Re: Skytemple – The Office Redesign
We Escaped From a Doomed Existence in the Cubes and You Can Too!
For years, the cubicle loomed large before the office landscape. It’s sleek partitioned workspaces exemplified simplicity of construction and design. The cubicle seemed, at least from an engineering standpoint, the pinnacle of efficiency. A beehive of number crunchers. The cubicle dominated the modes of social interactions and locked the white collar worker in a maze of office tedium. Yet, workers lamented it’s imposing nature, television shows, movies and books, all bemoaned it’s existence, their characters trapped as if mice in a vast impossible corporate maze.
Studies have shown that an office’s design has a direct effect on on job satisfaction, productivity and profitability, yet many employers do not consider creating productive workspaces for their employees a priority. A study from 2006 reported that 90% of respondents thought “their office space affected their attitudes about work and that a different setup could make their companies more competitive.”
Inception
The Skytemple office began as the apartment of our CEO Curtiss Hayden. Furnished with futons, a couch, and dressers we needed to turn this living space into a working space. What was once a fine bachelor pad became an office. Decorations came down, furniture was removed, and Ikea yoga was practiced.
It was quite obvious the design wasn’t working for us and consensus was reached, if the design isn’t working, change the design.
Conception
We needed a way to draw our team together, to get discussion and ideas flowing. We wanted to utilize the wall space. We already had a number of white boards and sticky note filled bulletin boards but the general flow of the room was a mess. Cluttered and disorganized, we started by removing the clutter.
Reception
With all the empty wall space someone hit on the the idea of buying a projector to give more visual focus to our meetings and discussions. Most of what we did in the office was computer based so working in tandem could sometimes be tricky.
As it turned out, the introduction of the projector was key. Once We established the common viewing wall, the layout of the desks and tables flowed naturally, They pushed back and bundled up around each other. We became a huddled team.
Meeting became much more dynamic. Clients and teammates no longer had to huddle around tiny screens. Projects became full sized creations, and the viewing experience took on a group experience. Weeks of back and forth e-mails became quick group hashing sessions.
As Mel, one of our designers put it, “I love having things geared around the projector. That has definitely upped our productivity and has been a great asset in the WordPress meetups we sometimes hold here.”
Evolution
So, a few simple (and free) changes helped us really supercharge our workflow and increased turnaround time. Setting up a better strategy for meetings and clearing out the clutter helped us organize and clear out our heads as well. And the inexpensive addition of the projector brought focus and cohesion to our discussions.
An office redesign can be a simple cheap and incredibly effective tool for breathing fresh vigor into a stagnant workplace or help relieve stress in an already busy office. You don’t have to learn Feng Shui to come up with ideas to open your offices work space and give your employees room the breath and a space to collaborate. As Jason put it, “When you understand the flow of thought and action, you can optimize the space to improve productivity.”
Local Designer Scout Cuomo Talks Etsy, Self Promotion and Taking Chances
Brave New Art World
The artist’s life is uncertain to say the least. The artist, by nature, operates in a world removed of the practical restrictions of the everyday. The painter chooses the color pallet with which to paint their sunset, free -if they choose- of the restrictions of what others see. Many people use art as an escape – a way to get away from the practical problems that sometimes seem insurmountable. Art allows us to imagine impossible ways to do just that. The artist is bound only by their imagination.
But selling art is a different beast. The ups and down of the public’s whim and fancy often dictate what design or painting sells from week to week. Making money sculpting or painting whatever one fancies does not often pay the bills. In the past, the artist might look to a gallery owner or private patron to fund their art. Much of Western culture’s finest early art was paid for by private donors for private courses. Painting of kings and family of royalty or commissions from the church. But much of the artist’s work, including often the style itself, was dictated by these patrons.
