In this episode of the Connected FM Podcast recorded at IFMA's World Workplace 2023, Clyde Wang, the Technology Innovation Director of IAdea, discusses the concept of "friction-free stickiness." and how facility managers can create seamless and intuitive room and desk reservation systems to enhance workplace efficiency.
In this episode of the Connected FM Podcast recorded at IFMA's World Workplace 2023, Clyde Wang, the Technology Innovation Director of IAdea, discusses the concept of "friction-free stickiness." and how Facility Managers can create seamless and intuitive room and desk reservation systems to enhance workplace efficiency.
Clyde Wang: [00:00:00] That leads to our core concept of friction free stiffness. So the system should not just be addressing the resolution conflict or like double clicking problem. It's also important to make it in a way that people feel it's naturally and intuitively to use.
Host: Welcome to Connected FM. A podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources to help you succeed in facility management. This podcast is brought to you by IFMA, the leading professional association for facility managers. If you are ready to grow your network and advance in your career, go to ifma.
org to get started. In this episode, reported at IFMA's World Workplace 2023, Clyde Wang, the CEO at IAdea, discusses the concept of friction free stickiness and how FMs can create seamless and intuitive room and desk reservation systems to enhance workplace efficiency. Now [00:01:00] let's get into it.
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Clyde Wang: Welcome everyone. This is [00:02:00] another episode of the Cognitive FM Podcast. We are here at IFMA's World World Days 2023. I'm Clyde Wang, the Technology Innovation Director of IAdea. Before we can get into our topic, let me brief you quickly on what we will be discussing today. We are zeroing on a concept called friction free stickiness.
This essentially means creating rules and desk reservation system so smooth and intuitive that users naturally gravitate towards them. The goal is to force a workplace for your booking as A space that should be effortless and empowers everyone. So let's get started. The most significant challenge a city manager facing when rooming desert reservation.
I guess everyone will be agreed. The number one challenge is like nobody use it. So a lot of city manager routing like expensive systems into [00:03:00] their facility. But it turns out nobody use it. And often the problem is like the solution is too difficult to use. Or you need to change some sort of employee behavior, HK them and make them get used to it before they can probably using the system.
Well, as you know, like a lot of corporate, they just give up a lot of all like all the stuff. They just give up before they get used to the system because it's. Not easy or like changing behavior, especially to a lot of, you know, for example, make a reservation like when you get into a meeting room. If you need to actually, or you need to pull out your cell phone and check the schedule, that's a great way because no one will take out their cell phone or like open up your computer before they get into a meeting room.
When they see the room is empty, they'll just walk in and take the spot. The first one, they will find out someone make the reservation, they [00:04:00] will come and ask them to leave. And that leaves people untrust the system anymore. So, whoever like adopt the change in the beginning and always make the reservation, soon later, they will just tire some and they end up do not make a reservation at all before they get into the meeting.
They will just act as everybody else. So, that leads this technology failure, even though like, uh, the system is there, but nobody use it. So that leads to our core concept of friction free stickiness. So the system should not just be addressing the resolution conflict or like double clicking problem. It's also important to make it in a way that people feel it's naturally and intuitively to use.
So when people find something easy to use, they are tend to more likely to use it from time to time, right? So taking an example of a cell phone. In earlier days, like, the cell phone, like, people using just [00:05:00] to make the call and nobody use, you know, for work. But now, nowadays, the cell phone changing people's life, like, now we can really work with our cell phone.
So this technology is not just a technology, it's changing people's behavior, but it's not forcing you to change it. You naturally adopt it. So it designed in a way that people knows how to use it. Just like you're born with it, right? So the technology shouldn't be just technology. It has to be a human technology.
So when you come down to room reservation, this challenge, how do we overcome? Because people will. We'll need the space, especially nowadays, the flexible workplace, it's, it's very changing. So that people often work in between home and office. When they get to the office, they always need a space for medias because they want to meet people.
They want to work with the group. The thing is, like, if they cannot make these efforts, if they cannot get a room, or like, when they, uh, come to the [00:06:00] office, uh, with a bunch of people, and they find out, like, they have no space for them to meet up, then that would be a great disappointment. So, what's the solution?
