Offices, Then and Now

As I wrapped up my work yesterday, I looked around my home office and flashed back to my home office 30 years earlier. My “office” back then was a desk in a small one-bedroom Studio City apartment, with a single 3-shelf bookcase. Today, my office is a room off the living room, a former sun room with a dozen windows overlooking front, back and side yards. I stand writing this essay at a sit-stand desk, and instead of 1 small bookshelf, all four sides of my office are filled by overflowing bookcases. The most remarkable thing, however, is the change in technology that has taken place over that three decade span. I stood at my desk last night, listening to Elvis Costello on a Bose Bluetooth speaker that sat on a shelf to my right, the music streaming from my iPhone which stood on a wireless charger on the opposite side of my desk. Instead of a single, bulky CRT on my desk, four flat screens sweep across the surface of my desk today: a MacBook Pro, connected to two large external…