Work, Place & Tools

A traditional concept of office is changing and has become less articulate as management and information technology change. A virtual office does not mean an architectural space. A telecommuter does not commute. E-mail can send messages to people, whose whereabouts you don't have to worry about. A notebook-type PC can store and carry information equivalent to cabinet-full files. Various offices are used selectively as if they were tools, while a tool can turn itself into an office. This issue explores such a convoluted relationship between offices and tools.


 
WIRED, San Francisco, USA
Offices as Tools, Tools as Offices  
We have obtained a new type of office in addition to the existing one familiar to us for many years. A small notebook-type personal computer with various office functions turns into a virtual office and an office space with a fluidly changing form functions as work tools. This article focuses on the often-talked-about offices of companies such as WIRED and General Magic in a high-tech area extending from Silicon Valley to San Francisco, and analyzes their workstyles the workstyles of their professional workers from the point of view of tools.
 
 
WIRED and HOTWIRED, California, USA
 
 
 
Howard Rheingold
 
 
AXIOM, California, USA
 
 
 
GENERAL MAGIC, California, USA
 
 
TANDEM, California, USA
 
Future of Long-Selling Stationery
The advance of computer network society now requires traditional stationary goods long patronized by people to change and adapt to the new situation. Analog tools such as pencils and notebooks react to this demand in different ways. Some manage to retain their long-standing marks of quality, while others evolve by incorporating new technologies. We explore the meaning of such long-selling stationary and the directions it will take in the future.
 
ROLODEX, Secaucus, NJ USA
 
 
TIME SYSTEM, Copenhagen, DENMARK
 

THE TOOLBOX FOR ELECTRONIC NOMADS
Akihiro Kishimoto, Institute of Office Systems, Kokuyo Co., Ltd.

Electronic Nomads pursue highly mobile, non-territorial workstyles, using digitized information and electronic technology as tools. High mobility necessiates workers to carry tools and information with them, as they are constantly on the move and their destinations hardly predictable. In the meantime, the accessing to networks is becoming easier, and networks themselves are going to have functions and serve as intelligent tools. In suh a mobile work situation, what tools should be supplied and how should they be carried?