Come Along With Us: NeoCon 2013 and DIRTT Chicago 2013
June 17, 2013
Comfy shoes are not required for reading today’s NeoCon post; simply sit back and enjoy as we dive into recapping the fabulous debuts and finds at NeoCon 2013.
Let’s begin with the most exciting news and that is with Herman Miller receiving high honors in 5 categories. Running through the list we begin with the award for Showroom and Booth Design and Herman Miller captured both of the Best of Competition and Large Showroom Winner! Below are the other high achievements received:
Awards for Herman Miller
Entering the Herman Miller showroom at this year’s NeoCon had a buzz of energy around something very new. Researched and developed over the course of the last 4 years, Herman Miller captured the attention of many with the launch of the Living Office concept. An excerpt from Brian Walker, CEO of Herman Miller, explains that the “Living Office is a wonderful, multi-dimensional response to all the changes we see happening around us. I’m deeply excited about it because it reaffirms one of our fundamental values – people are at the center of everything we do.”
Living Office helps people customize their methods, tools, and places of work to express and enable shared character and purpose. It is based on what is fundamental to all humans and evolves continuously in response to change. It is a more natural and desirable workplace that fosters greater connection, creativity, productivity, and ultimately, greater prosperity for all.
An Engine of Prosperity: In the new landscape of work, a dynamic equilibrium of shared passion and profit delivers greater performance and value for both individuals and organizations. Living Office generates this mutually reinforcing engine of prosperity.
Expect to see more in the future on this workplace transformation from Herman Miller!
Up next is a look at DIRTT Environmental Solutions and how they wowed visitors at DIRTT Chicago 2013 with a look from all angles in healthcare, residential, education, and technology. Here’s a clip from their website in how DIRTT describes what they do:
“At DIRTT we don’t make products, we build projects. While our components are best in class, it is the way you use them that makes them special. You tailor them to your needs and they are built quickly in a protected, clean factory ready for installing in your space.”
At Intereum, our Green Learning Center is full of ideas on how to create and define your own space. So if you weren’t able to attend Chicago this year and explore offerings from DIRTT (or from any manufacturer for that reason!), please stop in to Intereum and we’ll show you around.
Last week Intereum threw a great party to celebrate the retirement of Mary Ryan, one of our Architectural Products team members. Mary Ryan had dedicated over 5 years of her career to Intereum and specialized not only on architectural products, but also on flooring, the DIRTT team, and she was the client services contact for all Life Time Fitness clubs. This woman wore many hats around this place!
Mary Ryan as she ‘graduates’ with her Life Time Fitness team.
Mary Ryan got her start in the industry 30 years ago once her children were old enough and she could go back to work. Before coming to Intereum, Mary worked in all different facets of the industry including paint, carpet, and the hardware store she and her husband owned.
Mary Ryan and her husband Jon
When Mary first started working at Intereum she felt very fortunate to find a place that really felt like a family, spurred great energy, was a beautiful place to work, and provided such a healthy environment to work in. Becoming a member of the DIRTT team gave Mary a true appreciation for being part of the small unit because everyone’s strengths brought such a value to the whole DIRTT team. When Patrick joined the group late last year, she found that his experience and fun natured self brought a whole new level to the group, and it was a blast to be a part of. One major account and role Mary had was servicing the Life Time Fitness clubs and upon reflecting on her responsibilities, the best aspect was being able to work on an account and with a company that cultivated creativity, innovation and cutting edge designs.
Mary Ryan with her DIRTT boss Patrick
In her retirement, Mary has the best intentions of enjoying each and every moment of it! She loves to golf, garden, camp, downhill ski, snowmobile, and boat. No doubt there will be plenty of visits with her 10 grandchildren! Mary also wants to spend more time volunteering at her church and at a hospital or nursing home to provide friendship to people that may not have family to come visit them.
Mary Ryan getting ready to head off for retirement!
