The Curiosity team works in a very open concept space.  It's basically one large room with a collection of desks and chairs, a lounge corner, small kitchen and a meeting space marked by a large shelfing unit.  There are no walls except those that keep the outside world out.  This makes the space really flexible - we can move things around, use the walls, use the windows, use the floor, use the sides of furniture to post, pin, sketch and noodle.  This is fantastic for the kind of creative and collaborative work we do.  And it can also be incredibly distracting.

This is the criticism aimed at many open concept spaces - great for collaboration and conversation but not at all well suited for quiet, focused work.  This is a challenge for us as it is for many companies who want to enjoy the benefits of openness without giving up on productivity and team sanity.

We Needed an Anti-Disruption Solution

So, we set out to design some sort of solution that would help us know what "mode" different team members were in at any given time.  Distraction and disruption can be the enemy of getting things done so the basic question we wanted to be able to answer about each person working in the space at any given time was: are they interrupt-able? 

We had an intern on staff at the time and briefed her with this design challenge.  She spoke to each member of the team about their different modes of working, what they found most valuable and terrible about the work space and probed them for any solution suggestions they might have.  We were keen to have her do some physical prototyping, both for her own skill development and also so we could offer our feedback during the design and development process to ensure that the final solution would be useful, user-friendly and easy to intergrate into our individual/team work styles.

The Solution Was a Short Walk and a Few Bucks Away

To look for inspiration and prototyping supplies, she walked over to the Dollar Store near our office and came back about 15 minutes later with a small, rather empty looking bag.  She had a small smile on her face when she came over to my desk and said, "I think I've found the solution".  I raised an eyebrow and my internal voice muttered, "Already?  You're obviously not taking this valuable learning and development opportunity very seriously."  (Not my finest management hour.)

Well, it turns out, she had found the solution.  A very cost-effective solution.  For less than $10 she had solved the problem.  At the Dollar Store she found OPEN/CLOSED signs, the ones that you see on shop doors that tell customers when they can come in and when to come back if the store is closed.  That's all we needed.  Each member of the team received an OPEN/CLOSED sign and we discussed as a team how we wanted to use these together.  The decision was made that the maximum amount of time you could be "closed" was 3 hours - both because it wasn't good to sit longer than that and also because it would give other team members a chance to connect with you on something quick, like a question or clarification.  We also decided together that if even one person had the CLOSED sign up, that was a cue for everyone to tone down the noise and activity in the space.  And we eventually indicated CLOSED status in our online calendars as well so we could manage the scheduling of work sessions and client meetings alongside the need for quiet, focused, CLOSED time.

It's Not Perfect, but It's Working.  Most of the Time.

It's not a perfect system.  Sometimes, in addition to posting my CLOSED sign, I have to leave a trail of escalating Post-it Note warnings leading up to my chair, each threatening a worse form of punishment and dismemberment if anyone dares to interrupt.  (This is very effective, by the way.  Until it becomes a "how close to the boss can we get when she's in Do Not Disturb mode without getting maimed" game.)

So, it seems there are a few lessons here...

1. Sometimes we make the problem and the potential solution much more difficult and complex than it needs to be.
2. There is a solution to almost any problem at the Dollar Store.
3. Treat your interns with respect.  Most of them are smarter than you are.

Here are a couple of pictures of our OPEN/CLOSED signs in situ. 

We'd love to know how you and your team manage distraction and disruption in your open concept space.  Share your experience below in the comments section.

And if you steal this idea, send pictures!

Title photo credit: olga.palma

I haven't been able to spend much time outside lately and this morning I was finally able to head out for a walk through the park near my house.  The sun had just come up and the sky was a chilly, watery blue.  As I walked under a canopy of trees still hanging onto the last of their red and yellow leaves, I took a deep breath, drawing in the cool autmun air.  I'm not a huge cold weather fan but this air - this fresh, sparkling fall air - is a crispy cocktail of enlivening goodness.

Curiosity is like that.  It's fresh air for your brain.  It wakes you up and enriches what's happening around you.  When you give yourself permission to wonder about something you've always wondered about, something shifts.  When you get out into the world, into places familiar and strange, and really pay attention, your experience deepens.  When you ask questions and actually listen to the answers, something changes.

You change.  Your relationships change.  And your brain changes.

When you allow (or push) yourself to be curious and seek novelty, explore new places and meet new people, your brain inhales all of this newness like a breath of delicious fresh air.  Curiosity infuses your grey matter with metaphorical oxygen and it gives it a spark of energy to create new connections - both neurologically and creatively.

So as we move into a new season, get out into the world and wonder and wander around.   It will do your brain - and your body - a whole lot of good.

Photo credit: alexindigo

This is a guest post by Hilton Barbour, Strategic Planning Director at Zulu Alpha Kilo.

Evolutionary biologists will brand me a heretic but I believe that curiosity is the most wonderful attribute evolution has given us all. Granted it probably helped thin the herd when our Neanderthal ancestors inquisitively ventured too close to a saber-tooth tiger but it also helped us discover fire, how to use circular objects to enhance transportation, transport data invisibly and split atoms.

Curiosity should be celebrated in the same way we celebrate other evolutionary master strokes - like breathing, for example.

Like breathing though, I worry that we’ve all started to take this curiosity thing for granted.

Every couple of weeks, we’ll be sharing some of the things we do at Curiosity to foster creativity, lateral thinking, courage, innovation, collaboration and, of course, curiosity.

One of our most popular, pragmatic and powerful practices is TED Talk Tuesday.  

We started TED Talk Tuesday about a year ago and it’s incredibly simple.  Every week a member of our team is responsible for hosting.  We meet in our Project Room at 8:30am each Tuesday and the host shows their TED Talk pick for the week.  There is absolutely no agenda for the meeting other than the TED Talk screening and some discussion afterwards.  The meeting runs for 30-45 minutes.  Someone takes a few notes on the key themes from the TED talk and the ideas that emerge from the discussion afterwards.  These notes get posted to our Digital Library as a reference document in case anyone wants to come back to the TED Talk or the related themes at a later date.

In his ancient strategy classic The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote: "He who does not know the other, but knows himself, will once win and once lose. He who knows the other and himself will never be at risk in a hundred battles." To beat the competition you need to think creatively and strategically about each move you make, and that starts with knowing and understanding who the competition really is.

When it comes to truly knowing your competition, traditional competitive intelligence tools like brand tracking, Homescan and focus groups aren't enough. These tools report on how the market is reacting to your competition, but provide little insight into the companies themselves. Plus, these tools have become so ubiquitous that they don't offer much of a competitive advantage.

Instead of waiting for the answers in quarterly reports, what if we started taking the time to ask new questions? If knowing our opponents is as important as Sun Tzu suggests isn't it worth thinking and wondering about them in a meaningful way?