SPEAKERS

Alain de Botton

At a time of economic uncertainty, the philosopher Alain de Botton raises some big questions about work: When does it feel meaningful? Are we exaggerating its role in our lives? What are its particular pleasures and sorrows?

He does so after spending 2 years observing a succession of individuals and companies at work, and he will recount some of his experiences and the conclusions he drew from them.

Mark Dixon

Mark founded Regus in 1989 and has built the company into a global player with over 1000 centres in 76 countries. With over half a million customers around the world, Mark’s business is at the forefront of the shift from fixed to flexible space as a reflection of new work styles and commercial realities. He will reflect on the global trends that his business mirrors as well as present the next incarnation of centre that will be located where people live as companies begin to embrace ‘local working’.

Mark Tamburro, VP Workplace Resources, Nokia

Hear how Nokia is leading the way in the creation of radical mould-breaking working environments. Located on the outskirts of Beijing, Nokia’s 829,350-sq.-ft. headquarters described as a “mini-town” supports Nokia’s 2300+ staff daily work and lifestyle needs. It combines all the different operations previously scattered around downtown Beijing into one single building to foster collaboration and synergy among R&D, business units and manufacturing.

Chris Kane & Despina Katsikakis

Despina will explore the future direction of work and the buildings that best support it; Chris will outline how the BBC has used its move to a new building as an enabler of significant business transformation. They will also show how space needs to encourage people to talk, to listen, to think, to walk about and to be engaged with their organisation.

Rory Cellan-Jones

Rory Cellan-Jones has been a reporter for the BBC for more than two decades. He covers technology for television, radio and the BBC website. He also blogs regularly on “dot life”, the BBC’s popular technology blog, named recently as one of the Sunday Times Top 100 blogs, and is a prolific Twitterer.

David Martin

David spearheaded the development of the first interactive whiteboard, and is the named inventor on several U.S. patents and applications pending around the world. As executive chairman and co-founder of SMART Technologies, David is responsible for the strategic direction of the company and the development of corporate alliances and partnerships. He is recognised worldwide as an expert in distance collaboration and is the author of many articles and papers on the subject of working and learning at a distance.

David Firth

David will address the subject of happiness at work in a presentation entitled ‘From Making a Living to Creating a Life’. We are continually updating our ideas on what - good looks like: learning approaches, leadership, process design, workspace, teamwork etc. But the one area that has never been updated is our conception of what work is, what it’s for and what it could be in our lives. Ultimately this produces too many workplaces which are frustrating and constraining - and are far from being as great as they could be.

Jeremy Myerson

Jeremy Myerson is Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art, London, where he holds the Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design and leads the InnovationRCA network for business. A leading academic, author and activist in workplace design, he has co-authored a trilogy of books with Philip Ross of Unwired. His latest book, New Demographics New Workplace, explores an ageing workforce in the knowledge economy and will be published by Gower in March 2010

Philip Ross

Philip is CEO of The Cordless Group and an author and commentator on emerging technology and its impact on work and the workplace. He will look at the impact of the internet and web2.0 on work and place, presenting the concept of the 'empty building'; a near future vision where all applications and data is stored in ‘the cloud' and the office building becomes empty, devoid of almost all technology except perhaps ‘thin clients’ and connectivity. This changes the need for cooling, power and voids, but also opens up a more fundamental debate about what our future buildings are for. The 'Facebook' workplace 2.0 will look very different.

Grant Baldwin and Erik Veldhoen

Australia’s leading investment advisory and financial services firm, Maquarie, acquired the lease for a new ten-storey 330,000sq ft office building. Working with Erik Veldhoen and other global consultants, Macquarie has used the opportunity to fundamentally re-think its ways of working as well as interaction with its clients and public. Grant and Erik will describe the journey that led to the adoption of Activity Based Working and the extensive change management process.

Philip Vanhoutte

Philip Vanhoutte is Managing Director of Plantronics EMEA, the world leader in headsets and has focused his entire career on personal and now wearable technologies.

With two decades of mobile telephony and over 10 years of wireless data networking, many organisations and professionals have experimented working ‘elsewhere’. Philip will reveal the findings of a fresh study into flexible and working practices for information workers in a cross-section of UK based organisations. It calls for a new discipline of work topology and geography that gets to the bottom of information work behaviours whilst leveraging individual personas.

Lesley Gavin

Lesley is BT Groups’ chief Futurologist. She has been researching how space is changing as a result of new technology and will present her visions for how new technology is challenging our current approach to design, experiences and behaviours.

Book Now to secure the early bird price of £349 + VAT for the conference, £149 + VAT for the masterclasses.

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