Mary brought joy, kindness, perseverance, humor, and a depth of understanding to each level of her job here at Intereum. We are thankful to have been part of her career-family and we are sad to see her go, but are so excited for her as she enters this new chapter in her life! Congratulations, Mary, on your retirement and best wishes every day!
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- All that Mary Ryan will do in retirement!
Herman Miller has always kept people at the center when it comes to their designs. This is no truer in the commercial side of their designs as it is in their healthcare designs. Recently, Herman Miller Healthcare has made a strong partnership with Planetree Visionary Design Network to better serve patient’s needs.
Herman Miller’s healthcare focus and goals are centered on creating healing environments that customize the needs of patients. This ensures the people using their designs best interests will always be at the center. Planetree’s focus is to personalize, humanize, and demystify healthcare, beginning and ending with the patient in mind. With those core values at the heart, Herman Miller is proud to have found someone with the same vision to partner with to focus on their healing environments. This partnership aims to draw on their collective research and design to encourage creating patient-centered healing spaces.
Coming June 25th, Intereum and Herman Miller Healthcare will host a CEU focused on the story of Planetree, the healing environment, and patient-centered care. This presentation will focus on what’s become top-of-mind for many healthcare organizations, the patient experience, and it will also address the measurable outcomes with Planetree’s successes and its relation to the creation of environments. The CEU kicks off at 4:00 at Intereum. Contact Jen Zeller if you’re interested in attending!
Getting to Know Intereum: Rollie Marcovitch
May 10, 2013
This Intereum employee blog puts our longtime designer, Rollie, in the spotlight. Rollie has worked with Intereum since 1994 as a designer and project manager specializing in higher education.
Rollie and her husband Ben
Outside of work Rollie has many passions and hobbies that keep her busy and active. Her most obvious love is for her “little man,” Bode, a two and a half year old boxer. She fell in love with the breed over 11 years ago and has owned one ever since. Her first boxer was named Tai and with Tai, Rollie discovered the sport of dog agility! She and Bode stay busy with agility and obedience training where they are able to foster their teamwork skills and then take principles learned there and apply them outside the classroom. What Rollie particularly loves about agility training with Bode is that it builds such an amazing canine-human relationship and it teaches Bode to watch Rollie and be more connected to her as well.
Rollie and Bode
Rollie also volunteers at the Ronald McDonald house serving 8-9 meals a year through their “Cooks for Kids” program. During any one of the meals there can be upwards of 90 people to provide meals and community to. Rollie has done this for so many years; she has her recipes and serving down like clockwork! All people being served are families that have children with life threatening illnesses. The Ronald McDonald house provides food and shelter for these families while their children are in treatment.
Kisses from Bode
Rollie is also a self-proclaimed “Frustrated Photographer.” As a kid, she and her sister had a darkroom in their basement where they had equipment used to develop photos. They were savvy enough kids that they bought the equipment from a teacher at their school (Sidebar: It wasn’t until Rollie was an adult that she realized this teacher didn’t actually own that equipment and therefore it wasn’t his to sell!). Turns out that they had had hot developing equipment all those years!
Picture of Bode taken by Rollie
Rollie also loves to travel! Her favorite and most memorable vacations have been centered around beautiful mountain views in Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise, Yosemite, Yellow Stone, and Alaska. She just loves being outside – going for long walks and hikes in the woods and taking in the majestic views of the mountains and breathing in the fresh air!
Rollie’s love for animals, people, the arts, and the outdoors makes her an extremely compassionate and driven person. Those are the values that transcend into her everyday work life here at Intereum. We are lucky to have her on our team and even more lucky to call her friend.
Herman Miller: Covered In Good Design
May 3, 2013
Last Wednesday Herman Miller Inc. made an exciting announcement that they acquired the designer textile company, Maharam Fabric Corp. Since 1902, Maharam has created interior textiles for commercial, healthcare, and residential interiors when founded by Russian immigrant Louis Maharam. Four generations later, brothers Michael and Stephen Maharam are the company’s CEO and COO and optimistically speak of the new relationship with Herman Miller.
