Last updated: 1/24/01
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Changes 2001
This will be a sometimes-collection of some recent changes during 2001.
The most recent examples are at the top of the file. Readers are invited to submit their
nominations for inclusion. Date and title of the original publication are required. A copy
of the article is appreciated.
1/21/01 New York Times. Office space is being rethought for high-tech
businesses. Cubicles for the workers and enclosed offices for the administrators are gone.
Private space has been decreased to a desk and chair with storage bins, some or all of
which may be on wheels to allow fast flexible relocation as teams form and are reformed,
and paper records are (at last) shrinking. Central computers (servers) still need security
but things change too rapidly for them to be in locked areas, so they are now coming out
into the open, but security checks occure at the (often single) entrance to the space or
office suite. Wired network connections are being replaced with wireless networks to allow
faster additions, movement and reconfiguration. Larger common spaces, up to 50% of floor
space, are being designed in, to allow exercise, movement of workgroups, choice of
workspace and rapid large meetings between several teams and a client. Conference tables
are having sunken computers installed, wired together so that everybody can input to the
screen, which is also displayed on the wall. With the large common spaces, many companies
(including the once-staid IBM) are putting in scooters and "physio balls",
lighter and softer versions of the medicine balls I used to play with in gym class. Such
office spaces are used as a recruiting tools, since skilled software engineers are in such
short supply. Earlier stories on this topic mentioned that child care, car service and
laundry are often provided services, to make it possible for employees to work longer
hours. Refreshment bars can substitute for meals, and longer trips to the food machines.
Recognizing that social lives may be similarly restricted, some companies are starting
"dating contracts", the equivalent of nuptual agreements, stating what each
party expects from a relationship and how it might get terminated, and tacitly encouraging
in-house affairs.
(My son-in-law has worked in the "post-cubical" environment and hates it and
says that everyone who has ever worked in it hates it. No privacy, ever, very noisy and
confusing, no way to focus. Is this a fundamental flow, or something that will be worked
out, or something that we will come to think of as normal?)
1/21/01 New York Times. An important part of the reason that sharp reductions in
corporate profits are being reported along with a falling stock market and sharp declines
in the stock prices of many dot-coms, is that corporate investment in the stock market and
in dot-com start-ups now provide a substantial part of the profits for many corporations.
This is a new development - did not exist in the past. So with the fall in price of
the stock of a dot-com "A" partially owned (though stock) by another company
"B", that part of B's profits provided by A's stock price also fall. B's
non-investment business can still be sound, but it's profits go down because of A's stock
price. But then investors hear about falling corporate profits, and stock prices fall even
further.
Times'
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