What's the start of the London Stock Exchange got to do with our modern workplace?

We believe that all workplaces have personalities, because organisations have personalities just like people have personalities. Personalities can drive behaviour, style and choice, often backed up by knowledge and even spirituality. RAW Brothers are fascinated by this and work with clients all over the world to help reflect personality in the workplace, connecting it to people and place.

What is ‘Coffee House DNA’?

A few years ago we did a rebrand exercise for the London Stock Exchange. Did you know that in 1698 a man called John Castaing started to issue financial market communications which was the early beginning of the London Stock Exchange? Where did he start this financial work? In ‘Jonathan’s Coffee House’ in the City of London every Tuesday and Friday.

I imagine at first it must have been slightly chaotic with coffee passed around, people jostling to a noisy backdrop of early City of London life. Today the modern workplace towers upwards in our cities and financial districts. On the streets at the base of the modern workplace district we find the modern coffee shop, still surviving and still bustling. Still filled with 'modern John Castaings’ seeking to escape the desk, revive the mind and get some fresh head space.

It seems to me that an important element, if you like DNA, of the modern workplace is the coffee house. Whether you are served well just outside the door of your office, on inside a larger campus workplace environment, the coffee house is vital.

Culture leap

Today we have a more varied workforce than ever. You may have grown up in that post industrial workplace culture where a ‘top-down’ leadership structure dictated, or the 20th Century ‘work hard - play hard’ culture where ‘me and my preferences’ emerged with a clear boundary between work and home. Or you maybe part of a generation born relatively recently, one that hold a totally different view from previous working cultures. This generation is the ‘shared generation’, that share ideas and values across a global community which in turn is shaping a new workplace culture.

Coffee house DNA

In today's broad workplace culture, where we all come from such different backgrounds, RAW Brothers believe that the ‘coffee house DNA’ is vital to help bridge gaps and provide the glue that will help organisations work together across generations and age ranges. Providing access to well designed, relaxing spaces. Not overly ‘branded’ but creative, collaborative with a bit of hustle and bustle and with lots of personality.

Design thinking – start with personality

Here at RAW Brothers we always start with personality. What is the personality of your organisation, its purpose, its values that people really want to live by? How does that effect and impact space design and brand environment projects? And more importantly where is the ‘coffee house DNA’ going to be included, where is that important part of your personality going to live?

Talk more with us at RAW Brothers