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The most important thing when it comes to offices is the possibility for people to move around and adapt to what and whom they are working with. It must be easy to team up for ad-hoc meetings and for people working on the same project to collaborate. A single, open space is not up for the task—the noise level is too high. Neither are cubicles.

An office should be composed of rooms with many and large whiteboards, of quiet sections where you can read or hack without disturbances and of areas where you can engage in leisure activities to recharge.

It is of the utmost importance that people “in the zone” are not disturbed by loud brainstorming sessions or people chatting during lunch or breaks, but it is equally important that brainstorming and other creative sessions can take place.

Equipment must not be an obstacle for the user. It is impossible for people to perform at 100% without good monitors, keyboards, desks and chairs.

As for culture and other things social, the most important thing is that people feel encouraged to collaborate and ask questions. Nowhere should you hear the word “stupid” or people blaming each other. Often hearing “what if” and “how about” being uttered are sure signs that you are working in a collaborative and creative environment.

A friend of mine had a separate set of clothes for school. I never asked why he had to change before we could play. It did not matter to me.

I remember when I was brought to a wedding for the first time. I also remember the first funeral I went to. My mother had me wear finer clothes than usual. I did not ask why, but had seen on television that you are supposed to. I remember feeling special, like James Bond.

At a country music festival years ago, I wore blue jeans, a cowboy hat, and a toy .44 Magnum. I felt like a cowboy, and my friends and I acted accordingly. There were no Indians to play with though.

Today I worry about wearing the wrong clothes. My mother gave me a book on the subject: how to dress, how to tie a tie, what business casual means, and so on. I still feel like James Bond in formal attire.

I spend my days in a co-working space with people from a dozen other companies. Some former classmates of mine just relocated to the same place. They wore funny shirts and such at campus. Today, in the office, business casual. I do not care, and they do not care that I wear the same worn-out T-shirts as usual.

My coworker wears a funny shirt except on days with important meetings scheduled. He visited a tailor before going abroad to speak with investors.

If I had a meeting with important business people, I would dress and act accordingly. I would feel like Harvey Specter in Suits and have a great time, but it bothers me that—maybe—my gorilla-fighting-a-kangaroo shirt would not be acceptable.

Oliver Segovia wrote a piece on the subject of finding happiness. He argues that instead of following our passions, we should focus on finding big problems:

Like myself, today’s twentysomethings were raised to find our dreams and follow them. But it’s a different world. And as the jobless generation grows up, we realize the grand betrayal of the false idols of passion. This philosophy no longer works for us, or at most, feels incomplete. So what do we do? I propose a different frame of reference: Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.

Putting problems at the center of our decision-making changes everything. It’s not about the self anymore. It’s about what you can do and how you can be a valuable contributor. People working on the biggest problems are compensated in the biggest ways. I don’t mean this in a strict financial sense, but in a deeply human sense. For one, it shifts your attention from you to others and the wider world. You stop dwelling. You become less self-absorbed. Ironically, we become happier if we worry less about what makes us happy.

I think he hits the nail on the head. Humans are hard-wired problem solvers. Further, we get satisfaction from tending to the needs of others. A clear line of sight to the customer is important for job satisfaction and feeling passionate about what we do. Steve Denning expresses it well in The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management:

The meaning that we see in work resides in the responses of the people for whom we are doing the work.

And my personal favorite:

The meaning of the software we’re coding doesn’t lie in bits and bytes; it’s in the cool things that users can do with the software.