Yes, the Open Office Is Terrible - It Also Achieves The Opposite of What It Attempts

The Open Office is a great example of a road to hell paved with good intentions. I have been very out spoken against "Radical Transparency" in the past. The Open Office is a less troublesome version of that. I believe and I have witnessed true creativity flowing in when you are alone and in a state of flow. You can still have good ideas while talking with some friends. But you won't have much of originality and certainly there will not be many bold moves.

In search of an empirical answer to this question, Bernstein and Stephen Turban, a business writer and researcher, launched a study of 152 employees at two Fortune 500 companies. Both companies were white-collar, professional settings that were converting from cubicles to open offices. Participants, all of whom opted in to the experiment, were given sociometric badges with sensors that allowed the researchers to record the extent of their communication with other workers. The researchers also measured the volume (though not the content) of each employee’s emails and instant messages. This allowed them to compare participants’ communications before and after the switch to an open office.

They found that, after a switch to the open office, face-to-face communication decreased by approximately 70%, while electronic communication increased by 20% to 50%. It’s difficult to determine what these numbers mean for communication — how many minutes of verbal communication is equivalent to one email, for example — but Turban suspects that something was lost in companies’ transition to open offices.

Intentions don't create results. Even when you collaborate, it is only going to be truly great when everyone has something unique to contribute to.