Michael Maharam stated,”Much as we’ve struggled with this decision, our philosophical kinship with Herman Miller helped make this difficult step a far easier one. Beyond our shared objectives in design leadership, we consider Herman Miller to be an esteemed organization intent on doing well by its staff, clientele and the community. We believe they have the complementary intellect and resources to ensure Maharam a bright future while valuing our spirit and ways, and permitting the continued evolution of our unique approach. Herman Miller’s potential to provide the wherewithal to pursue important new initiatives, as well as an established reach into both retail and international markets and the greatest possible strength of association, offers a powerful lever in achieving our design-centered strategic vision.”
Circles Fabric by Charles and Ray Eames
Herman Miller’s CEO, Brian Walker, is also excited about the acquisition and stated, “The combination of Herman Miller and Maharam is a natural and complementary union anchored in our shared values and built on years of business cooperation and personal friendship. Our respective and combined operational strengths and resources provide immediate, mutual strategic leverage.”
Dot Fabric by Charles and Ray Eames
The synergy between the furniture company and textile company is a natural one that will enable the two to thrive as one. We’re thrilled for them both with this exciting opportunity. Here is to many years of creativity and success!
The POWEROFFICE Event
April 30, 2013
Herman Miller’s Small and Medium Business (SMB) team from Minneapolis collaborated with Intereum, Entrepreneurs’ Organization of Minnesota, and StepStoneGroup to rock the house with an informative and fun evening branded ‘The POWEROFFICE Event’.
What does the future hold in store for us regarding our web presence and web design, and how do we get there? That’s exactly what we all sat tight to hear.
Opening up the evening for us was RJ Stelter (@RJStelter) and Anna Olson (@AnnaOlson20) with Herman Miller SMB. They provided our audience with an overview to Herman Miller, Thrive, and the benefits of the Small and Medium Business program.
Moving along into the core of the evening, StepStoneGroup took the floor, which was composed of Kevin (President), Paul (Sr. Web Developer), Alex (Graphic Designer), and Stephen (SEO Guru), by providing us with a tech overview that was informative and easy to absorb without feeling lost on this dense topic.
We all know how websites look and function for the most part but it’s not often we go back in time to pull up what Yahoo’s site from 1995 was like now do we. Taking the walk down the path of where web has been to where it is now (and going) was very intriguing. Web 1.0 was your basic, table layout page that had little to next and ran on a dial-up modem (insert old dial-up modem sound here).
Remember this?
Web 2.0 took a migration to more dynamic content and interactivity with the use of more flash and social capabilities. Biggest trends that have come from this phase of Web 2.0 are still commonly used today: Top navigation, rotating banner images, and website footers which serve as the toolbox for the bottom site. Overall, content is the frame and the design is frameless.
Shifting to today and turning the page for a glimpse into where the future trends lie, web design is being categorized as needing to have “responsive design.” Broken down, this means that there needs to be UX elements (one environment for all technology platforms: mobile, desktop, etc). Becoming more popular is the one page, one element look with full screen graphics for a clean layout. It’s best to keep in mind that your web presence should be compatible on mobile technology. Why? Because research indicates that by 2014, 15% of commerce will be done on mobile devices. And think of all of the searching and information we pull from these gadgets!
Digital real estate is paramount this day in age and over the last three years there has been a dramatic shift in web design. Always a good rule of thumb is to remember that content is king, your copy and text is still very important as the makeup of your digital real estate.
A big thanks to our attendees, sponsors, speakers and helpers! If you attended this event, we’d love to hear what you took away from the evening, simply message us @Intereum.
Getting to Know Intereum: Sue Weisberg
April 19, 2013
We had the spotlight on Sue Weisberg last year as she was preparing for a cycling tour beginning in Amsterdam. Today, we caught up with Sue to see where she’s been visiting over the course of the last year. Read all about it here!
Friday Fun Day!
April 5, 2013
Well done, we all made it another week! Let’s take some time from our regular routine and kick back while enjoying some fun and lighthearted throwback commercials from Herman Miller.
