Innovation Heroes: The long-awaited death of cubicles

Here at SHI we are obsessed with understanding how businesses will work in the future and giving organizations the support they need to deliver workplace digital transformation.

So, following a year of unprecedented changes to the way we all work, we now find ourselves asking a new set of questions: Has the rapid shift to remote working brought on the end of the cubicle, or was it just the much-needed kick in the ribs we needed to reinvent and reimagine the legacy office?

In the latest episode of our new podcast, Innovation Heroes, host Peter Bean set out to find the answers by engaging two distinct thought leaders: Sam Kennedy, Chief Product Evangelist at Poly (the iconic maker of workplace technologies and devices), and Jared Kaplan, Global Head of Technology at Teneo, a global consulting firm that had been investing in modern workplace and collaboration long before the pandemic.

Together, they explore the future of the modern workplace and how COVID-19 has spurred years-worth of innovation in a matter of months.

“One thing I’ve noticed over the last few months is just the speed in which decisions have to be made,” says Kennedy. “Customers had roadmaps that went out a few years and they were fast forwarded significantly.”

They also discuss how the remote-everything workplace has created a real culture shift, most notably with widespread adoption of video conferencing.

“It’s very exciting,” notes Kaplan. “The fact that video is normalized. The fact that everybody, from the CEO down, is using it, is tremendous and tells a huge story.”

Listen to the latest episode from SHI’s Innovation Heroes on Apple, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.