Not to go off on a tangent about office architecture, but I feel that cube farms are the worst of all worlds for any intellectually demanding work. One extreme

Not to go off on a tangent about office architecture, but I feel that cube farms are the worst of all worlds for any intellectually demanding work. One extreme, private offices for everyone, works pretty well in that you have quiet when you need it and you can also collaborate verbally without disrupting others. The other extreme, a bunch of people in one room, works pretty well in that you can get a peripheral sense of what everyone else is doing, talking to the person next to you doesn't require hollering through 3/4 height walls, and you can always put on your headphones to signal "leave me the heck alone". The middle ground, cube farms, tend to eliminate both useful silence and useful noise. Personal preference matters, too. Some people just can't function in a noisy bullpen environment, while others tend to just "go dark" and run in the wrong direction if left alone. My company is planning on moving into a new office space divided into just two sections, one speaking-in-normal-tones-is-OK bullpen, and a distinct shut-the-hell-up fishbowl space to accommodate the different work styles. I'm eager to see how it works. I actually see myself shuffling from zone to zone depending on the nature of what I'm working on.