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Germans Increase Office Efficiency With "Cloud Ceiling"
Griller_GT writes "According to the top researchers of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organization (IAO) in Stuttgart, the human mind is set up to work at its best under the open sky, with changing illumination caused by clouds passing overhead. The unvarying glare of office lighting is sub-optimal, therefore, and in order to wring the last ounce of efficiency from German workers whose productivity has already been pushed to unprecedented heights they have decided to rectify this with a LED cloud ceiling."
A lot of what injures productivity is boredom. Having a non-constant light source could definitely keep things more interesting, even when you don't particularly notice it.
Keep workers happy == keep workers productive.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Not sure artificial light can every replicate sunlight, open sky and clouds, but kudos for trying.
I may be at my best, coding in a Zeppelin, cruising silently above it all.
I'd certainly like to try it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Can we PLEASE stop with this hyperbolic "productivity" nonsense? If people were SO productive, what are they producing? Why does it take 25 years to pay a house that can be built in 6 weeks? Why are we still working 40 hour weeks? The average work week went from 100 to 50 hours in the 19th century, with 19th century technology!
What are we producing, why, and for who?
And when the boss is in a bad mood, it's all thunder and lightning.
What's up with tricking the brain like this? Is it good or is it whack?
It can if the open sky screensaver is run in the Cloud(tm).
Thought 1: Why not just make the roof out of (polarized/tinted) glass?
Thought 2: I guess it would be distracting on the days they have to send somebody up on the roof to clean away the bird droppings.
Thought 3: How distracting would that ceiling be after somebody hacks it to play pong anyway...
Is this proven to be consistent and will it continue to have this effect on the workers? I'd like to reference the Hawthorne Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect which basically states that any change to the working environment will increase productivity temporarily. So how long until it gets old and productivity slumps again?
Trust me that the positive results they are experiencing is only temporary. New things have a tendency of improving productivity but then goes back to normal after a while.
His "researchers" also discovered that humans respond better when working at ambient temperatures and when exposed to the elements. They also like to be beaten with whips when they're insubordinate.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
... or even attempted to be proven, for that matter. From the article:
The Fraunhofer Institute's press statement doesn't give any actual concrete figures on improved worker productivity
According to the "study", if you can call it that with only ten volunteers, they merely chose that type of lighting with the other choices being "that, but less so", and "normal office lighting". No conclusive evidence of improved productivity (yet) as far as I can see, but it is pretty nifty - I'd like one of these installed in my office. Now if I could just convince my superiors of docking up that €1,000 per square meter...
If these are RGB diodes, they probably have a low Color Rendering Index, because three colour peaks are far from a black body spectrum.
My personal opinion is, that CRI is anyway not quite related to how pleasing a light is - a 90% CRI warm white luminescent light may render things unpleasantly hollow and yellow, while a low CRI warm white LED may make an impression of a brillantly sunny day, perhaps due to being a small area source, thus applying "sparks" to things.
"Designed and built by free range engineers"
Even more productive Germans? My God...
Would be great to have other things flying over the fake sky, like birds, planes, pterodactyls, Superman, and UFOs, to make things even more interesting.
What are the blue LEDs for?
Oddly enough, he did. I saw him just sitting in the park on a partly cloudy day, reading slashdot on his laptop just as a passing cloud cast a shadow over him, I saw the proverbial light bulb go on over his head. The rest, as they say, is history.
I think it's more likely that someone tried to explain "the cloud" to some CEO and he completely misunderstood then ordered a bunch of these cloud panels made. After he realized his mistake, he had some people make up these productivity claims so he can avoid the embarrassment of admitting his mistake while simultaneously looking like an innovator.
I checked the Fraunhofer website but I don't see any links to vendors. I think this must still be in the research stage. Does anyone know of a similar product on the market? (Or how to build your own?)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Maybe I'd like these lights just fine, myself, but doesn't it seem like a repeat of the Hawthorne Effect?
Just a question. Don't they get like 6 weeks off a year? What if they cut back on that. Since we all know the week before you leave (starting new projects) you don't really do anything and the week after you come back you really don't do anything, except try to get back in the swing of working. Also how long are the lunches, I remember reading somewhere that In France they take like 2 hours for lunch, don't know about Germany. And also with that how may people really work right up to the lunch bell and start right up after lunch. Of course I'm talking white collar people not the front line workers like checkout clerks.
