Coffee on Friday was at the new Stumptown at the Ace Hotel. I’m going to call it the Stumptown Ace, since that sounds cool. You can either get a fancy coffee beverage, like a latté or an espresso, or you can get a personally brewed cup of coffee. You choose the beans you want and they brew it for you fresh. A great way to sample some of their beans from around the world.
After we got our beverages, we went upstairs to the 1 1/2th floor.
They have a leather-clad table, paper, pencils, erasers, some fun books, and a couple cozy places to curl up with said books.
Here are the jars filled with erasers, rubber bands, pencils and paper. It’s like an office supply store just waiting for you.
I grabbed a bundle of notepads, held together with this snappy rubber band.
Then it was down to business. I was joined by David, Dan, and fresh-off-the-boat from Amsterdam was Scott. (Sorry, the photos of the group didn’t turn out well.)
Sitting around the nice leather table, our conversation led to the topic of long tables in general. Scott had just returned from a stint at Cherish, where six people sit around a big table. (Scott has photos on his site.) We talked about the idea of long tables and scalability… at what point does a group become too large for a long table? And what does it take for an organization to embrace the working style of a long table?
I believe that any organization can benefit from a long table. How can open discussion, shared responsibility, and easily facilitated conversation not help a company? There are, of course, some companies that won’t benefit from a long table…
The belief that with hierarchy and seniority comes a corner office.
As people move up the corporate ladder, the more physically and mentally removed they can become, hiding in their private office, and always in meetings. You need to be involved in the day-to-day operations and happenings within a company. Interact with everyone, at all points. How can you help create solutions if you’re not intimately involved with the business?
The people don’t want to work together.
If the people don’t want to sit at the same table, how can they can be expected to work together to create great solutions?
The company doesn’t share information… transparency.
If you can’t talk openly about the operations, goals and challenges of your company in front of the people that work there, how can you expect them to trust and believe in you?
That, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg. We agreed that sometimes you just need to get stuff done, and having some alone time can help. The critical difference is alone time is different from working alone. A lot more to be said about this in upcoming campfire agency posts.
Coffee again this Friday, May 11th. We’re going to keep it on the 1 1/2th floor at the Stumptown Ace. 8:30 am. And an early reminder that Likeminds is next week (Friday, May 18th, 8:00am).
After you climb to the 1 1/2 floor, how much further is it to Hogwarts?
10:18 am / 8 May 2007
“The belief that with hierarchy and seniority comes a corner office. As people move up the corporate ladder, the more physically and mentally removed they can become, hiding in their private office, and always in meetings.”
This couldn’t be more spot on and it’s something I’ve noticed happening more and more at my current 9-5er – A growing agency attempting to employ more “corporate” mandates while trying to keep the culture intact. Hasn’t worked out so well so far and I haven’t seen much evidence of any improvements to come…
11:03 am / 8 May 2007
The long table is an interesting concept for me, since I literally and figuratively work alone–in a home office. For me, events like yours and likemind are where the long table and greater transparency comes in. In my experience, to birth new ideas we need both the collaboration and the solo percolations.
1:12 pm / 8 May 2007
I have to say the long table was exceptional. Initially scary, but it provides a very productive atmosphere, especially for a creative atmosphere. I simply can’t do cubicles again.
8:32 am / 17 May 2007