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:

November 21, 2013

What the death of the landline tells us about how we work

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology

One of the items that always used to grace the brochures of office furniture companies when I started work in that particular industry was a telephone table. For the uninitiated, this was used as a home for the office landline, shared by a team of people, who were often expected to take turns to answer when it rang. It came with a shelf for telephone directories, fax machine and a Rolodex. This might all seem quaint or, if you’re under 25, make absolutely no sense whatsoever, but it was under twenty years ago. One by one the items involved in this particular workplace scenario have vanished. But like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, the telephone itself has remained. Until now, that is.

November 20, 2013

Lawyers often view flexible working as ‘career suicide’, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Legal news, Workplace

As we reported just a few weeks ago, when it comes to implementing flexible working practices, one of the UK’s most obdurate sectors is the legal profession. While an increasing number of law firms are implementing flexible working of one sort or another, progress remains slow compared to other types of organisation and is offered primarily to certain echelons of employees. Now a new survey from commercial solicitors Fletcher Day explores the reasons for this recalcitrance and suggests that many law firms are culturally reluctant to offer flexible working, may only agree to it as a short term measure and believe that flexible working is not compatible with a successful career. This view also appears to be held by over three-quarters of the lawyers surveyed, including those who may have requested flexible working arrangements recently.

November 19, 2013

UK’s fastest growing tech businesses named by Deloitte survey

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Technology

Infectious Media’s offices

There is a decided London bias in the latest Deloitte Technology Fast 50, which names the UK’s fastest growing technology companies. Twenty of the named companies are to be found in the capital and they generate just under half of their £672 million combined revenues over the last year. The growth rates used to measure the success of these businesses are jaw-droppingly impressive but can also be partially meaningless for such new companies. The winner grew at a Wonga-esque percentage rate of just under 10,000 percent and the average for all fifty firms for the past five years was a staggering 1,382 percent. According to Deloitte’s research, the UK’s fastest growing tech company is Clerkenwell based real-time advertising agency Infectious Media.

November 19, 2013

In pictures: plans revealed for East London iCity development

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Property, Technology

Offices at iCity

While Parliament debates the reality or otherwise of the 2012 Olympic legacy, the firms behind iCity on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London (above) have submitted detailed planning proposals and launched a new website to promote the development which they claim will become ‘a world-leading centre of innovation, education and enterprise’. The joint venture between property consultancy Delancey and datacentre operator Infinity SDC claims it will offer almost unlimited bandwidth connectivity and provide up to 400,000 sq. ft. of office space, including for digital start-ups, as well as a 250,000 sq. ft. datacentre, studio and production space and a convention centre. The plans have been drawn up Hawkins\Brown architects.

November 18, 2013

Gallery: first images of interior of Apple’s $5 billion campus in California

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Company news, Facilities management, Workplace design

Following last week’s final sign off of the plans for the new Apple Campus 2 building in northern California, the local council has issued the first interior shots of the new building. The $5 billion Foster and Partners designed campus includes a 2.8 million sq. ft. building and will be home to over 14,000 Apple employees. The late Steve Jobs originally submitted the plans to Cupertino City Council in 2011 claiming they had the potential to be the “best office building in the world”. The building is just 4 storeys high and is designed to have zero net energy consumption thanks to 700,000 sq. ft. of solar panels. As well as the main donut-shaped campus building the site includes extensive parklands, a visitor centre, R&D labs, a corporate auditorium and parking, as shown in the gallery and slideshow below.

November 18, 2013

Interview: Dave Coplin of Microsoft on Big Data, engagement and culture

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Dave Coplin joined Microsoft in 2005, and is now its Chief Envisioning Officer, helping to envision the full potential that technology offers a modern, digital society. He is a globally recognised expert on technological issues such Cloud computing, privacy, big data, social media, open government, advertising and the consumerisation of technology and is the author of a recent book called “Business Reimagined: Why work isn’t working and what you can do about it”. He is also one of the main speakers at this year’s Worktech conference in London on 19 and 20 November. In this exclusive interview with Insight he offers his thoughts on the lack of engagement between firms and employees, the most common misunderstandings about flexible working and the challenges facing managers in IT, FM and HR.

