Today’s business moves at a pace never before thought possible. Those workers on the way to retirement may have adjusted well to the technology age, but today’s emerging workforce grew up on computers, smart phones and digital communications worldwide.

Economic changes have left some sectors of the business world without the luxury of frequent travel to visit clients. In fact, the tightening of the reins in recent years has caused everyone to find ways to cut expenses without reducing profits in order to survive. The emerging generation of workers will simply not stand still nor do they have patience for the slow methods of commerce of past decades.

Over a decade ago, we first began coordinating meetings with tools like MS Outlook’s Calendar. This helped meeting planners coordinate times, reserve spaces, and communicate agendas more efficiently – as long as all the players updated their calendars.

Now, much of what was done manually and in face to face meetings is handled through newer, more cost effective styles that serve a new generation well. Some of these tools include:

eZ Meeting: Share desktops and applications complete with markup and redline. Instant messaging allows rapid communication and transferring files is easy. One of the higher monthly cost solutions but many users love it for the intuitive layout.

GatherPlace: A robust online meeting solution with low monthly pricing. It even allows guest installations as well as permanent computer assignment. This tool is everything you could want in an online meeting solution.

Skype: With VoiP technology, voice communications anywhere are feasible and the cost is negligible compared with face to face meetings across the world. Use integrated collaboration features or choose to combine with other tools.

GoToMeeting: Share your desktop realtime, record and playback your meetings, generate reports, chat, and much more. Very affordable solution and well liked by loyal users.

Beam Your Screen and Mikogo: This powerful combination will do It all and very easily. This is a powerful solution for large meetings as well as small, intimate online collaborations.

MS Office Live Meeting: Integrated into the latest professional MS Office Suite, you can share multimedia presentations, store and transfer files, chat, and share portions of your screen or entire applications.  This is a very inexpensive solution.

When choosing an alternative meeting solution, take advantage of demos and trial periods to ensure you select a tool that will work best for your needs. Even the most expensive online meeting tools will save your firm tons of money in a very short time and increase productivity. 

Find Office Space

It seems the world is changing at such as pace it is nearly impossible to keep up with the changing faces of work, communications, technology, even the methods by which we do business today. With the changing commercial real estate market, skyrocketing prices for goods and services and challenges keeping the right talent mix in your business, you may be wondering where the office workspace evolution is taking our world today. 

During previous centuries, a worker reported to a cubicle or desk to find a stack of papers , leads or widgets, whatever the item processed might be stacked up and ready to be moved through some process coming from the “in” stack and going into the “out” stack. Business didn’t run on knowledge alone, but ideas did have a place in the market just not in the day to day office operations. A worker could easily spend 20 or 30 years reporting to the same job endlessly… yes, it was a pretty boring lifestyle in retrospect but it was all there was for earning money. 

Some of the biggest changes evolving in today’s knowledge powered office workspace, no matter what your market, include:

When we work: In past decades, workers reported to work on a very set schedule, perhaps first shift operated from 8 am to 5 pm or something similar with a set time for breaks and lunch. That was well before the global marketplace changed work hours to whatever your customer demands. Now, staggered work times so that markets across the globe can be served are common place. Many knowledge based jobs can be done during any hours of the day or night and the hours during which a particular worker feels most creative are freely used as paid work time. 

Where we work: Top executives are often still needed in the office daily, but knowledge based workers and many types of service workers only appear in the office as needed or on a set schedule of a few days per week or month for key meetings and networking times. Other times, productive work is conducted in the field where that market resides. For example, real estate professionals are more and more working on “office” tasks from the hot spot in a coffee shop or café or even McDonald’s fast food restaurant rather than driving across town to appear in person only to have to run right back out, drive back yet again, eating up time and resources.  The time spent in traffic jams is much more effectively used following up on leads or updating listings. Of course, there are times that “face time” in the office makes sense because it provides fellowship, a sense of teamwork and the opportunity to network, but workers in dozens of fields have home offices, a mini-office in their auto, a either a desk or a shared space in their employer’s office workspace. 

How we work:  Just like the electric typewriter, the desk computer has probably seen its peak with laptops being small enough to fit in any briefcase or messenger bag replacing it with as much if not more computing power. In many markets, large offices, once the sign of prestige, are giving way to smaller, more efficient offices with shared spaces so that whoever needs the desk and infrastructure at any given time can find a place to work or meeting. 

As this evolution continues into this century, real estate professionals will creatively respond to the needs to their customers. Customizing spaces, offering alternative office solutions and other innovative ideas will generate loyal clients. 

The 21st Century Office Space

Find Office Space

One of the big questions many office tenants wonder about is how long before their office lease expires do they need to get started on either a renewal or a relocion of their office space.  Here is a great article by our Miami Office Representative that should help answer the question.

"When should a company think about their office lease renewal?  The day after they sign their lease.  That might seem extreme, however, most folks wait too long and end up losing their leverage with their landlord.  Typically, I recommend that my clients begin their lease renewal process at least a year in advance.  There are two reasons.

First, time is your landlord’s greatest leverage.  Your landlord knows that typically over 75% of its tenants will renew their leases. Your landlord also knows exactly how long it takes to construct a new space and physically move.  If you call your landlord 60 – 30 days before your lease expires, he already won.

Second, even if you are determined to move, time slips by quickly.  A week of travel, a couple of days delay while waiting for an architect, attorney or contractor to respond
and suddenly your time line shortens.

It’s never too early to start mapping out your strategy and preparing a timeline for your renewal process.  That’s what I do every day, so let me help you level the playing field with your landlord.  If your Miami office lease is expiring in two years or less, Contact Me today."

