Reprinted from Future of Work Agenda September 2005 Business…

Reprinted from Future of Work Agenda
September 2005

Business Community Centers as Third Places
By Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware
One of the most striking findings of the Work Design Collaborative research program in
2002-2004 was the discovery of a demand for a "third place" work location for the
creative class of knowledge workers. We believe that as many as 20 million people will
want to work one or more days a week in these kinds of facilities by 2007.
In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if that many people are already working one or more
days a week in third places right now. Just think about your own work patterns; how
often do you "log on" from a coffee shop, an airport hot spot, a hotel lobby, or some
other location well removed from both your corporate office and your home office?

The concept of third places seems to be missing in most current discussions of
workplace design. "Third place" is a term first used by author Ray Oldenburg way back
in 1989 (The Great Good Place (Paragon House Publishers, 1989). By that he meant
places that are not living areas and not "offices" per se. Third Places are typically smaller
facilities (10,000 to 14,000 square feet) where people gather for a variety of reasons and
to do a variety of different things. "A Starbucks on steroids" is a good image.
Third Places are clearly an adjunct to traditional "corporate" offices and home offices.
Our research shows that workers of the future will most likely be spending approximately
40% of their time in corporate facilities, 30% in a home office, and the remainder in a
"third place" (actually, that will most likely be a variety of third places over the course of a
week or a month).
We believe these new workplaces will rise in usage and become very common over the
next several years for a number of reasons:

 Organizations want to move away from a fixed-cost structure to variable cost
 models in order to reduce capital requirements and risk, while increasing their
 agility and responsiveness to changing environments;
 Remote and mobile workers do not have adequate alternative meeting places,
 office services, or technical support that are either affordable or convenient to
 their residential locations;
 Home-based independent workers also need and want more support and
 services because their home-based workspaces are limited and they generally
 have almost no useful meeting space. And like mobile workers they also have
 a need for office services and technical support.
Existing workspace offerings typically do not deliver everything that is needed at one
location (that is, to meet all his or her needs a worker must go separately to a variety of
different places like Kinko's, Staples, the UPS store, Starbucks, hotel conference rooms,
and so on).


© Copyright 2005 by The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. All rights reserved.
Business Community Centers as Third Places
Reprinted from Future of Work Agenda, September, 2005




For us, third places are locations where people might spend part of a day, or perhaps
two, or a maximum of three, days a week working. But even within these new kinds of
social environments there is plenty of variety.
We believe there will be urban third places that serve local communities of working
residents. There will also be suburban locations situated at the intersections of major
transportation routes. And there will be rural locations that will function as "outposts" for
major metropolitan areas.
We expect that most third places will take on the characteristics of the communities in
which they exist. In the Wild West of the United States they might look like "work forts,"
while in Europe we have already seen "work castles." But "Third Places" can't just be
anywhere or be designed and built based on models of traditional office facilities.

Business Community Centers
As we have explored the growing interest in these "Third Places" we have developed a
third-place vision that we've come to call "Business Community Centers," or BCC's.
In our minds a BCC is a membership-based organization that provides its members with
access to workstations, and other office amenities on a shared, as-needed basis. Think
of a health club, or a golf club; as a member you don't generally own the facility or
equipment outright, but rather share it with the other members. Each of you uses the
equipment (or golf course) only occasionally. But this shared-cost/shared use approach
gives you access to far more, higher-quality equipment than you could ever afford on
your own.
Thus a BCC provides a part-time, off-site shared working environment primarily for
residents of a local community and its surroundings who are either remote employees of
larger organizations or are self-employed professionals or small business owners.
A BCC would be designed for use either by people who choose not to go to a distant
corporate facility one or several days a week, or who as small business owners, sole
practitioners, and/or "free agents" need part-time access to a workplace infrastructure
and community on a cost-effective basis.
In contrast to what is offered by traditional office leasing and rental organizations, BCC
members would pay for space and services only as they need and use them (there
would be a base-level monthly fee required to maintain membership). This business
model produces much lower costs for individual members, yet ensures high usage of the
space, which in turn provides equity investors and lenders with profitable returns on their
real estate and facilities investments.
A BCC provides its members with a variety of technologically advanced amenities such
as conference rooms, workstations, IT technical support, wireless broadband Internet
connectivity, back office administrative support, and informal café-type facilities ­ all in
an ergonomically-designed environment and complemented by on-site professional
development and business development activities and assistance. The real "secret
sauce" of this model is that many of those providers of specialized business
development and support services would themselves be members of the very same
Business Community Center.




© Copyright 2005 by The Work Design Collaborative LLC. All rights reserved.
Business Community Centers as Third Places
Reprinted from Future of Work Agenda, September, 2005




It is our vision that each local BCC would be locally owned and managed, with guidance
and consultation (as well as some support services) being provided by a national
management company formed to promote and guide the development of individual local
BCCs. And those local BCCs would be networked with each other in a way that would
provide all the members with access to each other, enabling them to operate as each
others' suppliers and customers in a focused electronic marketplace.
And, in the spirit of full disclosure, we are currently in the process of forming that
national management company precisely we can promote and support Business
Community Centers around the country. And we are actively discussing the BCC
concept with several different commercial property developers and local economic
development groups at this very moment with the goal of launching one or more of them
in the very near future.
We've decided it's time to stop talking about the future of work and begin building it. Stay
tuned, it's going to be a wild ­ and exciting ­ ride.




            About the Work Design Collaborative and Future of Work Agenda
Future of Work is a global network of resources ­ practitioners, thought leaders, researchers, and
senior consultants ­ who are committed to building and implementing physical, social, and
technology-based work environments that are cost-effective, socially and environmentally
responsible, and personally satisfying.
We are focused on defining the future of work and helping our members and clients achieve new
levels of workforce and workplace productivity. Future of Work produces and distributes
management tools, surveys, benchmark databases, white papers and technical reports,
conferences and workshops, newsletters, books and articles, and public presentations on the
changing nature of work. The Work Design Collaborative, LLC, provides leadership and
infrastructure services for the Future of Work community.
Future of Work Agenda is a free monthly electronic newsletter produced by the Work Design
Collaborative.
Direct inquiries to either Charles Grantham at +1 928 771 9138, or charlie@thefutureofwork.net,
or James Ware at +1 510 558 1434, or jim@thefutureofwork.net




© Copyright 2005 by The Work Design Collaborative LLC. All rights reserved.