Virtual Office Killed Advertising

So years back it was considered revolutionary, the virtual office had arrived.  Thanks to that ever horizon expanding agency (we all know which one), we lost a critical right of passage in the agency world –getting an office. 

Sure, the intention was fluidity of ideas and and openness to evolve and create the best work.  The open floor space was born and the like the Berlin wall,  the doors came off.  The open door policy became literal.

I worked at an agency where even the executive leaders relinquished (begrudgingly) their offices.  They set up desks in a very open floor with no walls.  Who needs stinkin’ walls? They weren’t the head honchos.  They were “coaches.”  You could come to them about anything and there were no secrets.

That open bravado slowly gave way to the virtual walls.  Suddently, these top dogs began spending more time in the conference rooms.  Plants began dotting the peripherie of their desks.  Then the plants got larger and soon a forest sprouted in the middle of this new innovative open floor plan.

One by one, their desks began to edge away from each other and before anyone knew (yet we all took notice), partition walls began to pop up. These honchos, our coaches, became less accessible and soon, there was a clear division that we were all familiar with –the closed office door.

Nothing much has changed since my first experience with the virtual office and open floor plan layouts.  Except, that now there is IM, email, Twitter (the modern Morse Code), and blogs.

In an attempt to make this business more open, the creative geniouses who gave birth to this crippled brain child forgot about confidentiality…a corner stone to the ad world.

Yes, now the landscape of cubicles allows me to over hear (whether I want to or not), idle chit-chat, office gossip and, oh yea, CONFIDENTIAL information.

I wonder if the loud-mouths we all encounter understand the liability of falling in love with the sounds of their own voices?

Thanks to a couple of loud ladies on my floor, I am now privy to strategy about a CPG account, the campaign development of a beverage account and the top secret details of a new biz pitch on a account that is making everyone oh so Blue.

Seriously, do they not know that A) everyone on the floor can hear them squawking and B) we all have access to IM, email and blogs.  Now throw in a handful of sullen staffers about to be ex-staffers and what do you think will happen with all that confidential information these two mouthy morons put on blast on a daily basis?

Open space leads to confidentiality leaks that kill careers, accounts and agencies.

Clients, you’ve been warned.