Everyone Needs a Design Office

When people pop by the office to meet me they always have the same response: wow, this is where you work? Yup. Design offices are different. We have desks and computers, but we also have open spaces, communal tables and walls covered in a stream of consciousness that is ever-changing. There's *room* to think. There's music playing and the windows are open. You can almost always catch us jumping around, dancing, singing, and working on our feet, at the wall, making it happen.

I really think everyone should work this way. I'm reading a book called Brain Rules by John Medina that leads me to believe that everyone would work this way if given the chance. Medina is a brain scientist, and his book crisply outlines the rules governing how our brains work and how to make them work better. He's absorbed more information about brains than the rest of us could hope to know, and this is what he's found:

"What do these studies show, viewed as a whole? Mostly this: If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to tear down both and start over. In many ways, starting over is what this book is all about."

Read more and see videos with the delightfully nerdy John Medina on the Brain Rules Website. Read the book and you'll be ready to go tear it down and start over yourself, creating the environment you require and deserve to get the best out of your brain.