For all that complexity, their office lacks an often-overlooked but very important productivity optimization: 4 walls, a ceiling, and a door for each employee (or at least those that need to concentrate from time to time).
How about a ceiling like the one over the dining hall at Hogwarts. The one that shows you what is going on in the sky overhead. I think they make them, they're called skylights aren't they.
Wow, I would really like this in the basement where they keep me. I have no windows and am so far underground, there is no cell signal from any provider yet, my car (parked in the parking lot) has a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean.
Even more productive Germans? My God...
Somebody has to carry the Greeks.
And Italians.
And Spanish.
And French.
And..
awwww, fuck it.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Perhaps if the lightbulb had been sky-colored, he would have made a more insightful comment.
if you could get a similar result much cheaper by using projectors near the ceiling, since detail is not important.
Does look neat though, I'd like it. I'm building a room (studio) in my basement, I was actually considering - among other designs- of painting the ceiling like a blue sky with clouds. That'd be static though of course.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Modders can do special LED lamps now. It became a fun project and useful too. Before the study it would have been just a toy.
Or, you know, they could just install windows. (lowercase w)
They are ignoring one fundamental principle of cubical life, anything new introduced into an office environment will increase productivity, as demonstrated on Better Off Ted.
They could have achieved the same results by replacing one black chair with a red one for a much more cost efficient solution. When the office productivity dips again, swap which person get the red chair. They will think its a performance incentive and everyone will be working hard vying for the coveted red chair.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Skylight macht frei!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
maybe the unstoppable roof leaks will come through these like a gentle rain! Or cause an electrical fire and burn the damn place to the ground... then you will actually be outside!
...have also been shown to have, if not an improving, than at least not a decrementing effect on productivity.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Isaac Asimov's city-planet of Trantor had billions of people living their whole lives inside, with artificial meteorological variations in the levels of illumination.
You can't take the sky from me...
Google & youtube Fertighaus
Most of it is machined.
Why is it that factory manufacturing computer chip makes them cheaper but when the same mass manufacturing techniques are applied housing which contains much lower embodied energy, it doesn't?
It's because pricing is based on market supply and demand, not on the the human labour or energy input of the materials. That's the marxist concept of economics.
Deleted
This explains why I always did my best thinking on the toilet at the Field Museum's award-winning bathrooms. http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/americas-best-toilet-named-20111110-1n8za.html
I don't think I'd want to live in a house you[*] built, for six weeks, let alone two years.
[*] assuming the typical slashdot population profile here, no personal slight intended.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So why not build workspaces that allow more natural light? What about places that naturally have mostly consistant sunlight? Not every locale has moving cloudcover all the time. And isn't it possible that if you were given control of some fancy new lighting system that you would choose rapidly-changing light levels more because it's new and novel? I'm betting we won't see data about the actual percentage improvement in productivity over a period of months with this thing.
That puts cloud computing in a whole new light ;-)
New things are always on the horizon
It looks too bright. I like it dark. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Ah Germans. So productive. Asians are smart, and the French are the only folks making wine worth drinking. Oh, and dental hygene in the UK is abysmal.
Oh, wait. You mean they aren't the most productive in the world? You mean that honor goes to Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and *gasp* the United States based on GDP per human work hour?
I'm not typically a skeptic, but when I see flowery self-promotional (and incorrect) language like that involved in a so-called study, I seriously question the motives of the study.
I think German workers are more productive because they get other `services` besides a `cloud ceiling`. ;)
... is what I call "cloud computing".
Does the cloud ceiling include its own imaginary creature(s)?
Perhaps that would be a change too far. Since the Hawthorne Effect seems to rely on the impression one is being observed, we'd need to measure the distraction of diffuse actors mating over one's head, vs. the motivation of the actors seeming to stare back.
Luke, help me take this mask off
With this German strategy, we can see that any person need to have contact with external space. So, in the future will be necessary redesign offices and workplaces with a new concepts with windows and open areas. They will give us opportunity to see a sunny day or a rainy evening while we are working.
Cloud computing at its best
All form and no content makes Jack a dull boy. March on cubicle peons!