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November 15, 2013

RIBA announces practices shortlisted for design of new HQ

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, News

The names of the six architectural practices shortlisted by RIBA to design the organisation’s new headquarters in London have been revealed. They are Ben Adams, Moxon, Piercy & Company, shedkm, Spacelab and Theis & Khan. The new £2.7 million building will be located at 76 Portland Place just a few doors down from its current home (above). However it wouldn’t be normal for a trade association to make this announcement without some sort of controversy or squabbling and sure enough the Architects Journal today makes reference in a report on the fuss that surrounded the minimum turnover requirements that led many to accuse RIBA of excluding smaller practices as well as accusations of a lack of diversity in the selection panel.

November 12, 2013

UK commercial property lease lengths shorten to ten year low, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Lease lengths for commercial property fell to an historic low in the year to June 2013, while income, lost due to tenants going bust, hit an all time high, according to a new report from IPD. The IPD Lease Events Review measures over 93,000 leases, and 3,500 lease events across the UK. The 2013 edition found that over 80 percent of UK leases signed in the year to June 2013 were under five years in length, the highest level since measurement began and up from 55 percent over the last ten years. The average length of commercial property leases is now 5.8 years, down from 7.8 years in 2003, lower even than the 6.0 years in 2009 at the lowest point of the recession. Landlords have struggled to maintain cash flow and lost over 6 percent of their income due to a record numbers of defaults and insolvencies last year.

November 12, 2013

Best tall buildings in world competition winners announced by CTBUH

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Company news, Events, News, Property

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats (CTBUH) has announced the winners of its Best Tall Building Worldwide competition. The overall winner was the China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing (above) which was also the regional winner for Asia. The other three regional awards went to The Shard, London (for Europe), The Bow in Calgary (Americas) and the Al Khatem Tower in Abu Dhabi (Middle East and Africa). The awards were presented in Chicago on 7 November with the winners chosen from 60 entries by a judging panel. A popular vote was taken on the evening which also saw the audience voting the CCTV headquarters as the best tall building. The overall winner award was presented to the building’s joint architect Rem Koolhaas, who famously included a chapter called ‘Kill the Skyscraper’ in his 2003 book Content.

November 9, 2013

Looking back on a year in which the office sought a clearer sense of identity

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace design

It’s not often that workplace management becomes national business news but that happened at the end of February when the world became very interested for a while in the way we design and manage offices. The reason for this was the decision by Yahoo to ban homeworking for staff at its headquarters. The resultant period of shirt-rending at this challenge to received wisdom told us more about the changing view of the workplace than the actual decision by Yahoo. As the dust settled, we discovered that the Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had based her decision to change working practices on data from the company’s network that showed people working from home didn’t log on to the company Virtual Private Network as much as those in the office.

November 6, 2013

Boom in London commercial property development, but demand still outstrips supply

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Office construction in the City of London is higher than it has been for five years, according to a report from Deloitte Real Estate. The London Office Crane Survey found that there are over 5 million sq.ft. of office developments at 23 schemes in the Square Mile including major landmark and well known buildings such as the Walkie Talkie and the Cheesegrater. Elsewhere in London, development is at a 4 year high in the central area which covers the West End, King’s Cross, Midtown, South Bank, Docklands and Paddington, with 71 schemes set to create some 9.7 million sq. ft. of new commercial property. The report claims that in 2014 alone, some 6.6 million sq ft of office developments will be complete in central London. More →

November 5, 2013

Interview: Greg Lindsay on engineering serendipity and harnessing chaos

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Workplace, Workplace design

Render of Plaza at Zappos offices in LA

Greg Lindsay is a journalist and urbanist. He is a contributing writer for Fast Company and co-author of the international bestseller Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next as well as a visiting scholar at New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, a senior fellow of the World Policy Institute, and a research affiliate of the New England Complex Systems Institute. He is also one of the main speakers at this year’s Worktech conference in London on 19 and 20 November. In this frank and enlightening interview he offers his thoughts on how firms can engineer serendipity into their workplaces and cultures and how the way we design offices is already taking clues from the way we plan urban environments.

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