What comes next after WeWork?

Today many successful workspace businesses like WeWork and Factory Works leverage the power of communities. Energizing and connecting employees is definitely a smart idea. But the situation is changing rapidly and technological changes mean that workers can operate from almost anywhere; home workers are already common. There are major conflicts between what individuals need to work optimally and what office spaces offer today.

Today’s workspaces feature disturbing noise, lack of privacy, bad air conditioning and harmful air quality. Thus, shared workspaces have their own problems and some can greatly impair productivity and the numbers for businesses are astronomical — in the US alone, the productivity hit due to these issues is $210B every year.

The next great leap in workspaces and digital wellbeing has to rely on advanced sensors and learning systems based on ‘emotional intelligence’ to closely examine users and adapt the environment to suit their individual needs. Everyone is different and there is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to individual needs. By unleashing those valuable hours of productivity individual talent will no longer be wasted. Businesses will migrate away from today’s legacy shared workspaces as soon as they realize there are better options available today that improve productivity by moving into emotionally intelligent premises.

The quantifiable benefits of this next leap make these systems impossible to ignore.

OA is at the heart of developing these systems.