WorkSpace Connect's expert-led conference program will help you create strategies, spaces, and provide best practices that enable collaboration among employees across situations, generations, work styles, and locations.
Tuesday, September 10
8:00 - 9:00 AM | Breakfast & Networking
Business Hall
Joe Park
Chief Digital Architect and VP, Associate Digital Experience, Walmart
Workplace Transformation at Walmart
Join Joe Park, Chief Digital Architect and VP, Associate Digital Experience at Walmart, as he shares Walmart’s vision and strategy for mobility, collaboration, and productivity through digital platforms.
Jon Ingham
People Management & Organization Design Consultant
Author, “The Social Organization”
A Strategic Approach to the Connected Workspace
Optimizing the strategic benefits of the way people work requires effective coordination among all relevant activities undertaken by HR, IT, and Corporate Real Estate/Facilities Management, providing an integrated experience, as well as integrated outcomes. This doesn’t require the actual integration of the three functions, but it does depend upon linked responsibilities and some overarching accountabilities. It can also be enabled by an integrated approach to workspace planning, measurement, and analytics, including use of engagement surveys, organization network analysis, and ongoing digital measures.
This keynote will outline:
- How HR/talent management plus digital and physical workspaces can be used to impact a business through the wellbeing and engagement of its people
- The way that these areas, together with organization design, can help enable people to do better work, regardless of their engagement
- Opportunities for using workspace design, organization development interventions, social HR activities, and the role of “social talent” to gain further benefits by enhancing the relationships between the people using the workspace
- A process for identifying workspace activities that support the required outcomes and for optimizing the connected workspace in attendees’ organizations
10:00 - 11:00 AM | Networking Break
Business Hall
Delivering on Future-Forward Design
Organizational successes depend heavily on aligning the enterprise’s vision, strategy, and goals with its culture and the human experience.
This presentation will delve into the critical importance of considering a comprehensive ecosystem while designing for the future. It will explore the role of human experience in developing recommendations and the need for thoughtful user engagement in bringing design intent to fruition.
Participant Outcomes
- Attendees will understand the shared success factors critical to building a comprehensive ecosystem for organizational success
- Attendees will learn why understanding the impact on human experience is vital to developing their unique design recommendations
- Attendees will leave prepared to evaluate their organizational culture and changes required to activate the future design
Speaker:
Swapna Sathyan, Executive Director of Strategy and Change Consulting, CannonDesign
Talking the Same Language: How to Align Technology with Employee Needs
Successful organizations are taking a multi-disciplinary approach to transforming their businesses, as strategy, technology and culture combine.
In this session we introduce a common workspace framework to help you segment your employees so your technology investments align to their needs, and help to remove friction points from their typical working day.
Speaker:
Tim Banting, Principal Analyst, Workspace Services, Ovum
12:00 - 1:00 PM | Lunch & Networking
Business Hall
Moving Beyond Open Plan
Gone are the days when the workplace was a static environment, where employees arrived at the same spot each day to perform the same routine tasks.
So, how does a company know which type of workspace solution is right for its employees? Design firms and/or workplace strategists approach the problem by identifying the unique DNA of the company and the specialized groups within it and tailoring the environment to meet everyone’s specific needs. This approach allows organizations to create curated experiences that provide employees with a la carte workplace options including services, location, and support. In this session, you’ll get specific insights about how to create this approach for your enterprise, so that you capture the unique facets and factors that determine the best approach in your case.
Participant Outcomes:
- Understand the specific design concepts and workplace options that can be implemented under the broad heading of “open office.”
- Learn how to determine which concepts and options will work best for specific subsets of your employees.
Speaker:
Rachel Rouse, Principal | Director of Interiors, HOK
Workspaces Reimagined: How Emerging Technologies Are Reshaping the Modern Office
Forget everything you know about workspace design. That was then, but this is now.
The modern workspace is about more than just square feet, offices, meeting rooms, and headcount. It’s an environment that empowers and motivates your most important resource – your people. And this is how you attract – and retain – leading-edge talent.
During this hard-hitting session, you’ll learn about audio-visual (AV) and collaboration technologies that drive productivity and foster satisfaction for all your employees – whether they’re working in the office, at home, or on the road.
Discover how to capitalize on technologies like sound masking, speaker tracking, and in-room sensors, and to get the most from artificial intelligence and automation in your workspaces.
This session will help you transform your workspace from a recurring expense into an asset that contributes to your company’s long-term success.
Speaker:
Ira Weinstein, Managing Partner, Recon Research
Huddle Spaces: The Power of Smaller Meeting Rooms
Everybody seems to be talking about huddle spaces. But what exactly is a huddle space? And how do these differ from the small meeting rooms we’ve had in office settings for decades?
This session flies high above the hype and sales pitches, providing real-world insight and information from the leading analyst firm focused on huddle rooms, conferencing, and collaboration.
Attendees will gain a better understanding of the huddle room trend and learn how to make huddle rooms work for your company.
Key questions to be answered during this session include:
- What exactly are huddle rooms – and what makes them so interesting?
- Should all huddle rooms have the same shape, size, look, and feel?
- Do huddle rooms need custom furniture, millwork, or facilities work?
- Do all of them need walls?
- Do I need AV and conferencing capabilities in all of my huddle rooms?
- How much should we expect to spend on technology for a typical huddle room?
- What are the huddle room gotchas, from a facilities/space planning perspective?
Speaker:
Ira Weinstein, Managing Partner, Recon Research
Holistic Approach to Collaboration Excellence: Real-World Examples
When implementing new systems and spaces, enterprises must understand how to create the best possible collaboration experiences for employees.
This session will provide a detailed description of two enterprise case studies and will share insights on the application and challenges associated with this new approach.
