Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls.com

Last year, Conan O’Brian visited Intel’s offices in Santa Clara, California. He was, uh, not impressed by the endless maze of gray fabric cubicles, accented by gray walls and gray carpet. You can watch his bit on YouTube here (apparently NBC made YouTube pull the clip, so here it is from Clipstr). It’s pretty funny, and yes, it is an accurate depiction of life at Intel.

Apparently, that started some wheels turning. I’m sure there were a lot of other factors, but soon afterwards, there was an announcement made that Intel was going to be undertaking a pilot program to update our workspaces. Feedback was solicited, other companies were studied (I think Google, Adobe, and Microsoft were among the influencers). Three sites were chosen: Santa Clara, Folsom (I think) Chandler, AZ, and our very own Jones Farm 1 building here in Oregon. And people from my group, Software and Solutions Group (SSG) were chosen to move into “the workplace of the future” when it was finished.
Jones Farm 1 (JF1) is one of the oldest buildings among the several Intel campuses in Hillsboro. It was kind of dated, but really not much different from the rest of the JF buildings. Last October, they tore it down to the studs, and rebuilt it, with all new layout, furniture, and features like a living room area, lots of TVs, more and smaller conference rooms, and lower cube walls. Last Friday, there was an Open House for employees and press to check out the new spaces. I went with Brent Logan (we even ended up on TV - see below!), and took lots of pictures.

I’m packing up my old cube this week, and moving in to the new space shortly after I get back from my trip to SXSW in Austin. Here’s what will be awaiting me!
My new cube:

I’m double-lucky - not only do I get my own assigned/dedicated cube, but it’s on the end of a row facing the big windows overlooking a courtyard. Nice view, but I’m a little nervous about having the sun backlighting my monitor all the time, making it hard to see. The Daystar and I don’t get along all that well.

Some shots of my old cube and neighborhood, to give you an idea of what things are like now (if you didn’t watch the Conan video):

There are lots of open community spaces, and nice big LCD flatscreen TVs hanging all over the place:

Not everyone has their own assigned cube - one of the big changes in the new space is that lots of people are considered “mobile” or “tweeners”, meaning they’re not expected to be in the office all the time, so lots of the cubes are “first come first served”, and there are lockers for these mobile folks to store their stuff (I was lucky enough to get my own dedicated/assigned cube):

The cube walls are lower, to “facilitate collaboration”, but there are a lot of glass-walled conference rooms, for either 4 people or 1 person when privacy and confidentiality are needed:

There are a couple of these magic computerized hand-driven whiteboards around, which are kind of cool:

I counted only three “regular” style large conference rooms, and only two of those that I saw had a projector. This could be a problem for people who are used to having them in every room:

There’s a kitchen with free fountain soda, coffee, pastries, etc. It’s right by my new cube - diabetes here I come!

The lobby has a couple of soft chairs, and big TVs with an Xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii - Guitar Hero and Wii Tennis for everyone!

That’s most of the photos. You can view the whole set of 34 pictures in this photoset on Flickr. And expect more reporting on the new office spaces after I move in. I’m going to do some video - you’ve got to see the cool power height-adjusting desks to believe them!

For now, I’ll leave you with this video clip from one of the local TV news stations, KOIN, who were there reporting on the new offices. You can see me and Brent Logan at the 0:20 mark. Thanks to my coworker Aaron for grabbing and posting this clip.