Knoll Ventures Outside

Knoll acquired an outdoor furniture manufacturer, Richard Schultz Design, in March of this year. In some sense, this is really a re-acquisition of a talent that had its inception in the Knoll family. Schultz started out as a Knoll designer before launching his own business in 1992. As a former employee, he certainly knows the Knoll brand and their expectations for excellence. In fact, the Richard Schultz Design company continued to carry a number of designs originally created for Knoll in the 1960s including the Petal Table Collection. Now that the Schultz family (Richard and his son Peter) are rejoining the Knoll fold, they bring a strong commercial and residential consumer base with them. It’s a great example of a friendly takeover where everyone wins.

Herman Miller Heads East

In even more recent news, Herman Miller announced the acquisition of POSH Office Systems, Ltd in early April. It’s the opposite of the kind of local deal struck by Knoll with its former designer. Herman Miller has actually reached out across the globe to absorb this Hong Kong firm. POSH is a well-established name in the Chinese commercial furniture market with yearly revenues of about $60 million. The company designs, manufactures, and distributes its own line of furnishings. These factors make POSH a turnkey operation that Herman Miller can expect to start appreciating profits from immediately. The former POSH stakeholders are counting on continued success for the business once it changes hands. In fact, they’ve bet quite a bit on this outcome since a performance based payment is still owed based on an earn-out period after closing. The two companies have been working together since 2008 and HM expects that even more of their flagship brand products will now be sold in the Chinese market.

But one exhibitor says that’s not enough. The folks over at the izzy+ blog say NeoCon would be even more exciting if participants focused on the future rather than on the present. This company made waves last year with Nemo concept pieces that were designed to spark the imagination of participants. They aren’t afraid of feedback on “unfinished” ideas. Instead, they welcome the discussion generated when participants are suddenly faced with the unexpected.

Perhaps it’s fitting that this event should be a place to showcase truly novel ideas and try things that haven’t been done before. After all, Chicago was the hometown for the famous 1893 World’s Fair extravaganza where the inventions of such prescient thinkers as Nikolai Tesla were on display. The NeoCon slogan for this year is “Think BIG”. What futuristic and half-imagined office furniture solutions would you love to see at this year’s NeoCon event? Let your imagination run wild in the comments.

Instead, some of the program’s money was used to have youth participate in a variety of activities that had nothing to do with the road system. Some of the activities can’t really be described as work including resume writing, conflict resolution and teen health awareness. Rearranging office furniture was apparently on the list of tasks that youth were assigned to complete by non-profit organizations under Blogojevich’s reign. There’s certainly nothing wrong with moving furniture around for a living – we do that every day for our clients. We just don’t expect to get state funding for it!

• Truly modular capabilities let you add or remove panel tiles without disrupting nearby components
• You have the ability to run wiring anywhere inside the panel – including around window tiles
• Move cables by lifting or lowering horizontal rails for easy reconfiguration inside each panel
• Add more power or data access tiles in the field on your existing WireWorks framework
• Lay 48 cables or more along each base raceway with no threading – install up to 24 Cat 5 UTP cables along the top horizontal rail on each panel
• Stack window tiles up to the ceiling to permit light to penetrate while artfully concealing power and data lines

• Long term cost savings with a better commercial lease agreement
• Access to a more advantageous location (which is what real estate is all about)
• A desire to consolidate locations because of restructuring or downsizing
• A need to expand – or to ensure space is available for future expansion

Moving to a new office is always inconvenient and disruptive at an organizational and individual level. CORT’s blog post covers ways to make the process a little less painful.  An efficient office move allows you to get back up to speed with the least amount of lost productivity. A few of the many smart tips offered include:

• Creating an inventory of current office furniture and equipment that’s organized by functional grouping
• Determining whether rental furniture makes sense to fill gaps in your inventory for the short term
• Formulating an office move plan that can take place in stages (and communicating this plan to employees)

We’d like to add a couple of additional tips. First, an office move is the ideal time to take advantage of free space planning services (like our no-charge consultation). This is an affordable and highly effective way to determine how well your existing inventory will fit in your new space. You may uncover ways that different office furniture can help you save money by making more efficient use of your square footage. Or, you might discover a better way to arrange your existing furniture – including where to place workstations for the most efficient cabling and wiring layout.

Second, it may pay to have your cubicles broken down, moved, and set back up by professional office furniture installers. That’s especially important if you have a high-end set of cubicles that you want to keep in good condition. Some systems are more complicated to work with than others. The last thing you want is to move into a new office, re-install your cubes, and end up with a box of “spare” parts that you can’t figure out what to do with. You’ll find out when someone leans on the wrong cubicle wall and the whole setup comes crashing down!

There are lots of categories you can review and add suggestions to including:

• Ways to remove clutter
• How to use lighting most effectively
• How to add personalization and inspiration
• Way to use sound to make your cube more peaceful
• Animals you might bring to work with you (like fish)
• How to use customized dishware to make sipping a beverage or snacking at your desk more appealing

As a Wiki user, you can edit the content to add your own bright ideas. What’s your idea of a perfect cubicle sanctuary?

• As a startup, you have no established company culture and no sense of being a team yet. Your employees need to actually interact with each other at this stage. Plus, they need to be inspired by your passion and energy. That doesn’t happen as readily via email or Skype.
• You don’t want to spend more time fixing communication breakdowns than on actually getting things done. With a business model that’s constantly changing and growing, you need to be able to communicate once and get things done right. Everyone must be on the same page during a time when mistakes can be fatal. Face to face meetings ensure everyone’s up to speed.

Startup Office Planning on a Budget

If you’ve realized that you can’t afford to forgo office space during your startup phase, how do you make this decision fit your budget? Here are just a few ideas to consider:

1. Choose a very short term lease on a fully furnished office space if you’re unsure of the future of your startup. You can terminate with no strings attached most easily in this type of arrangement.
2. If you have an existing, unfurnished space you can use (or a space you can lease cheaply), consider leasing the office furniture for it. This gives you a chance to figure out what type of furniture best supports your workforce.
3. Look into “coworking” spaces if you have only a handful of employees. The membership fees are usually very affordable and you can use the space on an as-needed basis – ramping up as your company takes off.
4. Choose used or refurbished office furniture when you’re ready to purchase this equipment. You can save as much as 70% compared to the price of new for very high-end furnishings. Your employees will appreciate the quality of their furniture and know that you’re going to treat them right over the long term.

Does that idea sound appealing to you? Why not get a second opinion from a professional – for free? Take advantage of our no-charge, no-obligation space planning consultation to help you decide.

• Low prices for good quality flooring
• Slip and trip resistance
• Easy maintenance
• Neutral colors with great texture
• Sustainable materials to boost LEED points

Stripes and geometric patterns are definitely in right now while bold colors are used for highlighting various areas. In fact, employers are increasingly using contrasting flooring to demarcate different types of workspace. That’s partly in response to the open office trend where work environments tend to run together without as many vertically dividing elements. Read the whole thing to see what other business owners are thinking about when they look down.