As I sat down to write my ?2012 tech predictions? column, I recalled a visit last week to?Facebook?s?new offices in Menlo Park, which may herald a business trend in the new year and beyond.
What impressed me ? besides the cafeteria and fabulous employee gym to work off all that free food ? is how the company is allowing workers to organize their own work and meeting space. In a sense, the offices are a bit like the company?s flagship social network.
Facebook provides the infrastructure to make things happen, but doesn?t dictate exactly where and when.
That?s up to the ?users.? And when it comes to collaboration, the atmosphere is both open and social.
It might be stretching the analogy to suggest that Facebook employees are encouraged to ?share? by default.
But they don?t generally work in cubicles and even the executives don?t have walled-off offices. Instead, as you walk through the various buildings on the campus that used to house Sun Microsystems, you see lots of spaces where people can sit ? or stand ? to do their work or conduct their meetings.
There are glass-enclosed conference rooms, including some that still have the Sun logo on the glass ? one of the few reminders of the campus? former occupant.
But there are plenty of other ?spaces? to work, including small and large tables and spaces under stairways where workers can stand?up to take a call or read an email on their phone or tablet or conduct an impromptu meeting with fellow employees.
The Facebook campus is very much a work in progress.
There are still plenty of hard-hat-only areas where construction workers are erecting bridges between buildings, turning paved areas into grassy outdoor gathering places and otherwise sprucing up and modernizing the facilities.
Unlike the Googleplex in Mountain View, it doesn?t yet have that college campus-like feeling. I?m told that at least one outdoor area will eventually resemble downtown Palo Alto ? the scene of Facebook?s original office.
What Facebook and?Google?offices do have in common is that sense of openness and the constant mixture of work and play.
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