the job nor did anyone refer him to the position, they randomly found him with no effort on his part.

Here are a couple of items that I am sure some of you can relate to:
Sent hundreds of resumes via online job boards and corporate web sites.
Countless phone screens and face-to-face interviews
Endless networking encounters
Frustration over the lack of communication from human resources departments (By the way, what is wrong with many HR professionals around this country? This is the one group that is supposed to be the best at communication within a company but when it comes to recruiting they display a pitiful example of good communication. If you interview someone multiple times for a position please have the decency to call them and let them know they didn’t get the job!!!!)
At one point a very large company gave him a verbal job offer only to never make any contact with him again. The words, “You have the job…we will send an offer soon” actually came out of HR’s mouth only never to hear from them again. I guess corporate priorities change on a dime now-a-days. Unfortunately the communication side of HR is slow to adapt.
Countless more hours of trying to come up with alternative plans for your full time job to ensure that you can put bread on the table, a roof over your head, cloths on your back, and gas in your car once you finally get the call that your time with your present employer has ended.

I believe that God has a plan for our lives and that our steps are ordered by the Lord. You may not be a Christian or believe that God has a plan for your life but you must admit that there are situations in life that you simply cannot explain or take credit for. The next time a new job or business opportunity comes your way unexpectedly or effortlessly you will have to ask yourself how this happened? Why did it happen to you at this particular time in your life? Some decisions and events are simply unexplainable except by Divine intervention.

jd

After much thought and consideration I have officially decided to resign from the Pittsburgh Technology Council effective December 21^st, 2007.

My decision does not come as a result of unhappiness.  In fact, I have nothing but positive comments to make about the Council and will continue to be a large supporter of their efforts.  I have greatly appreciated the time and resources the Council has invested in me over the past five years.  I will be forever grateful for this organization because of the chance it took on me right out of college and as an intern.  The skills, contacts, and people I have met along the way will not soon be forgotten.

However, I have been carefully considering my career goals over the past six months and feel that continuing on in the association world / workforce education world is not ultimately where I want my career to go.  I have therefore chosen to take a position in the private sector in a business development role.

My new venture will be one of an entrepreneur.  I have officially launched my own corporation, Education Meets Industry, which will be a consulting company in the education space.  My first and primary contract is with EduLink Inc, www.edulinkinc.com.  I will be helping them grow and expand their business by offering technology  solutions to K-12, higher education, and municipal governments.  They are a database management and information systems company.  I am extremely excited about what lies ahead for this company.

In addition, I hope to continue to add more value and resources to this web site in the way of articles, podcasts, vodcasts, and ebooks.  My goal is to grow my portfolio of resources for students and young professionals to help them find their passion in life and not a job.  These developments should start to pop up after the New Year.

Sincerely

Justin Driscoll