Editorial

Citation

Finch, E. (2006), "Editorial", Facilities, Vol. 24 No. 5/6. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2006.06924eaa.001

Editorial

The modern workplace as a “knowledge hub” is a somewhat disquieting yet commonplace view. It conveys an environment of individuals innervated by feeds of digital information. One thing that organisations are not short of nowadays is data. Information technology has an abundance of ingenious and often invidious ways of penetrating your work environment and your mental space. Information overload is the inevitable consequence. But what organisations seem to lack is insight and reflection. The technologies that were originally designed to allow us to transform data into knowledge now somehow seem to prevent it. That skill of reflection that computers are so inept at and human beings so skilled with is increasingly difficult to exercise.

In the book entitled Data Smog by Shenk (1997) observes:

The blank spaces and silent moments in life are fast disappearing. Mostly because we have asked for it, media is everywhere.

Throughout the book Shenk argues that computers (and by implication modern working environments), while bestowing many advantages upon the user, exact a price in time left for reflection.

Does the design of the modern workplace provide space for reflection? One could imagine designing an oasis of tranquillity, where no mobile phone signal or wireless message could penetrate. An environment where a frenzied dependence on external stimulation is resisted. Designing space for reflection is perhaps the next facilities management challenge. The overwhelming accessibility of knowledge threatens to undermine our ability to translate knowledge into any form of corporate wisdom.

Edward Finch