Get Adventurous, Get Happy
by Tony Chavira
(These are the happiest-looking workers I could possibly find on the internet)
Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it's the Muse music playing in the background in my office, but today feels like a good day for an aggressively positive attitude! An link on Joe Urban pointed out to me an interesting group of people in Seattle who call themselves “Office Nomads.” Sounds pretty self-explanatory: using a space whenever you need it and moving on, maybe several office spaces around town depending on how they’re set-up (sorta like communal offices). Here’s the spiel from their website:
Office Nomads is a coworking space in Capitol Hill, Seattle. We are dedicated to cultivating a dynamic, creative and productive community office for Seattle’s nomadic workforce. Our members are developers, telecommuters, planners, consultants, publishers, organizers, and students, who all believe that by working together they can accomplish more than they could alone.
Might seem weird right away, but I’d bet you it’s an amazing office environment to work in. First of all, you only rent a desk at something like $200 per month and you get all sorts of office amenities. Second of all, the Washington Post mentioned today that the government is considering a “Pay As You Go” sort of tax for people who drive too much: the more you drive, the more you pay. With that in mind, having an easy-to-access office space might be beneficial to cool, dynamic small businesses if governments take proposals like that seriously.
Lastly though, you’ll be hanging out in an office full of people who are fighting hard at their individual ventures, which (most likely) will mean that you’re working around a lot of adventurous business types. It just so happens that LiveScience has an article today that sums up how you can expect that kind of office environment to be:
Feeling blue? You're more likely to stay in your comfort zone rather than venturing out to try something new, a recent study suggests. But as soon as you bounce back, so will that lure of exploration and adventure.
Scientists have known that we are drawn to the familiar, a phenomenon British psychologist Edward Titchener described as the "warm glow of familiarity" a century ago. But perhaps what we're at home with isn't always so enticing, the researchers surmised.
"We thought the value of familiarity would depend on the context," said study researcher Marieke de Vries, currently affiliated with the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. "Familiarity signals safety, which is pleasant in an unsafe or stressful context but might actually get boring when all is going fine."
So maybe it’s time to put together our own little worker colony and get crackin’! In fact, Good Magazine’s got a few suggestions to get started on the right track: click through and check ‘em out!
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