HI there, 

STEP INSIDE THE INNERCIRCLE:

your monthly recap to stay connected with the world of Smart tech and Smart life.

IT ALL STARTED AT A FACTORY IN NEW ENGLAND

“Are you back to the office yet?” is a query popping up lot these days as conversations swirl around how and when our friends and family members return to their respective workplaces. 

While plans have been delayed across the board, the clear trend unfolding is for a gradual return to the physical offices – with most companies eyeing a hybrid strategy that allows employees purposeful time in-office and the flexibility to work remotely as needed. We’re at a significant inflection point in the evolution of work, one that’s poised to create a massive shift in office culture. 

It took a while, a pandemic even, to get here. Typical five-day work weeks date back a century ago, to a factory in New England. According to the Atlantic, this factory gave Jewish workers two days off around Saturday sabbath in 1908. That trend spread to other factories and, two decades later during the Great Depression, the two-day weekend became a fixture for labor.  

How amazing is it that, all this time later, that 9-5, Monday to Friday principle of working has continued unimpeded despite the evolution of office space and available technology.  

Now, as a pandemic has laid bare the more than 100-year-old foundations of how and when we work, companies consider what’s next. The office is no longer simply a place to perform work but instead a destination that serves an array of distinct needs for each employee, and each department.

THE GREAT HYBRID TRANSITION

Not sure if you noticed, but hybrid work has become entrenched in the vernacular. The great remote working experiment is about to leave quite the vapor trails throughout industry. 

Of course, there's no one-size fits all approach to this hybrid transition. Each company’s unique structure and how its teams operate will dictate how a company can best support the evolving needs of its employees. 

This is to say there is no playbook… so we’ve written one: A Blueprint for a Hybrid Workspace. In this free guide to building a data-driven office, we cruise through the spaces inside a typical office to reveal: 

• How meeting rooms of all sizes can evolve to support collaboration, socialization and creativity. 
• How to plan and adjust seating and desk areas when the majority of space must be non-dedicated.
• How to decipher patterns about employee behavior in zones of the office, and make teams feel safe, empowered and productive. 
• The differences in how you can use indoor location data vs occupancy (people counting) data.
• How to understand “dwell time” or how long employees remain in particular spaces across an office. 
• The specific elements to check off when it comes to transforming a physical office environment to suit hybrid work. 

We’ve got a lot to say on this topic, and we want to know what you think too. Let us know how the hybrid shift is playing out in your neck of the woods and the challenges you are experiencing.

WHY WIFI?

With October in the rearview mirror we wave goodbye to cyber security month. BUT - take the time to check out our latest article in a series on privacy detailing why WiFi is an important instrument in the data privacy toolbox. 

The ubiquitous technology is also the best-case solution when it comes to balancing both privacy and efficiency – a crucial consideration amidst an era of more frequent cyberattacks. In the face of these breaches, WiFi is purpose-built to be safe and secure – but it’s also highly accurate and widely scalable when it comes to indoor location technology. 

So much to say here! But this is an email and we must move on. So see our recent blog here.

“The onus is on a company to do everything it can to protect people’s privacy.” - James Wu, CEO, InnerSpace

POPULAR PATHWAYS

New in our metric series, we recently explored InnerSpace’s a data point we call “popular pathways.” This specific intel is key to how our indoor location platform paints a dynamic picture of how a workplace, and the resources within it, are actually used. The popular pathway metric can be seen in our dashboard as a data visualization, illustrating movements of any employee groups a company wants to filter.  

Why is it important to know where people go? With popular pathways that goes above and beyond occupancy data alone to reliably: 

• Understand the effectiveness of different spaces by type and time of day
• Gain insight into under-utilized and over-utilized spaces
• Know what areas require increased resources – cleaning, staffing or otherwise
• Adjust layouts to suit traffic flow and volume 
• Learn the behaviours of how different teams work in a space – and thus and what they need to optimize productivity and performance
  
  

NEW IN SMART TECH

As always there’s plenty going on in the world of Smart tech. A short glimpse of some innovations changing how we live, work, learn and play: 

• Duke researchers have used graphene – a thin layer of graphite that is stronger than steel yet thinner than paper – to develop a unique electrochromic technology for Smart window-like devices that can alternate between collecting heat from sunlight and letting an object cool. Another step forward into energy efficient buildings… and savings.

• Have you heard of the Matter standard? It’s a new smart home connectivity standard that will make it easier to install and use smart home products (lights, thermostats, security cameras, phones, smart speakers, etc) made by different manufacturers. For example, controlling a Nest thermostat with an iPhone. Samsung SmartThings devices adopting the Matter standard next year, capable of supporting televisions, fridges, and other electronics. 

• How about the Smart insulin pen market? Well it appears to be taking off, with improving tech easing the burden of diabetes self-care. Companies here are eyeing how to calculate personalized doses, continuously track glucose levels, and connect to smartphone apps. Where there is a widespread health problem, you will find a market for solutions. 

• To the classroom: Connections that Matter is one Smart initiative highlighting the innovative ways educators are strengthening connections in and beyond the classroom. Now, a new digital library of videos, lesson activities, and resources to surface insight from a cohort of innovative schools, is available to SMART's larger community of 3 million schools around the world.

Did you know? November 8-14 is Human-Animal Relationship Awareness Week!

Which was of course created to promote the special bond we share with our animals. As we all gear up to head back to the office, let’s take a moment to acknowledge our furry friends who have kept us – and our laptops! – warm through the days at home. 

That's a wrap... 

WISHING OUR U.S. FRIENDS A HAPPY THANKSGIVING LATER THIS MONTH. TO ALL, Thanks for reading, for subscribing, and for being part of the conversation. Stay safe this fall.

Till next month, Take care.

- YOUR TEAM AT INNERSPACE