September 26, 2016
HSBC moves 300 staff into coworking space in Hong Kong 0
The idea that coworking is primarily for the self-employed, tech startups and other small firms who can’t afford permanent offices in the world’s expensive cities has been challenged with the news HSBC has moved 300 staff into a coworking space in Hong Kong, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. The bank has rented the workstations in WeWork’s space in Causeway Bay, one of the world’s most expensive districts for offices and shops. The bank has taken out a large scale corporate membership with WeWork for the 300 members of its digital and transformation team. According to the report, a spokesman from CBRE claimed that the move is less about saving money than it is with providing short term flexibility in a time of economic uncertainty. However you view that, the bank is saving as much as HK$2.45 million a month with the move (£240,000 or $320,000). The annual cost savings are estimated at HK$23,640 per person.
May 18, 2016
What the imminent arrival of driverless vehicles will mean for the way we work 0
by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Comment, Flexible working, Technology
Game changing technology doesn’t come any more disruptive than driverless vehicles. The problem is that we may find the whole idea easy to dismiss based on our past experiences of this sort of thing. Autonomous vehicles carry the whiff of Tomorrow’s World about them, yet they are about to go mainstream far sooner than we might think and their advent will have a major impact on the way we work and live. Both Ford and BMW have announced they intend to have fully autonomous vehicles on the roads within five years. That doesn’t mean the test models that are already on the roads but commercially available vehicles; Volvo will have 100 customers in Sweden and the UK using the vehicles next year. Tesla claims its cars will be driverless in two years. And it’s not just car makers who are intent on grabbing a share of this new market but computer makers like Google and Apple as well as sharing economy pioneers like Uber.
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