Participant Outcomes:
- Understand a holistic approach to enabling collaboration excellence in organizations based on two client case studies.
- Understand the business case to the enterprise for such an approach.
Speakers:
Dirk Propfe, MSLS, President & CEO, ET Group
Michelle N. Moore, MBA, Partner, Strategic Advisory Services, ET Group
Lisa Perrine, Ed.d, Experience Designer, Communications Strategist, CEO, Cibola Systems
4:00 - 5:00 PM | General Session
Enterprise Organizations Tell Their Stories
We’ll close the first day of the WorkSpace Connect conference by hearing from executives with enterprises that are leading the way on workspace transformation. They’ll tell their stories: Why they chose a bold transformation initiative; how they planned and executed the project; how they brought IT/AV, HR, and Facilities/Real Estate (and other groups) together to make the effort succeed. Then they’ll answer your questions. You’ll come away with specific lessons and concrete examples that you can apply to your own efforts in workspace transformation.
Speakers:
Stacy Foster, Facilities and Technology Director, Chemonics International
Additional speakers to be announced
5:00 - 6:30 PM | Reception
Business Hall
Wednesday, September 11
8:00 - 9:00 AM | Breakfast & Networking
Business Hall
Embracing the Future of Data-Led Workspace Design
When it comes to designing collaborative workspaces, leveraging data is key to understanding organizational and individual needs.
Participant Outcomes:
- Understand how to leverage contemporary sources of data, such as social media and sensors, for research-informed design
- Learn about a wide variety of emerging technologies that are making buildings "aware" of their occupants and responsive to their needs
- Discover different ways this broad range of new technologies can be combined to accomplish organizational goals
Speaker:
Melissa Marsh, Founder and Executive Director, PLASTARC
Workplace Design: Tunable Ecosystems
What we do for work and how that work gets done is fundamentally changing.
We’ll explore how bringing together human-centered design principles, technology, and new ways of planning can build meaningful connections between people, work, and purpose.
Participant Outcomes:
- Understand human-centered design principles
- Gain specific insights on planning for change within the workplace
Speaker:
Drew Carter, Currents Studio Director, Hendy
10:00 - 11:00 AM | Networking Break
Business Hall
The Insider’s Guide to Meeting Room Design
The battle rages on. Real-estate and facilities need to stay on budget and on schedule. Planners need to use space as efficiently as possible Designers need a look-and-feel that supports your brand and persona.
But what of the audio-visual (AV) and collaboration/IT folks? All too often, they show up at the end of the discussion – as uninvited disruptors trying to shoehorn technology into a pre-existing space.
And who pays the price? The poor end users who just want to meet, ideate, communicate, and collaborate. They don’t care about the details. They just want to make a difference and get things done – simply and easily.
So how do we break this cycle of failure? We do it by creating meeting spaces that are “collaboration friendly” by design, and by making the right planning decisions up-front, involving the right people across departments, to avoid downstream usability and experience compromises.
During this session, you’ll learn what you need to consider when designing (or transforming) your company’s meeting rooms, as shared by industry experts with decades of experience in the field.
Topics to be covered include:
- The types and quantity of rooms your users need to succeed
- Best practices for room shape, size, layout, and seating
- The pitfalls of poor room acoustics, lighting, or color schemes
- The power and peril of meeting rooms without walls
- Next-generation design tactics (cable management, control and automation, AI, etc.)
- Ways technology can be integrated into workspace furnishings
- Workflows and technologies that empower workers
Speaker:
Ira Weinstein, Managing Partner, Recon Research
Productive Global Collaboration: Five Success Factors
How can you build productive teams when members are global, separated by time, distance, language and culture?
This session explores five elements of successful global collaboration. Also, we explore supporting technology practices including weaving in different modes of communication (real time and asynchronous).
Participants Will Learn About:
- Using a hands-on format to explore the concept of a psychologically safe space.
- Practicing applying the evaluation method to your own real-world collaboration challenges.
Speakers:
Dirk Propfe, MSLS, President & CEO, ET Group
Michelle N. Moore, MBA, Partner, Strategic Advisory Services, ET Group
Lisa Perrine, Ed.d, Experience Designer, Communications Strategist, CEO, Cibola Systems
12:00 - 1:00 PM | Lunch & Networking
Business Hall
Wellness in the Modern Workplace
The sustainability movement has led to a new awareness of how to design buildings to be more environmentally sustainable. But what are we doing for occupants?
Participant Outcomes:
- Understand the issues and factors that are impacting mindfulness, health, and wellbeing today.
- Focus on human factors, what is negatively impacting our performance and ability to focus, and how we can improve employee engagement for all people, including those with neuro-sensitivities and special needs.
- Review the environmental practices, guidelines, and options used to encourage movement and improve wellbeing in the workplace.
- Discuss strategies that will lead to improving mindfulness in the workplace to increase concentration, focus, engagement, and productivity.
Speaker:
Rachel Rouse, Principal | Director of Interiors, HOK
The Path to your Digital Workplace Strategy
Creating and fulfilling a Digital Workplace Strategy requires unprecedented collaboration from departments that have traditionally existed as independent “swim lanes”—HR, Facilities/Real Estate, and IT/AV
Participant Outcomes:
- Tips on using today’s friction as evidence for the need to create a better future
- Examples of how to hack the existing culture to get buy-in from lines of business leaders
- A reframed approach to the entire workplace journey
Speaker:
Tom Bradbury, Founder, WorkplaceUX
2:00 - 3:00 PM | Networking Break
Business Hall
3:00 - 3:30 PM | Closing Keynote
3:30 - 5:00 PM | Reception
Business Hall
