Sessions

Selecting the wrong Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) can waste budget and undermine workplace strategy before it even launches. In this session, Michael Meiran provides a strategic framework for matching platform capabilities to specific hybrid, unassigned, or activity-based workplace vision. He shares evaluation criteria distinguishing which occupancy analytics, space booking functions, and cost management tools support organizational goals versus generic industry features. He examines how leading organizations assess platform fit against employee preferences and performance requirements to drive adoption. He delivers decision-making tools to confidently select IWMS solutions aligned with distinct workplace culture and strategic objectives, avoiding costly missteps.

As workplace expectations shift toward personalization, organizations struggle to deliver individualized experiences at scale without overwhelming their facility and IT teams. This presentation examines the convergence of AI, smart buildings, and workplace software platforms that enable mass customization. Sanjiv Singh demonstrates how for employees, AI adapts the workplace to individual roles, behaviors, and preferences by optimizing space utilization, environmental comfort, workflows, learning paths, and well-being support. He also illustrates how for visitors, algorithmic systems streamline access, navigation, and engagement through intelligent visitor management, predictive analytics, and real-time personalization. He charts what is available today and what the future could hold using relevant use cases.

This special-focus knowledge-exchange forum is for colleges and universities working to improve the utilization of existing spaces, satisfy the space needs of high-priority programs, and deliver on near- and long-term institutional space and cost objectives. The meeting agenda includes: examples of new policies, processes, and tools; getting and using better planning and management data; implementing new performance measures; repurposing, modernizing, consolidating, and building new for a variety of space and occupant types. Additional group-driven discussion items welcome!

Knowledge workers often view open office spaces as noisy, distracting, and incompatible with focused work.  This session explores why that perception exists—and why one-size-fits-all office models consistently fail knowledge-intensive roles. David George examines how Activity-Based Working can be utilized to create workplace configurations to support deep concentration and cognitive performance. Drawing on real-world research and workplace data, he outlines practical design strategies tailored to introverted, analytical, and research-driven teams. Attendees will leave with clear, evidence-based principles for creating flexible workplaces that genuinely support heads-down work, as well as collaborative spaces, avoid the pitfalls of generic layouts, and deliver measurable benefits for both employees and the organization.

This session examines the intersection of corporate workplace strategies with high-impact higher ed campus environments. Grace Johnson and John Roberson demonstrate a cross-industry innovation framework that applies employee engagement principles to student and faculty experiences to foster collaboration, inspire connection, and adapt to shifting campus needs. Through real examples, they illustrate how strategic technology integration enables seamless transitions between uses — classrooms become event venues, collaboration zones transform into storytelling showcases. They deliver techniques for designing environments that feel personalized to each user group while maintaining multi-functionality. They highlight how leading institutions are elevating existing space value through purposeful design choices that foster engagement and narrative connection, aligning campus facilities with institutional goals for flexibility and experience.

Organizations sign leases, select systems, and commit to workplace designs under pressure while uncertainty looms. This session identifies five traps that force organizations to spend 30-40% of their investment undoing recent decisions. Magaret Serrato reveals real-world examples where smart institutions fell into these traps and demonstrates scenario planning frameworks that protect against multiple futures. She delivers specific warning signs that signal each trap before resources are committed, provides data-driven language for advocating with leadership when decisions drive toward these pitfalls, and equips space planners with immediately applicable decision frameworks. Rather than predicting an unpredictable future, she shows how to design workplace strategies that remain viable across multiple outcomes, reducing risk while maintaining flexibility for RTO, hybrid work, and evolving space utilization goals.