Insights
How interior design can reflect business culture
What does the future hold for office life and is it time to stand up and ditch the office chair? Where once the idea of 'the office' was a fairly fixed notion - fluorescent lighting, bland, utilitarian furnishings and a cubicle-like desk set-up - the landscape today is varied and ever-changing.
Why there are competing priorities in 'agile' cultures
Scrum is a project management method from the Agile school of thought. As you are in the interiors industry you have probably heard the word agile used already, but this agile is a different agile and the two agiles can create conflicting priorities.
Q&A with Hotbox founder, Jamie Rothwell
With the Hotbox brand going from strength-to-strength, founder and general agile working expert, Jamie Rothwell, answers questions about why he created these stellar products and the challenges he faces; imparting some useful advice on how important it is to take the leap of faith to make your business dreams a reality.
Q&A with Hotbox
For companies such as Hotbox, Clerkenwell Design Week is a place to meet fresh faces and to be inspired by new design concepts. Hotbox founder, Jamie Rothwell, sits down to discuss the CDW experience and its impact on Hotbox's bright future.
A firm highlight in the international design calendar, Clerkenwell Design Week (CDW) is a hotspot for architects, designers, end-users and visitors to discover the latest products and trends the design industry has to offer.
For companies such as Hotbox, Clerkenwell Design Week is a place to meet fresh faces and to be inspired by new design concepts. Hotbox founder, Jamie Rothwell, sits down to discuss the CDW experience and its impact on Hotbox's bright future.
Q: What did the experience entail?
Jamie: We partnered with Your Workspace to create a true-to-life workplace hub for people to see Hotbox products in their element: the agile workspace. With a temptingly colourful Hotbox 1 window display, and Hotbox 2s and 3s dotted around the space, we brought Hotboxes to life instead of shutting them away in lockers.
Ultimately, we wanted to show people how Hotbox works in a space - so they can recognise for themselves how they are the missing links in the agile working chain. We crafted the perfect agile workspace for people to experience the agile way to work, and the positive feedback was overwhelming!
Prior to CDW, we formed a collective knowledge group comprising Hotbox, Forster Inc., Baker Stuart and Agile Stationery, with plans for the group to become the thought leaders in agile working.
Over the three days, we set up the Workplace Complaints Bureau, where people divulged their workplace woes to a poet who weaved them into ditties and haikus. People were sharing their poems with colleagues and friends on social media, some of them can be read on our website. It was a great way to bring people together.
Q: What were people's responses?
J: Our colourful window display caught the eyes of so many passers-by. Many people were actually visiting the Your Workspace hub to simply view lockers. Yet when we asked the question: 'How will people move their stuff from the locker to their workspace?' their faces dropped. How can people be truly agile if they can't move around the space easily?
The success of agile working is dependent on how quickly employees can adapt and warm to it. Although corporate companies know it is good for their business, the impact of agile working is felt, and therefore controlled, by its employees. If they are not on-board, agile working will not work.
Q: Did it inspire you in any way?
J: It gave us some good ideas for our products, especially Hotbox 3 which is for the flexible, rather than the agile worker. In the hub, people were talking about the things that they would want to carry in the Hotbox 3: documents, laptops etc.
With this feedback in mind, we're developing new accessories that can accompany the product to ensure we create the best Hotboxes for our customers.
Q: How has it helped with Hotbox's growth and future?
J: Since CDW, we are seeing an exponential increase in the number of UK furniture dealers coming to us directly, as opposed to via distributors. We've had interest from architects, end users and international customers, one of which asked us if they could exhibit Hotbox at NEOCON, the leading North American commercial design event held last month.
We are definitely going to attend next year's CDW, where we want to see how we can make it an even better experience for people. It was such a special event that we can't wait to see what will be in store for CDW 2020.
Q: What was the highlight?
J: Without being biased, our hub was one of the busiest spaces in CDW. People just kept on coming in! Although it was quite nerve-wracking initially, the result showed us it was very worthwhile. It was a massive reassurance for us here at Hotbox to see our products making a vital difference to workspaces.
Q&A with Forster Inc
Forster Inc. is a London-based interior design consultancy with an edge, priding itself on placing people at the core of its residential and commercial design. We sit down with its founder, Rachel Forster, to discuss the ideal workspace, forthcoming workplace trends plus its collaboration with Hotbox.
A guide to relative estimation
How often have we seen projects come in late? It sometimes seems they are late more often than not. Bizarrely, while it is easy to be cynical about the quality of estimates things look different when we look at individual projects. Our PMOs tell us everything is on time, until suddenly it isn't.
Beachtowelling, the curse of an agile workspace
I was very lucky to have had a week off recently somewhere sunny and warm and when I'm away there is nothing, I like more than lying on a sunbed or sat in a beach side bar watching the world go by. I am always fascinated by human behaviour and how people's behaviour does not change whether in work or at play, at home or abroad.
5 reasons why we need to complain about our workplaces
Presented by Hotbox, Baker Stuart and Forster Inc. at Clerkenwell Design Week 2019. In support of Hotbox's new Hub launch at Clerkenwell Design Week, Hotbox, Baker Stuart and Forster Inc. decided to put together a wellbeing event which was a little out of the ordinary. We decided to ask people to complain about their workplace.
Why brand experience strengthens customer loyalty
Some businesses tend to focus on their external customers, without considering the fact that employees are customers too. Successful businesses understand that their employees are the brand's most valuable resource and will equally treat them as valued customers by investing in their wellbeing.
5 top tips for bringing 'home' into office design
At Forster Inc., we firmly believe that great design should be accessible to everyone, regardless of budget or circumstance. Using the big trendsetters as inspiration, we can translate this look into a design that works for single company offices and smaller businesses.
Q&A with Baker Stuart
Merging theory, research and practical expertise, Baker Stuart is the go-to guru for everything to do with agile working. In partnership with Hotbox for a few years now, Hotbox sat down with Colin Stuart, CEO at Baker Stuart, to discuss the brains behind the company, its relationship with Hotbox.
Why are your customers adopting Scrum?
The feedback that many in the architecture and interiors industry are getting is that their customers want Scrum, and the reason they want Scrum is feedback.
Freedom of movement and the importance of individuality
No, we're not talking about Brexit, we're talking about collaborative and open plan workspaces that encourage you to move around the workspace and work where and when you like.
How can a well-designed office retain quality employees?
Happy employees like to be proud of the company that they are working for, and one of the keys to all of this is having a well-designed office.
Agile working as a boredom-busting strategy
Doing the same thing every day can relate to anything from our job tasks themselves, to our commute, to our working hours or our working environment. We know that variety is the spice of life, so why are so many of us still trapped in monotonous routines?
Q&A with Agile Stationery
Agile methods are reinventing the way we work. Scrum, Kanban and other agile methods now dominate some industries and departments. Hotbox sat down with founders Simon and Devika to discuss the company's aims, plans and its forthcoming collaboration with Hotbox.
Colour your workspace with Hotbox 1
It's the start of a busy workday. For pretty much the entire day you are moving between different workspaces, liaising with colleagues from different teams and consuming enough coffee to last you a lifetime rather than eight hours.
Switch up your workstyle with Hotbox 3
Perfect if you are on-the-go in between coffee shop meetings and various co-working office spaces Hotbox 3 is more than just a laptop bag, it has endless storage possibilities to meet everyone's agile working requirements.