Right here, right brain

In a special section of the New York Times dedicated to the state of business travel, there’s a piece about “right brain” meeting rooms. The idea is that, since the right side of the brain controls creativity, if you give people fun spaces to meet in, they’ll be stimulated. This, in turn, means better meetings.

Bruce MacMillan, chief executive of the trade association Meeting Professionals International is quoted in the article as saying, “Hard wooden chairs don’t do it anymore.” And Stacy Evans, an executive administrator for Cisco Systems, says “People tend to shut down if they can’t get up and move around. We want them thinking. When they move around, they think.”

The spaces described feature right-brain inspiration ranging from pillows to Jenga games to hammocks to pogo sticks to tai chi exercises. I have to admit when I read this I was reminded of when, back during the height of the high tech boom, I took a contract job with a local software developer the day before the company IPOed.

Accustomed, prior to that, to either working in restaurants or writing at home, alone, in my dumpy rental cottage, I was initially impressed. There was the ping-pong table, the kitchen full of free Name Brand Snacks and fancy beer, the video games. It was hip to work there. Later the term “golden cage” entered my vocabulary, but I didn’t stay at that job long enough to feel imprisoned.

So when I read about how companies are now doing what they can to make meetings and workplaces exciting, part of me applauds the effort. And another part of me has a cynical reaction. Sometimes it feels like Americans are wildly silly with these efforts. There’s China, over there, filled with slave labor working with lead paint. And here we are, figuring out which kid games we can bring in to the boardroom to cheer everyone up.

And then I think about coworking. There is no doubt that by now, after six months of studying and commenting on and working to create a cool coworking space in Austin, I have heightened awareness about coworking. And, too, I am highly prejudiced in favor of coworking spaces and think everyone should try out this coworking thing.

While I think making these right brain spaces is better than continuing to have gross meetings in sterile quarters, there’s a contrived air that we won’t have. Whatever right-brain happenings occur will be genuine and organic, created by the community of coworkers, not handed down by over-eager HR managers telling people how to be creative, or allowing creative within carefully rendered parameters.

Our coworkers, like coworkers everywhere, will have the freedom to bring their right brains to work and share them with everyone else. If they want Jenga, they can bring their own damn Jenga. Right brain is not a trend or a phase in coworking. It’s a way of life.