How Remote Work Creates Richer In-Person Interactions with Scott Witthoft (Space Matters, ep.6)

Scott Witthoft joins Kursty to discuss how we are becoming more intentional with how we use and divide physical and digital spaces. They explore many thought-provoking questions like: why do some things work in some places and not work in others? Are in-person meetings and activities catalysts for progress? And why are some office spaces abandoned?

Scott and Kursty explore how the pandemic helped us refine our improvisational skills; we've effectively become designers who create experiences between physical and digital spaces and now have to be more intentional about how we show up digitally versus physically and what we do in each space. 

Scott Witthoft is an educator, designer, and author. He is a co-designer of Stanford University’s d.school’s space and the author of Make Space. He is currently an Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Texas at Austin School of Design.

“These virtual tools are amazing tools that I can now use in lots of different ways and I can now be intentional about what it means to be in-person when I’m in-person” - Scott Witthoft

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Timestamps

[00:52] Who is Scott Witthoft (and episode overview)? 

[06:09] What is Scott currently working on? 

[08:50] Are successful solutions context-agnostic?

[12:25] Building spaces that trigger specific behaviours. 

[20:00] Abandoned spaces and what happens when people use new spaces. 

[28:15] How remote work can create more meaningful in-person meetings. 

[35:44] Everyone is a designer juggling physical and digital spaces

[44:31] Do in-person activities catalyse progress? 

[46:18] Redesigning rituals for what it means to be with people

4 Key Takeaways

1. If something works in one context, there is no guarantee that the same solution would work in a different context. You can’t just lift and shift. You can use successful solutions as prototypes rather than blindly implementing them without adjusting them for context.
2. Environments have to support the goal or behaviour you want to achieve. You have to ask yourself, “What behaviour am I trying to encourage?” and build a space that triggers that behaviour.
3. Designing spaces goes way beyond the physical. You are not just designing to trigger certain behaviours, but designing the invitation for people to use the space a certain way. 
4. Our numerous constraints over the past few years have allowed us to explore and develop our improvisational qualities. 

Links 

Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration by Scott Witthoft and Scott Doorley

This Is a Prototype: The Curious Craft of Exploring New Ideas by Scott Witthoft and Stanford d.school

Connect with Scott Witthoft: Twitter 

Connect with Kursty Groves: LinkedIn | Twitter | Ask a question or pitch an idea: kursty@shapeworklife.com