Gather Your Big Ideas with Allsteel and Workspace Solutions

Back in the idyllic 1950’s, people in the suburbs used to visit one another by meeting along the back yard hedge. What if you could put a hedge in your office, you know, a place that encourages your staff to meet regularly to discuss and exchange ideas? Collaborative work settings are a vital part of contemporary office design. Ideas grow when shared, and ideas create the next profit centers within our businesses. Without ideas, it’s hard to move ahead or even keep up with our competition. Old office walls and cubicles made for privacy, but privacy keeps ideas from sprouting and taking root. How you design your office dictates how your employees will interact with customers, and each other, so it’s important to think of your office layout the same way you think about any technology you invest in to improve productivity and growth.  Workspace Solutions has been designing collaborative offices for years. Now they have new tools from Allsteel to take your office to the next level.

Allsteel has two new lines designed to increase employee collaboration: Gather, and Involve. Learn more here, or contact Workspace Solutions for a demonstration. Gather around the Hedge in your office, and get everyone Involved in the future or your business.

Workspace Solutions is the Allsteel dealer for Northern Indiana, including South Bend, Elkhart, Warsaw, and Fort Wayne. Workspace Solutions can also serve you from their office in Indianapolis.

Save on Used Office Furniture During Workspace Solutions Warehouse Sale

Throughout the year, Workspace Solutions installs the latest office furniture into businesses all over Northeast Indiana, Indianapolis and South Bend.  The furniture they replace then comes back to the Workspace Fort Wayne warehouse, located behind the Workspace Solutions location on Coliseum Boulevard, between Lake Avenue and State Road 930.

Then, once a year, during October, Workspace opens up the warehouse doors to the general public, and offers a huge selection of used office furniture at incredible warehouse sale prices.

Used lateral files start at $195.00.  Mesh High back task chairs as low as $129.00 while supplies last.  Files, desks, chairs, conference tables, storage units, and more.  You’ll find it all inside the warehouse during Workspace Solutions annual October Warehouse Sale, through October 31, with sale items at both locations:  256 W Main Street in Downtown Fort Wayne, and their Warehouse showroom at 919 Coliseum Blvd. N in Fort Wayne.

Check out more at our Warehouse Sale Website here.

Watch our TV commercial below:

 

 

The TV show “Mad Men” an Example of How Not to Design Your Office

Now that the new season of “Mad Men,” the cable show that depicts the day to day personal and business activities of a New York advertising agency in the 1960’s, is back on the air, we begin to notice once again what it was like working in a large office a half century ago.  One of the first things we see are the IBM Selectric typewriters instead of computers on every secretary’s desk.  Next, we notice how segmented the office is.  There are conference rooms, and large corner offices for the executives, each with a desk and secretary posted at the entrance.

If we were able to plan this space today, it would appear quite different.  Not only would the typewriters be gone, so would the desktop computer.  In “Mad Men,” we often see the creative team working in a break or conference room, where they can stretch out, have room for their sketches and yellow pads, and collaborate with one another.  That’s exactly what the modern office needs today, places that encourage collaboration, and allow workers room to access their I-pods, laptop, or tablet computers.

Following another modern trend, the “Mad Men’s” conference room would most likely be empty most of the day, and at New York office rates, that’s a giant waste of space and money.  As a collaboration space, the old conference room now draws together creative thinkers able to easily share ideas and create the next annoying commercials you will see on TV.

Watching “Mad Men,” it’s amazing that they ever come up with any good ideas within a space that seems designed to hide and protect people and ideas from one another.  If your office still resembles the fictional ad agency of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, you’re fully prepared to take on the 1960’s.  If you want to take on the twenty first century, then it’s time to contact the office creators at Workspace Solutions.

 

(“Mad Men” airs Sunday nights on the AMC Cable Network.  You can view an artists depiction of the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce office by clicking here. )

 

Take a Stand at Work. You’ve Got Nothing to Lose but a few Pounds

Well, it was good enough for Ernest Hemingway, but you still need more convincing.

We’re talking about standing up while your work, at least standing up for a few hours every day.  The evidence seems to keep mounting for how bad sitting all day is for your health, but now there is a little evidence that shows the benefits as well.

According to a British exercise scientist, Dr. John Buckley, as quoted in the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, staying on your feet an extra three hours daily would burn off eight pounds of fat each year.

