Sometime

around 1985, I

recall a student

of mine showing

me some

research that

proved to be

light-years

ahead of its

time.

It was a study by BOSTI, the Buffalo Organization

for Social and Technological Innovation, that showed how

the physical design of workspace had a direct effect on job

satisfaction, productivity, and profitability--in settings

ranging from high-rises to laboratories. Companies with

workplaces that encouraged more informal mingling of

employees, for example, outperformed those that

sequestered their staffs in amaze of cubicles.

Yet in the ensuing years, I've seen these findings

preached a lot more than practiced. Scott Adams built his

Dilbertian empire by mocking oppressive "cube culture,"

and I still work in a building that has the floor plan of a jail.

In defense of bosses from hell

An April 2006 survey of more than 2,000 office

workers commissioned by Gensler, a leading design firm,

illustrates both the problems and the promise of workplace

design. Nearly half of the respondents said they would

work an extra hour a day if they had a better workplace

environment. More than 90 percent reported that their

office space affected their attitudes about work and that a

different setup could make their companies more

competitive.

Yet employers seemed blind to the potential: Only

38 percent of workers said they would be proud to show

important customers their workspace. About a third

complained that it didn't promote health and well-being.

And almost half thought that creating a productive

workplace was not a priority at their companies.

Yet it is possible--in fact, easy--to do better.

Consider this insight, which came from the General

Services Administration decades ago: Of the total cost to a

company for running an office building over a 30-year life

span, the initial construction represents just 2 percent;

operating expenses come to about 6 percent.

The remainder? It all goes to paying the workers

inside. The point should be obvious: People are the

biggest cost inside a work environment, so leveraging your

human capital ought to be near the top of your priority list.

The high price of employer mistrust

But, of course, it isn't. And the great irony is that

you don't have to construct a gleaming new office tower--

such as Bloomberg's glass-walled masterpiece in

Manhattan--to achieve real results. One management

consulting firm, for instance, recently recognized that with

its staff spending lots of time out of the office, there was

limited opportunity for mentoring and information sharing,

and that the workplace inhibited that.

An analysis of traffic patterns in the office showed

that a reconfiguration of the space to funnel traffic through

common areas where people would naturally mingle would

boost interaction 10-fold.

At Electronic Arts(Charts), based in Redwood City,

Calif., managers invited employees to plaster their cube

dividers with design ideas and notes, and gave them

"walls" to make it easier. Worker collaboration there has

since gotten a boost.

There are other ways to make improvements,

such as doing post-occupancy evaluations--surveys to see

how attitudes and practices have changed--so that

learning from one project can be used in future workplace

design efforts. Much of this research is being done in the

WorkPlace 20.20 program of the General Services

Administration, the nation's largest landlord.

Workplaces affect interaction, attitudes, and even

how we think about what we do. All that's required for

improvement is the same thing required for any initiative:

high-level involvement and an understanding that the most

valuable things inside any office building are the people

who work there.

Business 2.0 columnist Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of

Organizational Behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

All of these have

one defining trait

in common; they

inform in a non-

interactive

sense. You can turn away or read as you wish, but that's

the extent of your control over the content of the

advertisement. This has left the power of brand building largely in the hands of the originators. The company

creates its advertising, and people respond to it.

Most people and businesses don't have the money

to create massive media blitzes or overarching TV-radio-

print campaigns, which left this approach almost entirely to

the big names or those small companies willing to take a

chance. This is all changing.

As we've discussed before, the landscape in

branding has changed from the advertising model to the

communicative one. Comments can be left, emails sent,

blogs posted and disseminated in a matter of hours. We've

established the increasing power the audience has over

brands, and have learned how vital conversation is to the

modern brand.

Brands can now be built quickly and on a

shoestring budget. Webhosting is inexpensive, and in

some cases completely free. A Facebook account and an

eBay selling account can stand in for a webpage and a

storefront, and are exponentially less expensive than a

physical store and even a simple ad in the local

newspaper.

Brand success is no longer the sole domain of

those with the money to employ creative teams and retain

advertising firms, but an open territory for any willing to

seize the initiative and do the work.

Similarly, the direction of brand construction has

changed. We've mentioned the conversation, the all-

important dialog between brand and customer, and the

power customers have in shaping the image of a brand.

This has lead to the development of the inbound marketing

technique. Rather than hurling information into the ether

and hoping to find a target demographic, people are

building ways for the audience to come to them, where a

friendly chat can be had.

Consider the most important purchases you've

made in the last five years. When is the last time a car

advertisement on television spurred you to make a

purchase, as opposed to the time you went into a

dealership needing a car and sought one out on your own

time? How often have your computer purchases been

driven by an ad campaign as opposed to a personal desire

to upgrade or seek one out?

This is the realm of in-bound marketing

techniques. Yes, they still resort to the need to create an

attraction in the customer's mind, but the focus is different.

It's less a matter of 'look at what we have to show you,'

and much more about 'come tell me what you have to

say.'

Consider the success of the Something Awful

forums. Similar to 4chan and other casual social sites, SA

has indisputably developed a brand of its own on the

Internet. Ask about SA on just about any site, and you

don't need the full name, just the initials to get a response.

And yet at the heart SA is just a forum, a place for people

to come and talk, and to read entertaining articles

lampooning various facets of pop culture. The whole

message, consciously or not, is simply, 'come on in, and

let's have a chat.'

Not every site can use the exact approach of SA

of course, but that isn't the point. The point is that if you

feel confident in your product, be it a physical item to sell

or ideas you wish to promote, then you should focus less

on throwing it out to the world at large and more on trying

to find ways to get people to come in and have a closer

look.

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Dig, Reddit,

Slashdot: There are social media networks and sites

everywhere. People conveniently arrange themselves into

groups based on interests and locations, and advertise

these facts on profiles and group pages. A great deal of

the research is already done for you, all you have to do is

look for it. Put simply, these people WANT to talk about

their interests. Don't simply shout your message at them;

instead, give them a place they can come and share what

they have to say, and give them a product that relates.

Yes, digital branding requires even more hard

work than big-time traditional advertising, especially on a

budget. You may not be able to hire a bigwig designer to

put out slick posters and compose outstanding music.

What you can do is tap into peoples' desire to talk, their

wish to understand and be understood, and then give them

both a place to visit and many roads to get to that place.

Build the road and the inn, and travelers will find their way.

Enzo F. Cesario is an online brand specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a

digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social

media in the "voice" of our client's brand. It makes sites more findable and

brands more recognizable.

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