Office Supply in My Dreams

#4

Old office supply store...(ew

It’s that time of the month again, time to restock on office supplies and replace any equipment that may be working just exactly wrong.  Don’t get disappointed, this is great news! You get to go experience Inkwell, the office supply store!

Grab your keys and a friend or two, smart phones in tact, and drive on over.  Don’t worry about coffee, they have that and more at the store.  Ensure that you’ve let the team know you’ll be gone for a while, the office store isn’t just about buying supplies, it’s about getting inspired in the process.   

Welcome to InkWell.

You pull up and the parking sign reminds you to bring your phones and leave all else behind.  Open the doors and you are sucked into a vibrantly colored store, clean and organized, with every person engaged in conversation or groups taking notes as they watch a speaker discuss the latest new employee engagement practices.  The entire place is abuzz with conversation and upon closer listening most of them center around the great new chairs they are about to buy, or getting suggestions on how the office they composed virtually would feel and work in real life. 

   

You’re in the Ikea of office supplies (but less of a gigantic warehouse and more like a few compartmentalized office examples organized by general stylistic category) where people are interacting with each other anywhere you look. Picture an office suited for the eco friendly (recycled everything and no printers/paper waste allowed and a local free-trade coffee bean vending machine in the entry, reusable mugs only) or one for the super high tech (gadget plug in hubs everywhere and extreme simplicity in décor).  You and your team meander your way through each space looking at its gadgets, trying out the furniture, or listening to a brief inspirational talk that is projected onto the walls.  

Take your time walking through the different ‘office ecosystems’ and if you see a file cabinet or a leadership poster you like, pull out your handy smartphone and scan the QR code (we’ll get into this part later).  Stop at an office break room and lounge with others who are discussing project management budgeting to get ideas about how to empower employee accountability with company budget responsibilities. Keep walking through the different office spaces, equipped fully with paper supplies and coat hangers and anytime you see something you like just scan away (people not included).  

As you finish experiencing office spaces, you’ll end in an open shared lounge room and an ultra comfortable array of chairs and desks, organized by similarity of course.  On one wall, you’ll see TED talks and excellent keynote speeches, and you’ll be encouraged to Bump your chosen selections to a computer projector, where the InkWell phone app will begin to assemble your selections into a coherent office scene. With this, you can pick and choose the furniture and decorations that you enjoyed (and scanned the QR code of) and arrange them with a drag of the finger to compare styles and see how things fit together in your virtual office.  If you’d like, upload a picture of your current office space (a 3-D model with true-to-scale dimensions, of course, shot beforehand with the phone app) and place the new supplies into your current atmosphere to see how they fit in.

 

If you want to get the input of the team back in the office, just choose to share the office space you’ve created and post the options via a survey using any of the social media tools you’d like. Have your coworkers rate the selections they like best and go from there. Or, be a dictator and just go with what you want.  The office is a place you create and exist within, not just a place you have to go five+ days a week.

InkWell is about creating an office ecosystem that fits your business culture; it’s about providing employees with the tools, both physical and cognitive, that will help them to excel in what they do.  It’s a place that encourages creative business practices and is full of people who do what you do, so share with them and engage in the community. If work is your life, getting prepared for it should be enjoyable!


*Web Content Warning: Inkwell is a fictional business made in the imagination of @stephusry. The nature of this post is exploratory. No armadillos were harmed in the production of this post...