Intereum Employee Spotlight: Dave Grosz
March 8, 2013
Our next employee spotlight is on Dave Grosz who was nominated and won the overall 2012 Hedgie Award! Dave’s job description is Inventory Specialist but he is the most cross-trained person in the warehouse. He takes care of everything from the administrative side of the warehouse (including the year end inventory), the Try-a-Chair Program and “other duties as assigned”. Dave started with Intereum as an installer 23 years ago and has worn many hats including installer/service rep, foreman, and “stand in” project manager. He really is the epitome of ‘The Jack of all Trades’!
Outside of work Dave keeps himself busy with a long list of diverse hobbies. After completing active duty in the Army in the late 70′s, Dave got into motorcycle racing. That hobby started with motocross, which is both expensive and time-consuming (difficult to train when you work 3 shifts). From there he thought he’d save some money by doing some road racing. That idea proved to be folly when he found he was going through a set of tires every week!
Through the bike shop where Dave would get his motorcycle equipment, he heard of someone in town that was into competitive bicycling. Dave decided to make the move from gasoline-powered to human-powered bikes. After a couple of years training together, the two found themselves racing and placing quite well. Dave has literally taken on mountains in his biking endeavors and has conquered extreme altitude in the process. On one trip to Colorado, which came after just a little training and a bit of altitude sickness, Dave started a ride at Idaho Springs (7500 ft. above sea level) and road to the top of Mount Evans (14,260 ft. above sea level), completing a 26 mile trek only one way that included 21% incline grades. He made this intense ride up and back down in about four hours! Take a moment to enjoy some of his truly breathtaking pictures from this journey.
Dave also rides for good causes in events like ‘The Ride across Minnesota for MS’. He thrives in competition and enjoys showing those young bucks up! And at age 55, he just keeps doing that time and time again.
Dave also enjoys the techy side of things and even has his own home server that links up all of his electronics. He is able to record movies, TV shows, music, and the like while accessing it all from anywhere in his home on any TV, stereo, or smart device. He makes it look so easy!
Using his handy skills, he has gotten into some big-scale home remodeling projects in his spare time. Recently he finished his bathroom that is completely lined in quarter cut marble, heated floors, custom millwork, and state of the art building materials from Germany. He is also working on his basement, which is where his tech hub is housed.
When Dave gets an idea in his mind he goes big and becomes the best at it. This can easily be seen in the quality of his work and his overall ‘happy-go-lucky’ and ‘go-get-em attitude’! We are so lucky to have such a skilled person working in our warehouse and supporting or team at Intereum.
Thank you, Dave Grosz!
Sound Masking Tackles Noise Pollution
March 1, 2013
The new work place trend of open offices full of collaborating spaces is a great way to function as a company. We have personally experienced at Intereum, with our new showroom design, that lower panel heights in workstations actually help reduce some noise. Being able to see your neighbor has made people more aware of the noise they make and its ability to travel. Therefore, everyone has been more careful about bringing the decimal levels up.
Intereum’s open floor plan.
Along with workstation design and the layout of the showroom, we have some additional assistance from a product we offer to help mask work place sounds. Cambridge Sound Management produces a product with QT Quiet Technology that creates a white noise to muffle sound. The QT Quiet Technology uses ceiling mounted emitters to disperse a uniform programmed spectrum of white noise. The overall design is visually less obtrusive than their competitors large ‘paint can style’ white noise emitters and they create a more balanced and equally displaced amount of noise. QT can be easily controlled with a remote and installation is easy! Did we mention it is one of the least expensive ways to mask noise in the office?
Speakers for sound masking Emitters
Having a sound masking system actually helps people focus better since they won’t be distracted by conversations or annoying co-worker habits. The decreased distractions in return means an increase in productivity. Not to mention an increase in individual sense of privacy in an open-work environment is always nice and that sound masking helps create ‘personal space.’ All good things!
Don’t just take our word for it though, check out this long list of case studies where QT Technology made all the difference for these companies. Contact Intereum for all of your sound masking needs!
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