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That’s a chair!?

You see them everywhere now; odd shaped sometimes springy office chairs more often than not with a higher price tag then a standard office chair. So what is the deal? Are these chairs just a fad? Companies capitalizing on our desire to be more fit or do they actually do our bodies some good? I decided to try one out for a week. One of the benefits of working at an ergonomic furniture company is that there are always different chairs to try out! My test chair for the week the BackApp As with most of the unique styled chairs the BackApp is advertised as: improves your posture, exercise while sitting, ensures less back pain, and burns at least 19% more energy. It did take some getting used to. There is no back or arms and  when the red ball is adjusted out all of the way it sure does…

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Sit or Stand? Why both of course!

You see the competing articles everywhere: “Sitting is the new smoking”, “Standing All Day is Twice as Bad as Sitting for Your Heart”. Everyday there is a new article telling you that one or the other of these work methods is dangerously horrible for you. So what do you do? Here are the simple facts: The average person spends around 12 hours of their day sitting.  This means that for half of the day their minds are active, but their bodies are sedentary. This time includes driving, working, eating, and watching TV. Standing all day is not the answer to this problem. Your body needs to move throughout the day. It is surprising how just standing and walking more throughout the day can increase your energy.  The general consensus is that you should alternate between standing and sitting every 30 minutes.  That can be hard to remember to do when…

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Color Psychology

Do the colors in your office affect your productivity? General studies believe that it does. Whether you take the result to heart or not is up to you but it is fun to think about! In her book The Beginner’s Guide to Colour Psychology Angela Wright delves into how different colors can make us feel and what colors you should have around you based on your tasks. If you can get a hold of the book you should give it a read. It was published in 1998 so you may not align with some of her observations in the current time but the general premises and color quiz was still quite fun. I found a copy in our local library. In the book she goes over how the primary colors are tied to different parts of us: blue – mind, yellow – emotion, red – body, green – balance. How…

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Collaborative Workspaces

There is currently quite the buzz about collaborative workspaces. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all boast of their large open workspaces. Why all the hype? Well, most innovation today is driven by at least two people bouncing ideas off each other, which is hard to do in semi-isolation. Team and group work frequently leads to faster more creative results than solo work. Two heads is better than one definitely applies to the corporate world. Implementing collaborative spaces does not mean you have to completely refurnish your office and throw out your individual workspaces. Sounds good, so what stops it at your workplace? A few surprisingly simple issues to fix that are often overlooked can be: Office furniture positioned in a way that cuts teammates off from each other A poorly placed decoration or cluttered paths to workstations Single workstations that don’t promote collaboration By providing employees with longer workstations you can…

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Introducing The Cube Roof

Migraines can be painful and debilitating. If you have never suffered through one count yourself lucky. For those of us less fortunate we know that light is often not our friend, especially the fluorescent glare we most often encounter in our work environments. Generally we suffer in silence and reach for the handy bottle of migraine relief but what if there was a better way? Light filtration is a technique on the rise but unfortunately most employers do not want to or cannot afford the expensive single bulb filters or the labor costs to install them on all of the office lights. So enters The Cube Roof a lite weight light filtration system that hooks onto the top of a cubicle. The system consists of an arcylite acrylic top and metal brackets. The unique color palette is what achieves the desired effects (frosted white, bronze, smoke, or solid black, custom…

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