About Mark Eltringham

Mark is the publisher of Workplace Insight, IN magazine, Works magazine and is the European Director of Work&Place journal. He has worked in the office design and management sector for over thirty years as a journalist, marketing professional, editor and consultant.

Posts by Mark Eltringham:

Issue 17 of IN Magazine lands

Issue 17 of IN Magazine lands

by • IN Magazine, News, Premium Content

IN Magazine issue 17 lands

The new digital edition of IN Magazine is now available, free to read here. Print copies will be mailed out to subscribers soon. In this issue: we talk to incoming BCO President Despina Katsikakis about whippets and, less importantly, her history of pioneering workplace innovation; we visit a new space in London that proves biophilia is about a lot more than a plant wall; a special supplement produced in partnership with BVN explores the multi-faceted complexity of retrofit; Helen Parton explores how new developments are looking to increase their social value; we question the wisdom of predictions; and much more. More →

The Kafka trap of return to office arguments

The Kafka trap of return to office arguments

by • Comment, Flexible working

This month I witnessed somebody misapplying the work of Kafka in an attempt to make a middlebrow point about the so-called return to officeRecently, I bemoaned how Orwell is often invoked in support of an argument by people who haven’t read him. They are usually drawing on some laundered misperception of his work, and especially Nineteen Eighty-Four. Well, this month I witnessed somebody misapplying the work of Kafka in a similar attempt to make a middlebrow point about the so-called return to office. More →

The words we borrow from other languages to talk about work and wellbeing

The words we borrow from other languages to talk about work and wellbeing

by • News, Wellbeing

We are prone to borrow words from other languages to express ideas that otherwise need some explaining in English. This includes the way we talk about work, and specially the way we talk about wellbeing and happinessWe are prone to borrow nuanced words from other languages to express ideas that otherwise need some explaining in English. This includes the way we talk about work, and especially the way we talk about wellbeing and happiness. Perhaps most famously, there was a lot of talk about hygge a couple of years ago. A straight dictionary translation of hygge would be something like cosiness, but the word also embodies an emotion and an approach to life that embraces a certain degree of slowness and an enjoyment of the present moment. It’s no coincidence that it became modish in a distracted and hurried world. Although the concept is usually referred to as Danish, the word itself is shared with Norwegian, which also offers us the word koselig, which means cosiness but also hints at it being best enjoyed at a fireside. More →

Breaking eggs and a two thousand year quest to make the most of each day

Breaking eggs and a two thousand year quest to make the most of each day

by • Comment, Flexible working, HR

make the most of each dayThe fracturing of time and place underlies every one of the great workplace issues of our time. Everything that springs from this – the where, when, how, what and why of work – is defined by the shattering of any fixed idea we may once have had of a time and a place to work. Because the challenge to these traditional ideas is now so inextricably linked in our minds with new technology, we might often  forget that people have been asking questions about how we can get the most out of each day for thousands of years. Tempus fugit after all, and as a consequence we’ve always known that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. More →

Memories of the Office Age 

Memories of the Office Age 

by • Cities, Features, Working lives

memories of the office ageNo author uses the built environment like J G Ballard. In his 1975 novel High-Rise, the eponymous structure is both a way of isolating the group of people who live and compete inside it and a metaphor for their personal isolation and inner struggles. Over the course of three months, the building’s services begin to fail. The 2,000 people within, detached from external realities in the 40-storey building, confronted with their true selves and those of their neighbours, descend into selfishness and – ultimately – savagery.  More →

How routines and boredom can spark creativity

How routines and boredom can spark creativity

by • Features, Premium Content

Every day, after a leisurely breakfast in bed and the opening of his post, Roald Dahl would wander down his garden to the grubby little hut crammed with personal paraphernalia he had created. There he would sharpen the six yellow pencils that were always by his side while he worked, settle into an armchair, put his feet up on an old suitcase filled with logs, place an American yellow legal pad of paper onto a makeshift board on his lap and work for two hours. More →

Manchester is now a major draw for office design firms

Manchester is now a major draw for office design firms

by • Cities, Features, Workplace design

Way before the lockdown rewired the whole events scene in cities around the world, I was given a task by an old, now departed, friend. He wanted to explore the possibility of creating something like Clerkenwell Design Week in Manchester. The obvious problem was that, for some of its historic parallels, Manchester isn’t Clerkenwell and it certainly isn’t London. What it particularly lacked for this type of event was a hothouse of office design showrooms sharing space with a youthful community of architects and designers. The ecosystem for such an event didn’t really exist in the same way. More →

What the office of the future will really look like is the office of today

What the office of the future will really look like is the office of today

by • Comment, Workplace design

If you set aside the Jetson-y outside views, the office of the future is very like the office of the presentIt’s a banality to point out that futurism is nowism plus either a robot butler or blasted landscape. So, I was taken with a press release we had last week from Studio Alliance which shows an AI’s depiction of the office of the future at various points over the next quarter of a century. What is most striking to me, if you set aside the Jetson-y outside views, is how much like the office of the present each is. More →

Wellbeing of HR professionals yet to return to pre-pandemic levels

Wellbeing of HR professionals yet to return to pre-pandemic levels

by • HR, News, Wellbeing

The wellbeing of HR professionals has yet to return to pre-pandemic levelsThe wellbeing of HR professionals has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, with UK HRs in particular lagging at times behind their global counterparts when coping with today’s challenging economic and operating conditions.  This is according to a three-year comparative research project by Culture Amp and Thrive at Monash Business School, which found that in 2020, when the pandemic was first starting to bite, 45 percent of global HRs felt equipped to manage their own  personal and work life demands. More →

Rummaging through the workplace memory hole

Rummaging through the workplace memory hole

by • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace design

I recently whiled away an idle hour checking which of the more deranged pronouncements from the period of peak workplace hysteria in late 2020 have been memory holed…talking of Orwell, I recently whiled away an idle hour checking which of the more deranged pronouncements from the period of peak workplace hysteria in late 2020 have been memory holed. There was some weird, wild stuff, often coupled with a feverish response to anybody urging caution. At one point somebody (I know who but won’t say) suggested I should be banned from LinkedIn for pushing back on the idea that any firm that didn’t go fully remote would be out of business within five years. More →

Insight confirms partnership with Material Matters for sustainable design event

Insight confirms partnership with Material Matters for sustainable design event

by • Environment, News, Workplace design

Here's a new project that promises to mark a significant shift in the way we think about workplaces and sustainable designWe are part of the London Design Festival for the first time this year, developing an exciting new project that promises to mark a significant shift in the way we think about workplaces and sustainable design. We have partnered with Material Matters to create a space that will showcase the latest and most innovative thinking on sustainable office design, circularity, new materials and innovation. Known as The Works Place, products and ideas will be presented in a range of working settings so that visitors can see how they might be applied in their own offices and other spaces. More →

Issue 16 of IN magazine is now available for you

Issue 16 of IN magazine is now available for you

by • IN Magazine, News, Premium Content

The new issue of IN Magazine is now available to read online. The print edition will be posted shortly.The new issue of IN Magazine is now available to read online. The print edition will be posted shortly. In this issue, we look at the ongoing shift in the way we think about work and workplaces but without falling back on the simple, cliched thinking that defines much of that conversation. We consider what happens now for the world’s fringe business districts as Canary Wharf sets out its plans for the future in the wake of HSBC’s announced departure. We report on how domestic design is changing in response to a rapidly evolving world. We look at how the changing work practices of architects are playing out in buildings and cities. And we announce details of our first major event. More →

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