The Third Leg of the Process/Environment/Technology Stool
Some important questions you may want to ask about the health of the technological system in your organization include:
- Does your technology facilitate structural flexibility?
- How does the technology system promote high-frequency, low-magnitude communication?
- Do all members of your organization have access to necessary information?
- In what way does your technological system promote the proper balance between centralization and decentralization?
- What aspects of your technology develop the organization's body of knowledge, and what aspects adapt to individual needs and learning and work styles?
Visualize new technologies that would meet the needs of your organization daily. What effects will these new technologies have on our processes and environments? We cannot know until we have experimented and played and developed uses specific to our needs.
We live in exciting times of discovery and invention. Our view of how
we will use technology in the future is a bit fuzzy. So, we continue to
explore and create new technologies with our clients and our processes
and environments necessarily evolve as with them.
Music. Visualize yourself working in a room where soft, classic rock music is playing. Now visualize yourself working in a room where loud hard rock music is playing. What type of product did you produce in each room? Research has shown the power of music to impact energy and creativity in the workplace. Describe the musical elements necessary in a collaborative, creative workspace at the different stages of the work. visualize a music system which allows knowledge workers to provide exactly the right music at the right time to change or sustain the mood in the environment, or to encourage participants to move from one type of activity to another.
Audio.Imagine yourself in a room in which many people are working on creative solutions to problems that are imporatnt to you. Imagine that you cannot hear what is being said or you do hear what was said, but you cannot remember critical information. What is the impact on your work? Now imagine that you are in an environment in which the audio capture system allows all participants and staff in a large group event to hear the proceedings clearly and to review it if necessary. What are the elements of that audio system? Describe what the sustem must DO to facilitate the work of large and small groups and individuals.
Video. You are sitting at the back of a large group and someone in the from row is talking to the presenter. The presenter has a diagram on an 11x17 sheet of paper. What do you see? How can you contribute to the conversation? Now, imagine a video capture system, along with monitors at strategic points through out the space allow everyone in the space to be "part" of critical dialogue. How will this system change your interaction with the speakers? How will it change your interest in the process?
Web Access. In a knowledge rich environment, access to up-to-date research is necessary. There simply is not time in todayís learning environment to sent staff off to distant libraries to return days later with references. Web access allows knowledge workers to provide such information real time. In addition, reproduction facilities allow staff and participants in projects to maintain internal files of the best in written or video media for use at appropriate times. Records from all previous events in the environment are also readily available through electronic and paper data bases.
These three important aspects of our approach to creativity and learning are only the tip of the iceberg that can be served by the base package of technology. New, experimental technology suggested in the more advanced package will allow staff and users of the environment to experiment with what will be commonplace in the workplaces of the future, allowing for your organization to get an early advantage in designing those workplaces.
- That which the people in the environment bring
- with them and can share
- That which can be gotten from outside or expert
- sources and research
- That which can be created in the environment.
these phases of knowledge that makes the environment
knowledge rich. Out technical systems continually
evolve to help create, capture and enhance the knowledge
in our creative environments.
Computer Workstations. Computer technology and peripherals enable the staff provide real time feedback, syntheses and information storage for center activities. Documentation can take the form of typed synthesis of the conversation and scanned or photographed versions of all participant written work. These items can be made instantly available without the staff having to leave the area to produce it. Any of the documentation can be quickly made into appropriate web pages.
Audio/Video. Audio/Video capture can be used to produce photographs of participants at work that can be posted in the area along with the appropriate written documentation. Video can also allow for "instant replay" of events for clarity or recalling important ideas.
On-site desk-top publishing and video editing allow the staff to supply professional quality documentation or "work products" rapidly. Event participants or individual designers have the technology readily available to examine prototypes, prepare real time reports and experiment with graphic presentations, thus putting real activity to the concept of rapid prototyping.
Using the on-site publishing process, designers or participants in events can impact the early stages of preparation of important documents or video instead of the usual system in which the staff creates a product, and several weeks later incorporates the feedback they receive. Staff providing these publications are not separate from the people producing the original ideas. Their workstations are placed throughout the space and their work is part of the on-going creative process.
These three important aspects of our approach to creativity and learning are only the tip of the iceberg that can be served by the base package of technology. New, experimental technology suggested in the more advanced package will allow staff and users of the environment to experiment with what will be commonplace in the workplaces of the future, allowing for your organization to get an early advantage in designing those workplaces. Watch this space for new developments in our applications or technology and the impacts of new technologies integrated with our processes and environments.
