Bookmarks: 5 Interesting Articles That May Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners:" corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. I welcome your comments on these articles.

1. The Annual Flood of Weird, Cool and Possibly Useful Gadgets

The tech circus known as CES is a time to reflect on all that you didn’t get during the holidays.

An air-conditioned baseball cap? A TV that rotates vertically for smartphone video? A single, reusable box for all of your Amazon purchases? These are the first answers to tomorrow's questions, large and small.

What you’re about to see isn’t an endorsement—lots of inventions don’t actually end up for sale—but it is an exclamation: “Somebody actually made this!”

2. One Architect’s Radical Vision to Replace the Open Office

“We spend so much time working,” says Mr. Dewane, a former professor and architect at workspace-design giant Gensler, and now a director at the architecture firm Barker/Nestor. “It just should feel better.”

Rethinking how a space is structured could change the ways people do their jobs, Mr. Dewane says. His solution, one beginning to gain traction across the U.S., is a concept he calls a “eudaimonia machine,” its name based on the Greek term for human flourishing. In it, workers move through five or six distinct zones during the day. Each space has a purpose, from socializing to research, allowing people to alternate between focused work and chances to recharge. The design culminates in individual “deep-work chambers,” intended for focus.

The concept is, in many ways, a repudiation of open-office design as well as a departure from the look of modern offices, including spaces created by Mr. Dewane’s former employer, Gensler. One of the best-known and closely followed workplace design firms, Gensler is behind open plans at companies ranging from Facebook Inc. to Reebok.

Since the recession, the average amount of square feet devoted to U.S. office workers has declined, according to research from Cushman & Wakefield, the brokerage and real-estate services company. Many employers favor open floor plans because they allow companies to tightly pack workers and save on real-estate costs, even as some staffers regularly bristle that the spaces hurt their productivity.

3. If You Don’t Know How to Say Someone’s Name, Just Ask

Unfortunately, it did start to impact me, from the internal cringe and visible wince when my name was mispronounced, to wondering if my contributions were valued at all if people couldn’t take a moment to correctly learn my name. Worst of all, I agonized over how to correct the situation when someone introduced me to a third party with the wrong pronunciation, and soon, an entire team of people were saying my name incorrectly.

Not enough research has been done on the effect of having your name mispronounced at work, but there’s a growing body on how teachers mispronouncing names negatively impacts students. A 2012 study titled “Teachers, Please Learn Our Names!: Racial Microaggressions and the K-12 Classrooms” found that when students of color had their names mispronounced in the classroom, it affected their social emotional well-being and by extension, harmed their ability to learn. The study also concluded that mispronouncing the names of students of color constituted a racial microaggression because it created shame and disassociation from their culture.

We know having a non-white name can negatively impact your chances of getting a job in Western countries. One study found that resumes with white-sounding names were 28% more likely to get a callback for a job interview. In France, resumes with North African-sounding names were less likely to receive interview opportunities.

In an effort to normalize non-Anglo Saxon names in our workplaces — and by extension, to create work cultures where everyone feels included and welcome — I’ve created a short guide for both the pronouncer and the person whose name is mispronounced.

4. Retiring Baby Boomers Could Reshape Real Estate

About half of all baby boomers have hit the age of 65, and while exact retirement ages will vary, their sheer numbers — 693 million boomers worldwide will hit retirement ages in the next decade — compared to generations before will be felt by industries that cater to retirees.

Travel, leisure activity and hotel properties have soared in value since 2011, when the first boomers started turning 65, according to a new Cushman & Wakefield report shared with Bisnow.

Boomers control 70% of disposable income in the U.S., according to the report, titled Demographic Shifts: The World In 2030. Though a generation that has had its entire working life span to build wealth should be expected to have the lion’s share of such income, 70% is too high a number to be merely cyclical, C&W said. Millennials have so far not been able to keep up with their parents' savings patterns due to flat wages and the explosion of student debt.

Boomers are not just likely to control an outsized portion of disposable income over the next decade; they will likely spend a larger portion of that income as well, according to the C&W report. Boomers have spent more and saved less at every point in their lives than their parents did.

5. From Fort Mac to Dunwoody, 12 Atlanta projects to watch in 2020

While it’s easy for development wonks to drool over activity in crane-studded areas such as Midtown, major real estate projects abound across metro Atlanta right now.

This year, expect progress with colossal adaptive-reuse projects, skyline-altering new construction, and, in some cases, a hybrid of the two. The future promises an Atlanta that’s taller, denser, and, ideally, more vibrant.

Below are a few projects worth keeping on your radar as so much heavy machinery does its thing in 2020.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great a hugely impactful week!

Ken Ashley