Thursday, November 20, 2008

Great work if you can get it.

Welcome to my office at home. It is filled with light.

This is my work space, with all the technology I could ask for.
Over in the corner is a wonderful old reading chair that I've already reupholstered once.
I used this credenza in my office for 15 years at Delphi Computers. The two drawer chest next to it was a first year wedding anniversary present from my husband.

This is my father's dental instruments cabinet that I have used for years as an organizational storage unit for pens, drawing pencils, correspondence, camera peripherals, and a few other odd things. The top contains a variety of wooden boxes or woven native american baskets that I collect. In front is my luxurious Keilhauer Squig Synchro chair, a gift from the DuGrafs.
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Why is my home office on my blog today? Well it's related to a question participants had to answer at the fall UW conference on innovation in information management. How do we learn a critical skill, like a concern for order, quality and accuracy? Visual coherence and physical orderliness are assumed characteristics of me and my work environment, and I believe that it was learned behavior at an early age. In my notes at the conference, I wrote "the representation of thought and values through the presentation of space." When I was six, I went to my father's dental office and rearranged his business desk drawers into what I was sure was a more convenient arrangment. At about that same age, I started working on Saturday afternoons in the one room Buffalo Center Public Library, reshelving books and dusting shelves. I believe I was paid one nickel per afternoon by the librarian, and allowed to check out all the books I wanted. I've never looked back.

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