Today however, in a kind of ultimate democratization – just as sovereignty is now each citizen’s responsibility, so is, patronage. And the modern incarnation of democratized patronage is the internet. Now the artist is their own sales team, their own reviewer, their own accountant, their own banker. The artist is freed from the restrictions of suits interfering with ‘pure art’ but they are also forced to take into their own hands the mechanisms of the marketplace which many purists in the past have considered vulgar.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with local designer and artist, Scout Cuomo. Scout has been running an Etsy shop for a number of years from her apartment. Etsy allows her to sell her art work and design goods in a free environment online, while still providing technical support and a platform for advertising. Ultimately, however, everything in her store is hers. And, beside the minimal transaction fees, the money never has to go through a third party vendor.
Etsy shops have become a very popular way for people to sell everything from homemade pottery to hand knitted mittens to prom dresses to fine art.
In the following interview, held at the Haymarket, I spoke with Scout about the difficulties of balancing the artist with the business person.
Scout Cuomo on Her Art, Self Promotion and more. by Skytemple
VISIT SCOUT’S ETSY STORE TO PURCHASE ANY OF THESE ITEMS OR BROWSE LOTS MORE HERE
Dan Cashman’s Video Velveeda
Video Velveeda, Found Media and Privacy in Art
Recently, as part of their weekly midnight movie showing, Pleasant Street Theater screened a unique film produced by Valley artist, Dan Cashman. The movie, entitled, Video Velveeda, features Cashman himself as well as highlights from more than thousands of hours of found VHS footage. Footage which Cashman collects and repurposes. Thousands of hours worth of old VHS footage which Cashman finds everywhere from Video Liquidation sales to Tag Sales and more recently, YouTube.
Dan Cashman’s Video Velveeda by Skytemple
And watch the trailer for Video Velveeda HERE
Austin Stowell in Dolphin Tale
Austin Stowell helps a boy save a dolphin with the aid of prosthetic’s doctor.
Stowell, originally from Berlin, Connecticut has known he wanted to pursue a professional acting career ever since his high school days in Austin.
It was during his years at Berlin High he met and formed a strong relationship with Skytemple’s CEO, Curtiss Hayden. Stowell went on to graduate Berlin High School in 2003 and was accepted to the University of Connecticut where he pursued his love for acting in more depth, participating in many productions including, Julius Caesar, and It Can’t Happen Here. Currently, Stowell is well known through his acting on the ABC Family show, The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In his new movie, Dolphin Tail, Stowell finds himself playing oposite veteran actors such as Harry Connick Jr, Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. It is an exciting and robust new role for Stowell who plays a disabled war veteran in the film.
The movie itself is based on a true story concerning a young boy named Sawyer who finds an injured dolphin washed up on shore. His dogged pursuit of helping the dolphin, who eventually loses it’s tail (providing the obligatory family film titular pun), leads him to one Professor Cameron McCarthy, played by Morgan Freeman, who’s work had been, up to that point, concerning human prosthetics.
As only a young boy with no money trying to save an aquatic animal in a family film could, Sawyer convinces the doctor who then convinces a prosthetics manufacturer to help his dolphin at no cost. At first the Dolphin rejects the tail, smashing repeated rebuilds until a new padding for the sock holding the tail to the dolphin is developed using a gel like material. A material that is now currently used to attach prosthetic limbs. The film itself has a wonderful message about determination and thinking outside the box and is at heart an incredible true tory of technology helping nature. Dolphin Tale is currently playing in theaters and in some places in 3D.
Skytemple is Hiring!
Fun, creative local digital agency seeks excellent communicator with a background in the design & development field to focus on billing and bookkeeping.
The candidate will be responsible for the following:
- invoice clients
- manage accounts payable
- coordinate with clients and project managers
- track services and client relations
- improvement of invoice strategy
The ideal candidate will possess the following skills:
- familiarity with financial software and bookkeeping
- organization online and in-office (folders, contracts, agreements, etc.)
- logic and process engineering
- articulate and personable
- ambition, vision and a sense of humor
Send demonstrations of these phenomenal traits in your response, along with your resume, to info (at) skytemple.com. This is a part-time position with room for growth with the right person.
Many thanks. We can’t wait to meet you.