Standing for three hours, Dr. Buckley notes, will burn 144 calories.  It’s also good for your circulation.  Sitting for long periods slows down your metabolic rate as well.

New adjustable desks and counter tops are being designed every day that allow you or your employees to spend part of the day standing while working.  Workspace Solutions works with dozens of the best office furniture companies in the world, and can help you design a work space that can help workers gain health and productivity, while losing weight at the same time.

New Allsteel Office Furniture at Workspace Solutions goes “Beyond” all expectations

It’s beyond efficiency, beyond simplicity, and beyond functionality.

It’s not a new super-hero, just a new exciting way to create a modern office using Beyond from All-Steel.  Workspace Solutions is your exclusive Allsteel dealer for Fort Wayne and South Bend, also serving Indianapolis.

Beyond from Allsteel puts you in control when it comes to changing your office.  Beyond easily installs and reconfigures to accommodate changing floorplans. Or, when the floorplan remains intact, the individual space can be quickly modified, with the unique Privacy Tile System that hangs directly on the glass

Beyond’s frameless aesthetic signals a change in direction, creating transparency between management and teams. It signals a change in spirit, through inspiring spaces filled with natural light and connected to the open plan.

Watch the video, then talk with Mike or Brent about installing this exciting new product in your office

It’s beyond efficiency, beyond simplicity, and beyond functionality.
It’s not a new super-hero, just a new exciting way to create a modern office using Beyond from All-Steel. Workspace Solutions is your exclusive Allsteel dealer for Fort Wayne and South Bend, also serving Indianapolis.
Beyond from Allsteel puts you in control when it comes to changing your office. Beyond easily installs and reconfigures to accommodate changing floorplans. Or, when the floorplan remains intact, the individual space can be quickly modified, with the unique Privacy Tile System that hangs directly on the glass
Beyond’s frameless aesthetic signals a change in direction, creating transparency between management and teams. It signals a change in spirit, through inspiring spaces filled with natural light and connected to the open plan.
Watch the video, then talk with Mike or Brent about installing this exciting new product in your office

It’s beyond efficiency, beyond simplicity, and beyond functionality.
It’s not a new super-hero, just a new exciting way to create a modern office using Beyond from All-Steel. Workspace Solutions is your exclusive Allsteel dealer for Fort Wayne and South Bend, also serving Indianapolis.
Beyond from Allsteel puts you in control when it comes to changing your office. Beyond easily installs and reconfigures to accommodate changing floorplans. Or, when the floorplan remains intact, the individual space can be quickly modified, with the unique Privacy Tile System that hangs directly on the glass
Beyond’s frameless aesthetic signals a change in direction, creating transparency between management and teams. It signals a change in spirit, through inspiring spaces filled with natural light and connected to the open plan.
Watch the video, then talk with Mike or Brent about installing this exciting new product in your office

Abco Keel – The backbone of the modern office

Some time ago (actually, a long time ago) we talked about a new product from Abco called Keel.  Keel is a modular office solution that was designed by Paul James. It’s all about balance in the workplace. The focal point rests at the heart of the design structure – what ABCO calls the keel: A simple, integral piece that offers extra strength and very easy assembly. A variety of work surfaces, storage units, and accessories will connect to the keel. This allows each workspace—in an open floor plan or private office—to be customized to the needs of individual users and a range of work flow requirements.

The traditional private cubicle is gone.  In it’s place is an office that more efficiently uses space, and encourages more collaboration.  Abco Keel is part of this revolution.  Your next office design will not be like your last one.  Find out how everything has changed for the better.  Talk to one of the office designers at Workspace Solution today about how you can design or re-design your office for the future.  And learn more about Abco Keel here.

 

RFIDs help hosptals find equipment, files, and improve health care for patients

During the summer of 2007, Capital Health System, an acute-care and teaching hospital located inTrenton,New Jersey, began tracking every medical file using RFID technology.  What is RFID?  It stands for Radio Frequency Identification.  Every file has a small RFID circuit chip attached to it.  This chip broadcasts an ID signal that can be picked up by special RFID receiving devices.  In other words, if someone take a patient file, and leaves it in another part of the hospital, the RFID receiver can locate it quickly.

