When I was at high school my favourite subjects were Art and Technical Drawing. Although I considered a career in Architecture, at the time the premier course was in Adelaide and the city of churches didn’t hold much appeal for me in those days. However, I have always harboured an enthusiasm for how people interact with their physical environment, and the design of spaces for effective and enjoyable use remains a fascination for me.

I got to indulge this interest last Friday when I was privileged to attend a Strategic Thinking Forum at the City of Melbourne to discuss the use of public space. One of the presentations at the forum was from an organisation called the Project for Public Spaces. (www.pps.org ) Ethan Kent, the presenter introduced us to a very simple but powerful idea, which at PPS they call the Power of 10.

In a nutshell, a great city has at least 10 major attractions, a great precinct has at least 10 venues, a great space has at least 10 possible things to do in it … etc. Now without getting hung up about the sanctity of ‘10′, I love the idea because it rings true with what I have experienced about cities, offices, parks, rooms and any other spaces designed for people to be in.

In addition to the obvious application to design which was the focus of Friday’s discussion, I wondered about how it works as a diagnostic: if a space doesn’t ‘work’ it could well be that the options for activity are too narrow. Think also about the problem of vandalism and crime: when a space has limited utility, the more creative, innovative or rebellious among us will be inclined to generate additional uses …

This is not to suggest the idea of ‘10′ is the only explanation for why space works or otherwise, but it certainly rang true for me. It was amazingly engaging to discover such a simple idea that even in the couple of days since Friday, has changed to way I see ‘spaces’.

There has been some discussion around workplace design on this blog previously. This gives us another angle. Think about desk space, meeting rooms, communal areas … this simple idea could be applied to multiply the effectiveness, enjoyment and utility of expensive office resources.

I wonder whether this sheds any light on your own workspace?

It’s been a good weekend taking in the first couple of days of the Olympics. Yesterday afternoon I had a fire burning, soup brewing on the stove and a new laptop on my knees to distract me from the TV.

For a while I was becoming frustrated with the speed of this new machine. It was taking way too long for things to load, or certainly longer than I would have expected on a new machine. It wasn’t until some hours later that I discovered there were stacks of downloads that had been happening in the background. It got me thinking about how quickly we are to make judgments without knowing all the information, even when we think we’ve got the complete picture. This is especially true when we have an emotional stake in a particular outcome.

Last week, in the context of a project I am working on, a senior executive argued confidently for a particular course of action. However in conversations with his staff the day before I knew he was gravely out of touch with reality and is in danger of wasting significant time and money. He thought he had the whole picture but was missing vital bits.

We all try hard to make wise judgements based on the information we have. However it serves us well to habitually ask ourselves if we are missing something. In fact we are always missing something. Our expectations are frequently unmet and we quickly jump to assessments that typically leave us disappointed and even angry. It’s usually the information we don’t have that can allow us move ahead productively.

So this week, having learned from my weekend laptop experience, when there are decisions to be made, I will be trying to seek out the information I don’t have, rather than simply make judgements based on limited knowledge. There’s always stuff going on in the background.

Gil Duthie lost his seat in Federal Parliament along with a bunch of his other colleagues in the infamous 1975 election following the dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s government. My Grandfather’s cousin had held his seat for 25 years. His fall from public grace was in the context of public drama, but his path into office 25 years previously had been quietly impressive.

In the lead up to the 1946 Federal election, Allan Guy held the Tasmanian seat of Wilmot. It had been a liberal stronghold for decades. When Gil Duthie discovered the ALP did not have a candidate, this young church minister stuck up his hand. No one gave him a chance. Many of his state ALP colleagues hadn’t even heard of him.

He spent the next 6 months on his own on the road; literally. Some weekends he returned to see his young wife and daughter. He drove to every nook and cranny of the vast and often remote electorate through a particularly vicious Tasmanian winter. He knocked on door after farmhouse door, his own estimate was 70-80 homes a day. Never once, he says, did he ask anyone to vote for him. His agenda was simply to introduce himself and say what he stood for.

On the Monday, a week following the October 21 election, with all the postal and absentee votes counted, Gil Duthie came out ahead by 855 votes. The hard behind-the-scenes work that defined his first campaign kept him in office for an incredible 25 years until the unravelling of 1975.

As I start another week, like others of you in business, I am thinking about business development. As the mantra goes, ‘it is a numbers game’. We could learn a lot from my Great Uncle Gil. Strength of conviction that we’ve got something to offer and the willingness to get out there and rack up the numbers.

I’m weak really. This morning our central heating packed it in … again. The thought of a heaterless house for the weeks it will take the repair contractors to arrive in the depths of Melbourne winter is not very pretty. And then I see a photo of Gil Duthie’s old Standard bogged in snow somewhere near Tarraleah deep in Tassie wilderness during his first campaign.