JLB - meeting

We had a long meeting about the failure of the building for the academics. Not for research I must admit but people are staying at home to work in droves. Many people think that the OU is step up for remote working - it isn't. Teaching students at a distance has huge support but there is nothing to support academics working on building courses together short of emailing word documents around.

The meeting was looking for suggestions. I liked the talk of dividing the building up between mostly monastery - people looking to work in absolute silence, no phones the slight hint of a conversation would be met by people walking out into an open space. And the cafe - people tolerate noise/conversation and use head phones to exclude the outside world when they need to.

I suggested work rooms like IET - places to go and work when you need silence/exclusion. Other suggestions included monastery/cafe times - assumes a lot of social cohesion.

I thought security was being ignored so I spoke up for the use of rolltop desks big enough to cover your computer. That way leaving your desk to was a simple task of covering the whole thing with one key. That way you can leave things on your desk and come back to it undisturbed. That went down better than the IET style work places.

Lovely conversation about reintrodiction tea time - taking time to have tea with each other once a day. Generally thought to be sensible to put groups together again.

After woods I suggested using floor tiles + giving out an interruption meter.