There’s a lot of thinking outside the box going on in Silicon Valley on breaking out of its cubicle culture.

Intel, the epitome of corporate cubism, is reviewing its regimented floorplans and introducing more common spaces and a dash of colour.

"The whole nature of sitting down and hashing out ideas and collaborating is a bit stymied by the construct of the cubicles," Paul Otellini, chief executive, told us in August.

This month, Intel introduced Zero Email Friday, an attempt to break up the practice of engineers two cubicles apart sending an email to one another rather than getting up and having a conversation.

Google’s Lego play areas, oddly placed sculptures, kitchen garden and ideas boards suggest a cubicle cataclysm in Mountain View, but the G men and women would never get any work done if it were not for regular grey dividers giving them some private space.

That has not stopped the company organising a “cube decorating contest” on the theme of games, in order to carry on the creativity.

The winners were the Google Analytics team with a Jumanji theme, including a motion sensor that triggered a tiger’s roar when people walked by.

Credit also to Google developers for harking back to eight-bit games and Super Mario with their entry – working at the Googleplex is looking more like a fun factory for code plumbers every day.

October 22nd, 2007 in Games, Internet | Permalink