TenantSee Weekly: Taxis and the Offices
Technology replaces that which it improves.
Not long ago, the streets of San Francisco were full of taxis. Simply by raising your arm, you could hail a taxi in minutes. Then, Uber and Lyft created their apps. Their intention was always to disrupt an industry that hadn’t changed in decades. Initially, many taxi drivers transitioned to become Uber and Lyft drivers, likely anticipating the technology would shift, not replace their work. But that’s not how this is turning out. Autonomous vehicles will replace human-driven, human transport solutions in major cities where taxi drivers once thrived.
TenantSee Weekly: Disbributed (but only a little)
Surveys indicate most workers favor a distributed workplace in which they can work from anywhere, any time. When it comes to work, individuals focus (mostly) on their own specific benefits, as opposed to thinking about how the ways in which their work gets done affects the broader organization. This makes sense, as one of the key benefits of our economic system is how it permits the individual to get ahead, to maximize its value. Employees realize value in a variety of ways, including compensation and other variables. Flexibility in where and when people work is high on the list of non-compensation related variables.
TenantSee Weekly: Sell Your Occupancy by Leveraging Options
Negotiating a great office leasing outcome requires engagement with multiple prospective landlords over multiple rounds of negotiation. It’s not just about having options; it’s about using them to create leverage.
TenantSee Weekly: Planning for the Future, not the Moment
Urban planning can go horribly wrong. It often fails the test of time. 1950s America brought a surge in suburban development and car transportation. It also led to one of the single worst American urban design decisions (my opinion), the development of the Embarcadero Freeway, originally intended to connect the San Francisco Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge by extending along the northeastern edge of the city as it hugs the bay -- effectively blocking the views along one of the most scenic corridors in any US city.
TenantSee Weekly: The Ingredients Matter
Strategy is to occupier real estate what a recipe is to a great meal. A recipe is more than the sum of its parts. It’s about how each ingredient is prepared, how and when it’s added to the mix. As with any recipe in which there are primary ingredients, vital to its success, similarly, every great strategy requires 3 main parts:
