The End of the Office

What do you require to run a business? In the words of Michael Scott, “first of all, you need a building”. Except, of course (without wishing to suck all the comedy out of the clip), you don’t need a building any more. You don’t even need many workers, to be honest.

A number of articles have argued that we are coming towards the end of cubicle life – there are links at the end of this post – and perhaps of office-based necessity entirely. With the world shifting towards remote workers and an economy built more on networks than physical production, it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility to foresee a working environment in which people work from wherever they want and rely upon programs like 37Signals’ Campfire, or conference calls in order to communicate with co-workers and project teams.

One further thought: if more people are working outside the office, then there’s a growing market of remote workers to be served in some way. If in a few years we are going to see millions more people out in the world during the day, making their own schedules, maybe you should start to make yourself or your business vital to these people. It needn’t be a given that they will all spend their days in Starbucks.

Workplace Trends: The End of Cubicle Dwelling? – Dawn Foster

The Last Days of Cubicle Life – Seth Godin

Results-Only Work Environment – Culture Rx