You may also be interested in:
The Office Leasing Process and Timeline
How much office space do I need?

Find Office Space

Here is a great article that describes the process our reps go through to ensure they find you the best possible office space at the best price.

"I was recently asked that question by a reporter from Miami Today.  Actually she emailed me the question in advance of an interview.  My first off-the-cuff response was “simple, I pull the database, make a bunch of calls, know my buildings and off we go”.  Then the next morning during my walk, I began thinking that it’s not that simple.

Before I can search the database and make a bunch of calls, I have to know what I’m looking for. That means a bunch of nosy questions for my client, a walk-thru of their current location and a thorough understanding of their budget, use, employees and a host of other items.  With a seemingly ample inventory of office space, on the surface I could have 50 possible spaces for a client.  When I began applying the criteria that I develop from my client interview, the number begins to shrink very quickly.  

Sometimes it suddenly develops into a search for the needle in the haystack.

When you are interviewing a tenant rep broker to represent you in your search and/or renewal of your office, who is doing all the talking?  If it’s the broker, tread carefully.  They may not be listening and thus will not completely understand what you need.  This can result in wasting your time touring spaces that do not fit your needs and even proceeding into negotiations before discovering a “deal killer” problem with the space or building.

I try to remember the old sales axiom:  “You have two ears and one mouth, so you should be listening twice as much as you speak.”  The exception is if you make the mistake of asking me about my children.

So how do I find the space? Through a lot of research both with the client and by knowing my market.  Contact me me so I can help you with your office lease on the Miami area."

Guest Post by our Miami Office Representative

Like the rest of the nation Houston, Texas has been hit hard by the recession. Even with the economy taken into account, it remains one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the nation. More than five million people live in the Greater Houston Metro area, which encompasses all or parts of 10 different counties. With the great weather year round and nearby beaches of the Gulf Coast, it is a great city in which to locate any commercial venture. 

Houston actually began feeling the recession one year after the rest of the nation. Recovery is taking place, but as with many other areas, it remains sluggish. However, commercial real estate has benefits from core business growth, disciplined new development, and a great business environment, bringing businesses into the area. The workforce available to ventures both large and small offers plenty of trained professional as well as blue collar workers, making this region perfect for any type of business to locate and grow. 

Our local Houston OfficeFinder rep tells us, “Despite the consequences of the recession, businesses forge ahead and some are experiencing banner years. National and international investors recognize Houston as an international, first-class metropolis.  Energy has always been our main driver but Houston also has the Texas Medical Center and the Port of Houston as strong underpinnings for our local economy.  Many authorities have cited the Panama Canal expansion as the next big step in the growth of goods flowing into and out of the Port of Houston.”  Our local office rep has served the Houston commercial real state market as a licensed agent since 1985, assisting businesses and association with relocation, renewal, expansion, and disposition of office and industrial space, so he has his finger on the pulse of the Houston market. 

The total commercial office inventory in Houston currently encompasses approximately 266 million square feet with a vacancy rate of 13.3%, with nearly 1 million square feet of net absorption in the second quarter of 2011. Class A properties account for the lion’s share of new leasing with positive absorption in the first and second quarters of 2011. Our local rep said, “While we have had some foreclosures, investors and users have typically rushed to the buying opportunities with deep pockets and a plan.” Recovery from the recession is clearly well on its way in Metro Houston. 

Some of the major news in commercial real estate include: 

• Core Real Estate LLC purchased the former Minute Maid facility at 2000 St. James Place from Wachovia Bank after the bank took back the 335,000 square foot office building from a local partnership.  Core then leased the entire building to Weatherford International.

• Lincoln Property Co. purchased Energy Crossing I from M&I Bank., on behalf of a public pension fund. The 240,000-square-foot office building is located in Houston’s Energy Corridor.  The new ownership recently leased 41,000 square feet to an energy-related company.

• Chevron recently purchased a 50-story 1.3 million-square-foot downtown office tower from Brookfield Office Properties.  Chevron had been leasing the building.  The sale price was reportedly $340 million, or about $260 per square foot.

• In a separate transaction, Brookfield Properties Corporation acquired Heritage Plaza, a 53-story, 1.2-million-square-foot trophy office tower in Houston’s central business district, reportedly for $321.5 million. 

• ExxonMobil has finally announced the development of a new office campus in north Houston.  The 385-acre site is near the intersection of I-45 and the Hardy Toll Road. Company employees currently working in a variety of locations will be consolidated into the new facility upon completion.  Full occupancy of the development is expected by 2015.

• Coventry Development Corp. will invest approximately $10 billion in their Springwoods Village development.  Springwoods Village will be a 1,800 acre master-planned community near the new Exxon Mobil campus.

Our local rep went on to say, “Even the former Astroworld site appears to be poised for new development.  The Mallick Group purchased this 104 acre site in 2010 after the Astroworld closure in  2005. Established companies are cautiously locking into today’s rental rates and new companies are looking to find short term, As-Is, opportunities.  Every business tenant has choices, but occasionally, their “short list” is shorter than the average business person would believe from reading the headlines.”

If you are considering starting a new business venture or wish to add a satellite location to your already-established venture Houston, Texas, is a great place to choose. With the end of the Space Shuttle program, many high tech workers from nearby Johnson Space Center are readily available and skilled trade crafts persons for any commercial venture can be found. With the growing recovery, much of this labor will be consumed in the coming years, but there are many young people entering the employment in every area to continue to feed the staff required to many any commercial venture a success. 

You can contact our Houston OfficeFinder Rep for help with your commercial office and industrial need at Officefinder.com. He will be happy to help you find the perfect home for your business.