So, our answer to this, uh, room and desk, like, taking one of our successful customer examples. This customer is, um, a global firm, out with, like, more than 400 offices across the globe. And they are doing rule reservation and that there's a, uh, there's a reservation on, um, like, every day. 000 So if you cannot make this transaction smooth, that is, it's a great damage to the company.
So the company lose money by just letting people wasting their time, fighting around to find a space that they can work. So the answer to that is room and desk reservation. It's something that you have to put on spot. So when people [00:07:00] walk to the room or walk to the desk, they need to know right away what is going on on this spot.
They need to know if someone is coming up to this place, is this place has been taken? Without them doing extra work, like taking out their cell phone to check the schedule, or like opening up their computer to check the school schedule. So, having something on spot is super important, so that when people get to the room, like they will see, like they can use the room for just 15 minutes, or like a teacher will be there with the colleague.
Or the room is going to be occupied in the next five minutes, so they shouldn't go in at all. And also, the digital signs on spot can make people understand the situation. But the thing is, after they utilize the space, often they do not release the results. They do not release their room after they finish using the room.
So the meeting room [00:08:00] will be, will be empty for quite a good time if people don't fully utilize the time that they reserve. Then that is where the IoT sensors come in place. So the IoT sensors will sense, will automatically know if the room is being occupied or the meeting has to end early. So these sensors will be automatically making the resource, like, freed up or some copy.
They even want the people to be able to just walk in the room and you will just using the sensor to see if someone is inside and just automatically light up the, the meter inside to show a red line or to let people know that someone is walking by the room so that when they make a reservation at home, they will know, like, this room will be used for the next 30 minutes.
So these, these technology are very important. For the employees to know the situation and also when they meet on spot, they will, they'll be able to quickly, uh, identify which resource they can use like that. Hang on, sorry. So to [00:09:00] summarize up, the meeting room reservation and the desk reservation become essential for nowadays, the hybrid work situation.
So let's install a digital sign with the status light. Outside of the meeting room, at least people have no excuse of hijacking other people's reservation and also avoiding people interrupting your meetings. When you are in meetings, if your meeting room is not, uh, is not made of a glass door, people often will just open up the room and check if someone is sitting inside before they take the room.
So, having a sign showing the meeting is ongoing, do not interrupt. That will not just prevent the interruption, it will also make the productivities. So people don't get interrupt, they will work better and they can get things done quickly and then release the room so that somebody else can use it. And more importantly, like, not [00:10:00] everything is always as planned.
So, like, when people are in the office, slowly they need to have some meetings. And they need to quickly spot a space that they need and site. Asking them to pull up the calendars, check on the cell phone, look for the room that they need. They might as well just stand up and walk with the colleague and walking on the aisle and spot the green light, which means it's freed up.
Then they are free to just check on the schedule on the screen. It should be like, just like your cell phone. Uh, they should be able to scroll through the schedule of the day and see if they really live or not. Time for them to have their discussion. Then they will just make the reservation on the spot and use the room.
So when they are inside the meeting room, then they don't need to worry that they will be asked to leave. Or they get interrupted like [00:11:00] anytime, you know. Because someone might just show up and ask them to leave because they made the reservation. And that would just leave a really bad impression and bad user experience for all the employees.
Yeah, that comes down to topic like what's friction free stickiness so that the system should be designed in a very human natural way that when you come to an office and then or you are looking to collaborate with your colleagues and when you need that the resource should be available for you on site on spot and you don't need to worry about.
If, uh, you will be, uh, taking someone's, uh, reservation, or you will be taking some places that people, it's all, right, it's already booked. We've been assist a lot of our customers, where they put in like a expensive, like a system, but they forgot. With only the software, the calendar, that is not sufficient for reservation.
Because the [00:12:00] reservation, you can make at home, but it turns out to find out someone took your reservation on the spot. So, the hardware and the software needs to be collaborative. Not just the software, like the booking system is important. Also, like, put on spot, the digit panel that shows the root status, as well as, um, automate the entire process through IoT sensors.
These are the important elements that make the entire, uh, uh, entire project successful. So, With all these items in spot, that will lead to higher system adaptation rate and optimize the workspace should be effortless, should be available in calling everyone to work in the office. So thank you for listening to this podcast.
I hope you walk away with.[00:13:00]
Host: Thank you so much for listening. I hope you really enjoyed this episode. And as always, please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast for more incredible content.