Cubicle Hacking Redux

by Kent Aitken

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A couple weeks ago I challenged Twitter to do something, anything, out of the ordinary that embodied the workplace culture they wanted to see. I did a few things, none original:

• Brought in an armful of books to start a lending library about my team's domain (hat tip)
• Hung a whiteboard on the outside of my wall listing what I was working on and looking for ideas about (hat tip)
• Started a "win wall" on which to post successes large and small (hat tip)
• Covered a wall in blueprint paper to start a slow map of my work and stakeholders (hat tip, though I spun it)

(On that last one - I had some kicking around. Er... I may or may not have submitted a poster-sized document to Blueprint 2020.)

Aside from what each addition to my office specifically does, the major goal for me was starting conversations. I would like colleagues to see something that interests them on the whiteboard or blueprint and ask about it.

It's taking a minute to think differently about your workplace. Nick has suggested this before (see: Cubicle Hacking 101), and everyone should read Spydergrrl's excellent talk at GTEC in October about Hacking Your Way to an Agile Organization.

And today, of all days, is an auspicious one.

So two questions: what could you do to your physical surroundings today that better fits the workplace you want, when you get back in 2014? And more importantly, what are you going to do, on the first day back in the new year, that makes your workplace better?

Happy New Year, and happy workplace hacking.