CEOs for Cities: Where the work is

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All eyes are on Detroit, and so are ours. This week CEOs for Cities traveled to the Motor City to co-host the national Opportunity Dividend Summit with United Way for Southeastern Michigan, which serves a six-county area in what CEO Mike Brennan referred to as “the epicenter of the contraction.”

Last year, Brennan and his 100-person staff experienced a contraction of their own when they moved from a 12-story office building to an edgy new space in downtown Detroit. In the process two-thirds of them gave up their desks. Now, instead of having cubes to call their own, United Way employees plug their laptops into cozy community workstations situated throughout their open floor plan office, which is indeed open and available for community use. Brennan says this not only reflects the way they do business but also frees his staff up to work “where the work is.” He should know, as he is among those who made the change.

The Detroit Free Press profiled the space earlier this year, giving the concept a name (hotelling) and denoting it “the office of the future.” For Brennan and his staff, it means saving $300,000 annually and still serving 400,000 callers a year through their vast 211 call center network.

Next time you are in Detroit, ask for a tour. You’ll want to move in or duplicate it in your own city, just like we did.

Shareable.net: Building "We Space" in Michigan

Shareable.net
http://shareable.net/blog/building-we-space-in-michigan

We’ve highlighted many examples of open office plans that try to encourage collaboration and democracy in the workplace, from an innovative office design in Utah to the open plan of Menlo Communications in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Shareabe.net reader Annemarie Harris writes to tell us about yet another exciting open source office in Michigan:

I work for United Way for Southeastern Michigan. As you may be aware, United Ways throughout the country are in a phase of transformation, changing their business model from one that primarily advances workplace campaigns and one that fosters social change in a collaborative way. We don’t necessarily control how social change occurs, but rather, we serve as the platform for the community to foster and achieve social change, on behalf of all.

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