I have wanted to post this for a while now.

While ?innovation? has been widely acknowledged as the need of the hour, the key to survival, little thought is paid to the work place and its importance in stimulating creativity. If at all, we have some great reception areas and conference rooms but beyond that mostly Dilbertesque cubicles.

Jiri Vanmeerbeeck?s scooter desk comes like a breath of fresh air…makes you want to sit down? converse, read a book, work on your laptop. It is ergonomically friendly too.

Jiri , the founder/creator says ?Utilia is based on exploring new needs at the borders of home and office.? and stresses that the scooter desks are ?for occasional use; fun comes first. They are no replacement for a desk.?

Index 2005 where it earned a nomination, lists several interesting and fun uses for the scooter desk.

I liked the uses listed under the semi-public spaces most.

reading magazines in waiting rooms

hostess checking in passengers at the airport

Business Week reports that two employees at CityWatcher.com have silicon chips embedded into them. According to their CEO, Sean Darks, who also has one of the chips embedded says that the chips work “like an access card. There’s a reader outside the door; you walk up to the reader, put your arm under it, and it opens the door.”

According to this article it is not the first time that it has been used at the workplace. It was used by 18 members of the Mexican attorney general’s staff.

Looks like even customers are using it! According to Wolfgang Grulke ?Barcelona’s Baja Beach Club began microchipping its VIP nightclub members, to let them into exclusive areas and clock up drinks and food via a chip implant in the arm produced by VeriChip Corporation?

He believes that within a decade, microchips will be common. ?Already two scientists at Britain’s Warwick University have chips embedded under their skin that let them send emails just by thinking.?

Interesting times we live in!

ViaTim Stay’s blog

“If you don?t love what you do, how can they (your customers) love what you do?” Seth Godin

Market shifts are happening pretty rapidly these days. Davis Masten’s post that 90% of the products that Intel delivers on December 31 did not even exist of January 01 of the same year!!

This New York Times article reports that I.B.M. has identified about a dozen “hot” skills most likely to be in demand over the next three years. This year?s list includes expertise in the life sciences, wireless networks, digital media databases and Linux programming.

While it is critical that organizations develop competencies on the emerging skills, individuals too will need to look at how they can stay relevant.

As Robert B. Reich, a professor of economic and social policy at Brandeis University added in the same article, “The most important community for an individual will not necessarily be a company, but a looser community of people with similar skills and social connections and continually building up those skills and connections is what a career is today.”

• Deepa