#carolinegoodwin

In October our London team moved into our new office in Bayswater. Like all change, the move was anticipated with some trepidation, but quickly was unanimously voted a change for the better.

But at Wolff Olins we don’t rest on our laurels. And to maintain the momentum and positive energy of the move, we decided to run a hack day to imagine the future of our workplace.

We immediately steered teams away from the more predictable website and app ideas and asked them to build something with a physical component. We provided tons of kit, from arduinos to beacons as well as sensors, RFIDs, security cameras and even conductive ink. 

The four teams had 24 hours to come up with an idea, build it and present it to the group.  Ideas varied from a fish scale meeting room availability indicator to a 3D printed Duck that tells us when it’s time to go to the pub. The judges voted WOPA (a button/slack integration manifest as an online PA with attitude) the most useful and innovative idea and we’ll be rolling it out in our London office next year. And team Pepper Spray’s concept of a welcome hologram for our new reception won the public Twitter vote (#WoHack).

If you’re curious, you can learn more about these ideas on our hack day microsite or watch this whistle-stop video tour of the day. 

You can also find our favourite bloopers from the day on our Snapchat account, (WolffOlins).

Next year we’ll run more hack days like this: hacks for working women over 60 and ideas to kick start client change programmes, so...