New Ways of Working Network is delighted to welcome Microsoft as an Enterprise Member of our Network. Katherine Randolph, Director-Unified Communications, is our primary contact but we expect to see several members of the Microsoft team participating in our community. The company employs 91,000 people around the world.

New Ways of Working welcomes a new corporate member: Knoll, Inc. Headquartered in East Greenville, Pennsylvania, Knoll is well known for its workplace and residential furnishing designs.

On Friday, October 9th, New Ways of Working launched its second annual benchmarking research to assess alternative workplace practices/programs as currently adopted by major employers. This year, NewWOW is working in collaboration with the Workplace Community of CoreNet Global. The survey period runs through November 2. Results will be reported in late January 2010.

This study is possible with the help of financial contributions from Smart Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in group collaboration tools, and Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, and in-kind consulting support from Haworth, a global leader in the design and manufacture of office interiors and adaptable workspaces.

If your organization wishes to participate and you have not received an invitation, please contact Joe Ouye, joe.ouye@newwow.net

Our winter 2010 symposium will be held February 15th through 18th in Santa Clara, California. Thanks to the gracious hospitality of Applied Materials, the symposium will be held at their Santa Clara Site.

NewWOW is happy to welcome our newest member organization: Unilever. A multinational company that employs 174,000 people in 100 countries, Unilever manufactures a wide range of products from soap to soup. Major product categories include food, beverage, cleaning agents and personal care products. It leads the world in many products – including ice cream.

For more information about Unilever, see: http://unilever.com

Members of the New Ways of Working Network will join in developing a scenario of what business might be like if dramatic hikes in oil prices became permanent, and how work systems (workplace, work practices, technology) would need to change as a result.

At this tertulia, we will: (1) revise the scenario as needed, and then (2) brainstorm some of the responses/changes in the work system that will be needed to adapt if the scenario were to occur.

This event will be entirely virtual. Watch the newsletter for updates.

Date: September 24, 2009
Time: 9am – noon, PDT

NewWOW is pleased to announce our newest member organization: The Business Innovation Consulting Group (BICG). BICG is a global strategic consulting company with headquarters in Madrid and offices in Barcelona, Stuttgart, and Buenos Aires.
Their services cover a range of disciplines and industries. Principal offerings include New Ways of Working, Urban Development and Urban Clusters.

Symposium 7, planned for June 7 through 10, 2009, will address Change Management for New Ways of Working. This theme follows the result of our 2008 Alternative Workplace Benchmark Study, which found that the top two barriers concerned change management: "Manager Concerns," and "Organizational Change." An overview of the topic will be followed by a series of discussion groups on aspects such as: types of changes required, change management strategies and tactics, and measuring success.

The theme of our January 2009 symposium was Generation Y and the Workplace. It featured an in-progress report from the OXYGENZ research team of Maria Puyabaraud of Johnson Controls, Jay Brand and Sally Augustin of Haworth, and Simon Russell of IDEA. The OXYGENZ research seeks to understand how important the workplace is to attracting, recruiting and retaining Generational Y workers. The team created an engaging online survey which visually creates their ideal workplace and provides an original way to reach this group. Go to www.oxygenz.com to take the survey.