MOOFING Monday

MOOFING v. Derived from the acronym for "Mobile, Out Of Office."
MOOFERS (n.) abandon the workplace between meetings, taking laptop and BlackBerry to the local Starbucks or anyplace else where they can escape interruption by talkative coworkers.

Okay... is it just me, or is it absolutely pathetic that you have to LEAVE the office to get work done?!?!! Is this the state that corporate america has sunk to? If your company has this kind of culture, maybe you should consider (I'd highly recommend!) changing the atmosphere.

Is the office of the future no office and just a headquarters in cyberspace? 42% of IBM's 350,000 employees rarely, if ever, come to an office. IBM says it save $100 million a year in real estate costs because it doesn't need the offices. The work force at Accenture management consulting firm is so mobile no even the CEO has an office with his name on the door.

In the future, more companies with scattered work forces and clients may do what the marketing firm Crayon is doing: making its headquarters in cyberspace. Especially, if yours is a "knowledge-based" asset company.

Crayon's workers rarely meet in the physical world — some are in Boston, others are in Nutley, N.J. — but their online alter egos in the virtual world gather once a week. "Our belief is if we bring like minds together no matter where they are in the world we can actually create that connectedness as if we're actually at the same place at the same time," said Joseph Jaffe, Crayon's CEO.

And, there it is... real productivity vs. time wasted.