Every day when I walk down the street and look up to the buildings into people’s window, I am often amazed by how nicely decorated their apartments are. And there are times when you are appreciating the superb interior design, as you walk past the residential building and come to an office building, your eyes are offended all of a sudden; by the creepy looking office space. What is ruined is the peace of mind and the warm and cozy feeling instilled in your head by the beautifully decorated apartment you saw a second ago. You are stuck with images of dull white light in your head on the rest of your way home. Then there is the question: If you spend almost as much time at your office as you do at home, why don’t you make your office feels like your home?

Google understands the relationship between interior design and productivity and it takes a very unconventional approach to design their offices.

Minimalism with high quality has always been Google’s style, and such idea is shown throughout their offices. Google’s interior design approach does not overwhelm one’s eyes with way too many bold colors. It also uses fun furniture - like massage chairs and pool tables to make the workplace more fun and more like home for its employees.

There are three things that deem the most importance to create a homier office.

Lighting. Good lighting will help to increase productivity. If an office is too dark, it might put your employees to sleep especially when there are computers or other devices that strain human eyes around. In contract, too much light will cause glare on screens and cause discomfort. How much light an office needs depends on the kind of work the office does and also the age of its employees. To make your office feel more like home – not your bedroom, the lighting used in a café or a restaurant would be a good attempt.

Space Usage. It is okay to have a lot of things in your cubicle or in your office, you just need to organize it. Use colorful filing supplies can help to keep your mind entertained. Unless you are going for a retro or a cyber home, use the homier wooden bookcases instead of plastic or steel ones. Plan your space and target to reduce unnecessary motion.

Plants. Plants are great – both artificial plants and real ones. Not only do plants help to relax your eye muscles, real plants also consume excessive carbon dioxide to keep your concentration at a high level. According to a recent study, employees react quicker and are more focus when plants are added to an office. If someone has an allergy, use artificial plants instead. Artificial plants are low-maintenance and have a longer life span. It is also easier to craft your interior design with artificial plants because they will not change in shape and size.

Also, research on how colors can affect the human mind before deciding your theme colors. For example, orange, yellow and red are colors that can potentially increase our appetite, if you cannot endure the potential long-lasting hunger, then maybe you should not use too much of those colors to decorate your office. ■

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There’s an easy formula for becoming a slacker: Do nothing. Go get more coffee. Repeat. However, what is the key to staying a true slacker at heart, but keep your job, and be raved about like a corporate messiah? “It’s all about appearances”, said Dilbert creator Scott Adams, who listed low-cost ways to achieve high impact genius-dom at work.

1. Complain that you’re totally swamped at every opportunity. Use phrases like “am neck deep in turbulence” and “jumping from one fire to another” to make your job sound all shades of sexiness and dangerousness.
2. Carry a piece of paper wherever you go. Also give yourself the necessary urgent facial expression and body language, imagine it’s something incredibly important, like a stay of execution from the governor.
3. Never clean your cubicle. After all, how else are you suppose to show the real sweat and grit of your efforts at work?
4. Emailing looks like work. Emailing is work, so email friends and family often.
5. If you feel like talking instead of working, talk to your boss. That counts as work no matter what you’re chatting about. The ideal topic of conversation is how poorly all of your coworkers are performing.
6. If you wear glasses, leave an old pair on the desk as though you will be right back. Then go home.
7. Leave voice mails for coworkers at 1:00 am, even if you’re getting up just to take a whiz. If you really want to inspire awe, leave a message for your boss with your thoughts on the company’s outdated filing system at 11:30 pm on New Year’s Eve.
8. Be sure to get involved in unquantifiable projects. You want to be doing a lot of consulting and advising and attending. Avoid anything with a hard and fast deadline. Try to answer questions with another question. And use vague yet foreboding words like somewhere, somehow, might possibly, indefinitely etc.

Now you have learned the art of slacking at work, do go out and try it at work and keep us posted about the results!

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Everything and everyone is going digital. There is no denying it. The speed, the outreach potential, and the relative low cost of the digital medium is absolutely unparalleled compared to print. However, there are certain aspects of print presentation that just can not be replicated with digital, not just yet anyways. Let me count the ways. A well-designed print presentation is physically pleasurable. The print piece may contain beautiful textures and smells that allows for sensual engagement with the presentation. A well-designed print presentation allows for easy portability, navigation, marking, and book marking. Those ease-of-use qualities when translated to the digital realm still don’t have the fluidity of movement afforded by its print counterpart. Now that I have listed a few advantages of print over digital, here are a few tips I have gathered over the years to make successful print presentations.

Two Golden Rules to Live By

1. When you are designing for print, make sure you are designing for print. This is the single biggest mistake I have seen people make time after time again that really ruins the quality of their print presentation. How many times have I seen people make presentations that attempts to fulfill projector needs as well as print needs, and in the end make monstrous amalgamates that have either too many bullet points when projected, or screaming texts when printed? Realize that when you are designing for print, you are designing for a document to be read approximately within 18 inches away from your eyes. Thus the scale has to be appropriate for close reading.

