Workplace Engineering

Delivered this to the Chicago Corenet Chapter, March 2009. Still needs a lot of work, but the audience was very kind.

THE DOLLARS AND SENSE OF CHANGE. from Burnett Communications on Vimeo.

Need somewhere new to work in North Plano? You might like to try the largest independent book store to open in Texas in a long time.

We have another local independent bookstore that we stopped going to because it ultimately wasn’t a place we liked to shop, so we were really intrigued to see whether another independent book store could deliver. Legacy Books opened yesterday and I found a place that I really want to hang out in.

They have Peets coffee for the caffeine addicts, wine and beer for the Euro web-worker (me), some great places to go read and work including a six big bench tables all in a three storey store that has a vague “Crate & Barrel for books” aesthetic. Wifi isn’t working yet, but Lorna, the manager, assured me that it will be operating in the next few days.

My favorite part though is the island cooking demonstration counter near the cafe. We packed the kids off to play with Junie B Jones in the kids section while AM and I watched a British author give a demonstration of Mexican cookery (how bizarre is that?). Best of all she sounded exactly like AM’s aunty Doris and told people off in her best English headmistress accent for talking. I nearly wet myself I was giggling so much. I half expected to be told to stand in the corner.

Best of all, the whole place is am incredible example of a great concept, thoughtfully put together with real attention to detail and executed exceedingly well. The parenting books are actually IN the children’s section, there are sculptures in the art and travel sections, you can watch and listen to the cooking demonstrations on a big screen TV among the cookery books upstairs and the web bar is next to the business books. They cap this off with friendly, attentive and surprisingly knowledgeable staff and wrap it up in a light and airy space.

I’ve not checked to see if their website is as well executed, but you can see it at www.legacybooksonline.com.

I’ve been sitting in a number of educational sessions at the IFMA conference. A number of the lecturers have been talking about the coming crisis as the industry ages. I’ve just looked around the room in the one im at now and it looks like only a handful of us are under 40 and not that many more are under 50.

The main International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) conference is in Dallas for the next three days. I’m helping out by moderating a few sessions on information and communication and hosting a university tour of Capital One’s campus in Plano, TX.