3 ms·

I technically work in marketing, and even I don't think that open-offices are better. A private office is way more productive for the 75% of the time we aren't

I technically work in marketing, and even I don't think that open-offices are better. A private office is way more productive for the 75% of the time we aren't collaborating. It is a lot easier to write and design things when it is quiet. The idea that creative extroverted people work better the more riotous an environment is is absolute nonsense.

hotsauceror 9y ago
No offense intended, of course. In my mental picture of a Marketing department, there's lots of creative back and forth and sort of, "brainstorming all the time" which is probably about as accurate as any stereotype. Everyone needs a time and a place to go heads-down.
- Declanomous 9y ago
  None taken. It probably depends on the marketing department. There is a lot of brainstorming and back-and-forth, but I personally need my own space to brainstorm. A lot of my conversations go like this: Person A: Hey, have you decided what you want to do with [x] thing? Person B: No, I was thinking [y], but I got stuck with [z]. Person A: That makes sense, what happens if we do [w]? Person B: That's a good idea, but [v] might be a problem. I'll think about it and get back to you. Person B sits down and works for a few more hours If you have individual offices, that conversation might take ten minutes, and it only occupies 20 man-minutes. If you have an open-office with your entire marketing department, the conversation will probably take a full-man hour between all the people who get distracted and the other people who need to chime in. Honestly, I think easy collaboration works better for programming/IT than it does for sales/marketing/communication, because the problems in IT are more concrete. So I think you are more likely to be able to chime in with a useful comment when the problem is "I'm getting this weird error" than when the problem is "does this have the tone we are looking for?" In both cases, I think open offices are terrible. 2-3 people per office seems about right to me.
Florin_Andrei 9y ago
> The idea that creative extroverted people work better the more riotous an environment is is absolute nonsense. The only place where that worked well was the old-timey trading floor, as seen in Gary Cooper-era movies.
- Declanomous 9y ago
  My dad worked on the floor of the Chicago Option Exchange for years. Even the craziest open-outcry pits were way more organized than any movie has made them seem. I'm sure trading is way more productive now that it's done from a desk in an office, in the same way that auctions done online are probably more productive than auctions conducted in-person.

hotsauceror 9y ago

No offense intended, of course. In my mental picture of a Marketing department, there's lots of creative back and forth and sort of, "brainstorming all the time" which is probably about as accurate as any stereotype. Everyone needs a time and a place to go heads-down.

Declanomous 9y ago
None taken. It probably depends on the marketing department. There is a lot of brainstorming and back-and-forth, but I personally need my own space to brainstorm. A lot of my conversations go like this: Person A: Hey, have you decided what you want to do with [x] thing? Person B: No, I was thinking [y], but I got stuck with [z]. Person A: That makes sense, what happens if we do [w]? Person B: That's a good idea, but [v] might be a problem. I'll think about it and get back to you. Person B sits down and works for a few more hours If you have individual offices, that conversation might take ten minutes, and it only occupies 20 man-minutes. If you have an open-office with your entire marketing department, the conversation will probably take a full-man hour between all the people who get distracted and the other people who need to chime in. Honestly, I think easy collaboration works better for programming/IT than it does for sales/marketing/communication, because the problems in IT are more concrete. So I think you are more likely to be able to chime in with a useful comment when the problem is "I'm getting this weird error" than when the problem is "does this have the tone we are looking for?" In both cases, I think open offices are terrible. 2-3 people per office seems about right to me.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago

> The idea that creative extroverted people work better the more riotous an environment is is absolute nonsense. The only place where that worked well was the old-timey trading floor, as seen in Gary Cooper-era movies.

Declanomous 9y ago
My dad worked on the floor of the Chicago Option Exchange for years. Even the craziest open-outcry pits were way more organized than any movie has made them seem. I'm sure trading is way more productive now that it's done from a desk in an office, in the same way that auctions done online are probably more productive than auctions conducted in-person.