The Age of Open Space Office – Good or Bad it is here.  Solution is the Happiness Wall !

Well if you work in an Open Space or not I would like to propose a Happiness Wall for your teams.  We hang up Info Radiators about business and Team progress.  Why not hang up stuff that makes who we are and what we care about?  The new office furniture layouts don’t take into account personal space.  Though some designs will provide for little roll out lockers, but there is no place to post pictures or office artwork.

Happiness Wall

Contains pictures, art work and information radiators about the team and others.  Something to make people smile and learn about each other.

Individuals

One of the reasons people like the personal cube is to post personal materials, but in the world of open space the cube walls come down and there is more face to face communications.  The benefits for a Happiness Wall help to counter the open space fear of losing personal space.

1. People can post up personal materials, such as: kids pictures, family and friends, vacation trips, pictures from weekend getaways, and other things that make them happy
2. Putting the materials near entrance ways allows the people to see things that make them happy coming and going.
3. This sharing of personal pictures provides information radiators about ourselves.

Team

By building a Team Happiness Wall it provides lots of conversation and trust building moments:

1. Other teammates can learn about each other and continuously build a sense of understanding.  Such materials would include posters of individual Happiness Collage as in my blog post http://www.gregmester.com/happiness-collage/
2. It gives conversation pieces for the team to talk about when they see each other
3. It is fun to read what your teammates like
4. Add pictures of where they are located around the world, so the collages map with the places

Customers

I would even suggest letting your customers put up personal pictures on your Happiness Wall.  Why?  It does a few things:

1. It helps the team learn more about the customer.  It gives insights into other things that might be on your customer’s minds.
2. If the customer can pin up pictures of things they like, they will be more encouraged to come and visit more often.  They can see how the team is doing by seeing the other information radiators you have posted.
3. It gives the customer the idea that you are learning more about them and gives you and your team conversation pieces
4. It makes the customers happy to see stuff they like.
5. The customer learns more about the Team.  Win-Win!

Win-Win! All around!

Bring Life back into the Office