2. As is true for everything else in life, simplicity is the key to success, especially when applied to making captivating presentations. It’s often the subtle details that lend itself to cohesiveness, that ultimately wins people over with its unified vision.

Essential Guidelines to Follow

Font: Choosing a font family can drastically influence the look and feel of your entire piece. Realize that when choosing type, listen to the inner content, and the subject matter of the content will help you in choosing a speaking voice. I like to use dafont.com to get wonderful free fonts.

Layout: Choose a grid, and stick to a grid. Realize that the grid is what gives your document structure, both visually as well as content wise. A grid is what allows readers to quickly understand the relevance and the importance of information. However at the same time, know how to, and when to break the grid, in order to incite excitement, build drama, and create rhythm throughout the print piece. Here is the link to Adobe InDesign, the industry standard print publication application, you could download it and try it out free for 30 day.

Binding: The binding is what gives the printed piece functionality. It’s what allows the book to become an interactive object. Can you imagine the embarrassment and the annoyance of flipping through a presentation that won’t hold together, or won’t stay put? Nothing turns your reader away from a presentation faster than the inability to operate the mechanism. I personally love wire bindings, because they are very inexpensive, durable, non-intrusive, allow pages to turn smoothly, and very fast to produce. I recommend using Shoplet.com’s binding product helper tool, we recently launched this special product helper tool to make finding the right binding materials a breeze.

Cover: A book, sometimes is just as good as its cover. People do indeed, judge a book by its cover. Thus my advice for making a great print presentation would be to make such a spectacular cover, people will stay impressed throughout the rest. A great cover needs protection most of all. Imagine how disappointing it would be to have your cover ruined by unsightly stains? I recommend using Shoplet.com’s laminating product helper tool, we recently launched this special product helper tool to make finding the right laminating materials a breeze.

Image: A good image is worth 1,000 words, and a few good ones are hard to come by. Understand that sometimes consistent imageries, both in terms of look & feel as well as content-wise, are hard to obtain. Use images sparingly, and strategically. Too many images of diverseness is easy to be an over-kill, and can ruin the coherence of the print piece. Corbis is the king of stock photography, however not everyone of us have money to burn. Thus, I recommend stock.xchng for free photos, and istockphoto for relatively inexpensive photos.

Paper: The weight, texture, sheen, and slight gradation is what gives the presentation class, or crass. It may not seem much, but appropriately chosen paper can really add personality to the presentation. I recommend going to your local papery to get a sense of all the available options. I prefer Kate’s Paparie in New York. Though they are on the pricey side, they truly carry diverse selections of quality stationeries and the service is great.

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~ angela

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White-knuckled and gripping onto the lectern, I remember one of my 1^st speech presentation classes in college. Although I had performed as both a musician and an actor, this presentation was a bit different: all I had was a piece of paper, my personality and what little courage I could muster up to maintain the interest of 40-odd freshmen at 9:00 a.m. in the morning. I’d always considered myself fairly well-spoken and confident, but my merciless professor eagerly pointed out every ‘uhh’, ‘umm’ and ‘like’ during my presentation to the point where I was ready to call it a day & high-tail it out of the lecture hall.

Looking back on that moment, I realize that a lot of the success or failure of your presentation-giving abilities has to do with self-confidence, which is often a characteristic you can build only through time and life experiences. When working within a business capacity, whether in a corporate environment or a non-profit setting, speaking in front of a group can often be a daunting task that many adults dread. Nevertheless, it’s a known fact that presentations are indeed a valuable marketing technique, allowing companies to actively promote and pitch their products in an immeasurably effective and dynamic way. What other opportunity do you have to make such a personalized or targeted impression on a potential client or customer?

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Picture this: a pyramid of 1,200 Styrofoam cups sitting atop 600 plastic water bottles, thousands of plastic utensils, stacks upon stacks of printed brochures and a truckload of promotional gizmos such as pens, key chains, mousepads and magnets.

Now multiply that by a million and ship it out to landfills nationwide.

This is just a quick exercise to illuminate a growing problem: the impact of America’s convention & meeting industry, a $107 billion industry that serves 136.5 million people attending 1.2 million business events annually.

Many of us in the corporate world attend annual tradeshows hosting thousands of vendors, clients and potential business associates within our industries. So you can only begin to conceive of the waste such events produce – imagine each event as the building and deconstruction of a small city, consuming a vast array of disposable products within just a matter of days. The country’s 1.2 million business meetings, trade shows and conventions affect the environment in a number of ways - through the greenhouse gases emitted during travel, the electricity and water consumed during events and hotel stays, the exhibit booths built from scratch and then dismantled, and the countless brochures, PowerPoint handouts, promotional giveaways, meals & bottled beverages that are consumed and disposed of. Read the rest of this entry »

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