White space

Ok just going to jump right into this. Here's a note from Seth Godin about the importance of picking the right space to do our work. I liked where we had our discussion today at the Starbucks at Rochester. I loved that it was quiet, I loved that it was spacious, and I loved the fact that it was in an old colonial-type building, just minutes away from an MRT station. 

Let's start building a list of places we can go.

The space matters

It might be a garage or a sunlit atrium, but the place you choose to do what you do has an impact on you.

More people get engaged in Paris in the springtime than on the 7 train in Queens. They just do. Something in the air, I guess.

Pay attention to where you have your brainstorming meetings. Don't have them in the same conference room where you chew people out over missed quarterly earnings.

Pay attention to the noise and the smell and the crowd in the place where you're trying to overcome being stuck. And as Paco Underhill has written, make the aisles of your store wide enough that shoppers can browse without getting their butts brushed by other shoppers.

Most of all, I think we can train ourselves to associate certain places with certain outcomes. There's a reason they built those cathedrals. Pick your place, on purpose.

Seth Godin