At Pixar, Steve Jobs eliminated the executive lunch room in favor of a massive cafeteria where people were encouraged to co-mingle. He believed that kind of set-up would increase the chances that people from different sections of the company would interact with each other and foster cross-departmental creativity and innovation.

In this short podcast (under seven minutes!) Greg Provo of Richmond's Strategy Café explains how to use space to foster new ideas.

Strategy Café is an idea he pioneered to create an environment where solo-preneuars and micro- preneuars can come together in a place that cultivates sharing of resources, creative energy, and concepts. By co-locating with other entrepreneurs in with tangential business interest, it can increase both new ideas and more business.

Most people don’t think much about designing their work space, but it can have a huge impact on productivity. As he says most succinctly, “Let the space do the work.”

A voracious reader, Greg recommends: