We've Seen the Future of Work and It Works, But Very Differently

That research lead to a partnership with Marriott Hotels and a hotel room that's designed for work. It features a desk with both a movable surface and a fixed surface, outlets for power, a phone jack for a modem, a good work light, an ergonomic chair. Marriott calls it The Room That Works; it has already installed the redesigned desk and chair in 9,000 hotel rooms and expects to offer them in 20,000 rooms by year's end. "It's become like the free shampoo in the bathroom," says Albertini. "Everybody wants one."

Next up is a chair called Migrations, created by Brayton International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Steelcase, and marketed by Steelcase -- On the Road. Migrations, says Albertini, is furniture for working in the "work-relaxed mode -- with a business book, to go through notes of a meeting, in an airport lounge to write an outline for a presentation." Migrations is a barrel-shaped chair with some unusual features: a shelf beneath the seat for stuff, a moving tablet like the fold-up arm on chairs in college lecture halls, and a power column to allow you to plug in.

Albertini and her group are pushing a whole range of people to provide better, more intuitive, easier to use workspace. "We're working with five industries that are already interfacing with you as a user," she says. They're talking with computer and phone companies about a universal plug, to provide power and data in a single outlet. They're talking with hotel companies about turning the hotel TV into a combination TV-computer, so you won't have to travel with your computer. They're working with the airlines so the airplane seat does a better job of supporting work. They're designing an "envelope" for the stuff that you carry with you. "We're imagining a way of carrying stuff that is absolutely yours personally," Albertini says.

Albertini herself continues to confront the central dilemma of a world where work knows no boundaries. Not long before the creation of her group, Albertini and her husband adopted two Russian children. They were Albertini's first kids, and when she went to Russia, she got them both at the same time. "I kept saying, 'I got two dogs at once, I got two cats at once.' I thought they would want to crawl up on my lap and be petted," Albertini jokes. The joke, she says, was on her.

"Life has a thing or two to teach you," she says. "I've been brought to my knees."

Between being a mother, a wife, and a vice president of Steelcase, Albertini has given up the fight for control.

Her new approach: "You need to be out of control." She laughs heartily. "You have to come to peace with this. Predictability, order, control -- they are not the end-all, be-all."

The Grand Unified Theory of Work

"Lots of people think work is chaos," says Bill Miller, "but I don't have that problem, because I know what's going on. There's science behind this. Just like, if I know the laws of physics and quantum mechanics, I can explain everything that's going on in the physical world."

From his post as head of research and development for Steelcase, Miller has, perhaps, the clearest view of the emerging laws of work of anyone in Grand Rapids. To see it the way he does, you have to come to terms with Miller's home-office system. Miller has seven offices at home, including two in the kitchen.

Miller has a desk in an upstairs office for investments, financial management, and computer development; a desk in the kitchen for Steelcase business; another desk in the kitchen area for career development, bills, and mail; an archival storage area; a bedroom work area; a desk for travel and vacation; and a desk for health management. Several are actual offices, others are parts of a room equipped with a desk, bookcases, and always a dedicated chair or sofa.

As Miller talks, the seven-desk system moves from the scheme of a mad scientist to an architectural expression of basic principles of work in the new economy. "I do it to minimize context switching," he says. When he needs to pay bills, he doesn't go to the Steelcase desk -- "just like I don't walk into the living room and try to cook." People who do everything at one desk, Miller says, "lose things. And then you have to do a lot of work to find them. I don't waste that time." The stuff that goes with each task is confined to each desk.

Viewed in this light, the modern office seems antique, even clunky. One desk, one person, one room, all day, all tasks done in the same setting. Bill Miller's house -- that's the direction the office is headed in. Within a decade, Miller is convinced, people will spend their time in project rooms or project clusters, working with team members on one project, then moving on to another cluster to work with a different group on a different project. Miller's home is a rough approximation of this notion -- you go where you need to be, and there's no presumption that anyone will spend the entire day in the living room or the kitchen.