Workshape: Get the Most Out of Getting Together in 2024

After our first full year in business, having worked on some really amazing projects with a number of exceptional clients and partners... I can say that this is one of the most rewarding years of my professional career. Last year allowed me more time to devote to research, thought and engagement with others. Reflecting upon all the places I have been, opinions I have absorbed, data I have reviewed, and new concepts I have experienced, I am clearly seeing two divergent trends emerge.

1. There are great examples out there of companies that are thoughtfully and aggressively making changes for the better and who are already seeing positive returns on their investments. I plan to share and highlight some of them soon in a coming article.
2. There are not nearly enough of those examples and far more common are companies actually doing less than they used to and beginning to force people to return to in person experiences without clearly articulating and then enabling their "why."

This realization has helped coalesce and reinforce my belief that I am uniquely qualified to help fill the gap that exists in the industry, to help discover and develop more successful examples of more sustainable long term solutions. And in particular, I have realized one specific fact:

We must collectively learn how to get more out of the time that people spend together, both remotely and in person.

Workshape endeavors to enable this by acting as a connective tissue for the workplace industry with a mission to create meaningful experiences and shape places that are not only functional but aspirational. Built upon the three distinct but interconnected pillars of consulting, community and experimentation, I am very proud for us to relaunch www.theworkshape.com with our revamped offering.

Workshape Consulting: We are a data-driven, creative agency dedicated to evolving the workplace to deliver more value to the people it's designed to serve. Acutely focused on the concept of getting the most out of getting together, we are less concerned with the specifics of where you are gathering than we are with ensuring you are getting the most out of that time together. We bring our unique combination of design experience, strategic vision, workplace leadership, community insights and experimentation platform to help you deliver more valuable workplace experiences.

Workplace Forum: This is our community of workplace leaders focused on taking on our toughest challenges as we collectively chart a course towards the future of the workplace experience. We are really excited about the high impact combination of remote, hybrid and in-person experiences we have scheduled for this year and are actively seeking new members. If you are interested in learning more, joining the community or partnering with us, please come check us out!

Workshape Labs: We are extremely excited to announce the launch of our new workplace lab in 2024, where we will be offering both in-person and virtual environments where organizations can experiment, fail (and succeed) fast and learn in a low risk, low cost environment. While relevant topics may vary year to year, in 2024 we plan to have three main areas of study: value of physical proximity, logistics of successful hybrid interactions and discovering new uses for existing spaces.

Located at Bishop Ranch in San Ramon, CA, we intentionally selected a traditional office building that is representative of many suburban US office buildings, but with a very unique interior space design that facilitates our experimentation process. Being located in such an active and walkable 10-minute community is not only highly convenient for us and our visitors, but it’s also a wonderful example of the responsible adaptive reuse of an existing office development, something companies across the country should attempt to emulate, for the sake of the environment and their employees’ quality of life. If you are interested in learning more about the lab, want to come by for a visit or to learn more about how you might participate in an experiment, drop us a line!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us in this first year… It means the world to me personally to have such an amazingly gracious, empathetic and thoughtful group of peers to count on, all along this journey, I will certainly forget to mention some of those who have offered help or guidance along the way, but I have done my best to make a list below!

Sandi Lam Harder Candace H. Kevin Ahlborn Dave Bryant Corinne Murray James Morgensen Eric Kline David Charne Tony Caravano Jeff Fini Victor M. Sanchez Katie Ferrick David Schwarz Kate Schabot Zach Schabot Wayne Butler Doug Hautop Edwin Harris, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP Andrew Ojamaa Caroline Quick Kit Mackie Jeremy Reding Nick Iovacchini Jesse Duker Mitchel Zelinger Isabella Zelinger Alex Mehran Jr. Trevor Hoiland Eric Linebarger David Bergeron Jesse Wood Kip Thompson Randy Howder Hadley Haslegrave Alaia Howell Jonathan Ward Charlotte Wiederholt Liam Bates Emre Sonmez Andrew Farah Anya Ostry, MCR Robert Teed, PCC Roy Hirshland Danny Seaton Julie Lovett, MBA Omar Ramirez Michael M. Warsaw andrea vanecko Sara Klinges (Andersen) Jeremy Salles James Camp, AIA LEED AP Charlton Hutton Christopher LaPata, MCR, Prosci CCP Adrienne Rowe Jason Schwab Michael Ford Nathan Manuel Robert Jernigan, FAIA Joel Wood Michael Maciocia, AIA Tyler Silva Udoiwod Udoiwod Shona O'Dea Guy Trerotola Relina Bulchandani Robert Veit Meera Agrawal Justin Mazeka Vogt Jade Franklin Patrick Donlon Jeremy Salles Anthony A. Parzanese Kyle Haakenson Mark McGranahan Monique Lecomte Nicholas Moser Nicholas R. Duncan Paterson Vladimir Bosanac