According to Forbes, three out of every four members in the American workforce will be a millennial by 2025. As the Baby Boomer generation ages out of the workforce and the Millennial Generation ages in, the layout of corporate headquarters will evolve as well. Large corporations recognize that the future of their workforce is represented in this younger generation, all of whom have been brought up with digital technology as a fundamental aspect of their lives. In order to inspire and impress these more digitally immersed people with their headquarters, corporations have begun to create dynamic interior spaces to attract top talent, foster collaborative interaction, facilitate innovation, and inspire a thriving sense of community. Companies see their headquarters as places where their corporate culture can continually regenerate, and with increasing frequency architects are choosing corporate lobby LED display solutions as the primary resource to help their corporate clients realize this common goal. Consider the Technology Center of Excellence, by CenturyLink, or the Intel Museum at the Robert Noyce Center, both homes to transcendent visual triumphs. These achievements explore the boundaries of the luminary frontier with visualization solutions pioneered by Nanolumens to have the lowest possible impact on infrastructure, while providing a form-fitting digital experience design canvas.
Winston Churchill once said, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards, our buildings shape us.” This sentiment is reflected in the ways businesses of today are rethinking corporate headquarters design. Rehashing old architectural and artistic concepts in today’s design is misguided ambition. Corporations need to direct their resources in more innovative ways if they want their headquarters to accomplish its purpose of appealing to younger, more tech savvy generations. With that in mind, it’s worth identifying a few growing trends businesses are following with regard to their headquarters, and more specifically, the introduction of digital display solutions into those spaces.
Digital Signage Collaborative Co-working
The millennial generation is notorious for disrupting conventional norms, and perhaps chief among these customs is the nature in which we work. The constant sharing of ideas and perspectives is a concept that younger members of the workforce find extremely attractive, and in order to foster an environment conducive to that sort of collaborative co-working, corporate institutions are in search of centerpieces that can anchor a room and bring people together. Visually interactive digital installations have proven to be the best solution to this problem. Today’s cutting edge displays are able to shine brighter and truer than ever before, and executives have noted their display installations have paid immediate dividends in the form of happier, more social workforces.
Environmental Consciousness
Corporations are migrating from self-contained suburban hubs to more open, metropolitan style headquarters. This move represents, among other things, an increased desire for environmental sustainability, an ideal also borne out by the visualization solutions these organizations are installing as the centerpieces in their new HQ’s. Unlike the gaudy and expensive artistic installations of the past, digital display solutions like those manufactured by Nanolumens are almost impossibly energy efficient. In a corporate climate where environmental consciousness is increasingly valued, digital visualization solutions provide the greenest and most efficient way to inspire and delight internal employees, visitors, and the local community at large. These LED display solutions are also built to be updated as time passes, eliminating the environmental concern that accompanies the eventual disposal of obsolete tech.
Community Integration
Digital visualization solutions that illuminate many of the newest corporate headquarters are not installed solely for the internal benefit of the sponsoring organization. As corporate HQ’s transition back downtown, featured digital displays will garner the interest of exponentially more sets of eyes. Many of those eyes will belong to the general public, who will catch glimpses of these magnificent digital displays through the floor-to-ceiling glass walling corporations increasingly employ. These glass walls allow the beauty of the visualization solution to extend beyond the parameters of the business, and also invite in the attention of the community.
As the next generation of Americans ages into the workforce, the transparency of an organization’s ideals will move more obviously to the forefront. Millennials are deeply invested in the beliefs of the brands they align themselves with, and the trends in corporate headquarters design reflect this fully. Organizations are moving their headquarters from the suburbs back downtown and are taking steps to impress upon current and future talent that collaborative co-working, environmental consciousness, and community integration are prized tenets of the company’s overall mission. These values are encapsulated in the growing embrace of digital visualization technology as the centerpiece of corporate headquarters design. To see for yourself how organizations are evolving along this path, take a look at the installation we performed with Telstra.
~ Dan Rossborough, Director, Strategic Projects, Nanolumens