 

Capital Health System manages 5,000 patient files. Each file is tagged with an RFID tag allowing it to be tracked from the moment it is created for a new patient all the way until the file is retained in storage.  The RFID readers can be positioned at various locations around the hospital to report in real time the locations for every file. Effieicieny improves, and liability is reduced.

 

Hopsitlas are also using RFID technology to:

  • Continuously track each patient’s location
  • Track the location of doctors and nurses in the hospital
  • Track the location of expensive and critical instruments and equipment
  • Restrict access to drugs, pediatrics, and other high-threat areas to authorized staff
  • Monitor and track unauthorized persons who are loitering around high-threat areas
  • Facilitate triage processes by restricting access to authorized staff and “approved” patients during medical emergencies, epidemics, terrorist threats, and other times when demands could threaten the hospital’s ability to effectively deliver services
  • Use the patient’s RFID tag to access patient information for review and update through a hand-held computer

 

 

The problem at Christiana Hospital in Newark,Del., where the emergency department has 76 treatment rooms that handle more than 100,000 patients yearly, was that triage nurses were losing track of where patients were in the treatment process as they were moved among diagnostic and treatment facilities. The result: The overall length of a patient’s stay was spiking above normal levels, and about 4% to 5% were leaving without any treatment at all.  An RFID system combined with computer software that associates patients with equipment and treatments solved this problem.

 

Recent surveys show RFID based solutions are really starting to take off in hospitals around the country.  Many hospitals see RFID solutions as part of taking the step into digital record keeping.

 

Workspace Solutions is teaming with Spacefile, a storage solution company that offers both RFID technology, and innovative physical storage solutions that allow you to store more in less space.

Do You Want to Make More Money?

Remember the old TV commercial where actress Sally Struthers asked us if we wanted to make more money? And the answer was, “Sure, we all do.” Here are a few ways for you to make more money, without a whole lot of effort (Thanks to ABCO, one of our fine office furniture suppliers)
Buy Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Fluorescent bulbs use less energy, emit less heat and last longer than those incandescent bulbs.

Weather Strip Doors and Windows
You may even be eligible for a tax deduction.

Recycle Paper
There are two sides to every piece of paper. Just avoid re-using paper with confidential info on it. Shred that.

Turn Your Equipment Off
At one time, the computer people told us to leave our computers on. Now, it is perfectly OK to turn them off or put them into sleep mode when not in use.

Replace Your Inkjet with a Laser
Laser printers aren’t expensive to buy, and they cost a whole lot less to use than ink jets.

Use a Programmable Thermostat
Set it once and forget it. Why heat the office or showroom if no one’s there?

Another way to save money is with used office furniture, the good kind that we carry here at Workspace Solutions. Check out our used page here.

The Decline of the Cubicle

(Fourth of a four part series on Office Furniture Trends for 2012)

During 2012, we’ll be designing more open offices than ever before, with fewer cubicles, and more common work areas.

Cubicles sales peaked in 2000, when they accounted for nearly 37 percent of all office furniture sales. That’s fallen to about 26 percent. Companies now prefer more open spaces that make it easier for employees to work together.

Workers used to spend most of their day at a desk or cubicle, report to a conference room for meetings, then tread a familiar path back to their workstation. Now, companies are setting up more gathering areas in “in between” spaces, where workers can hold informal conferences, chat with colleagues, or plop down with a laptop. Workers like the flexibility, and companies encourage the collaboration.

More and more employees aren’t even in the office most of the time.  They may be outside sales people or they could be working from home.  Why waste precious office space on people who are rarely actually in the office.  Common work areas and tables provide these workers with what they need to be productive during those rare times they are physically in the building.

The equipment we use and the way we work keep evolving, and so must our office designs.  2012 promises to be a year when we will see many of these changes take place.

As usual, we here at Workspace Solutions will keep you up to date on our “What’s New” blog.

Office Furniture Trends to Watch in 2012

Here at Workspace Solutions, we’re watching the trends in office design in order to make sure you’re new office will be state of the art for years to come.  Right now, we’re watching four exciting new trends:

1. Technology infused office furniture

2. New used of colors for desks and other office furniture, especially white.

3. More open office design for better collaboration and space usage

4. Going Green will become easier as eco-pricing starts to come down.

Check our “What’s New” page every week in January for a new post about these new trends, or just contact us here at Workspace Solutions and we’ll be happy to talk with you about them.