Last night a twitpic changed my life… well, sort of

It’s no secret (judging by the barrage of pictures myself and the team keep posting) NML have just moved offices.

I’m doing my utmost to create the best possible environment for a small, skilled development team to work from. This part of the recipe is simple, create a beautiful, stimulating and relaxing environment to work from. This helps maintain our great team, and attract new members.  In turn, this leads to great quality software for our clients, and happy clients means plenty of on-going work.

Some time ago, after almost completing the move, I posted this picture on twitpic :

http://twitpic.com/53pgjh.

To the untrained eye there doesn’t seem to be much amiss in this image, besides being out of focus and slightly under-exposed, but to the trained agency eye of a brand manager who happens to see that picture, and also happens to have the account for the most ergonomic chair out there, this image is crippling. A blue plastic chair from Makro just doesn’t cut the mustard in my new office, and doesn’t do my back any favours. By the same token, a R100 black plastic in/out tray functioning as a monitor stand borders on crude.

Fortunately, Kastner & Partners and FormFunc were on the other end of that twitpic, and before I could say chiropractor they’d sent over two of their Liberty Chairs, and M2 Monitor Arm and a Freedom Chair, which is honestly one of the sexiest inanimate objects I’ve ever seen.

The monitor arm itself is a revelation. I have a passionate dislike for cables, I honestly believe they contribute to our stress levels by their very presence. With my cordless keyboard and mouse this monitor arm allows me to remove all cables from my desk, as the cables run inside the arm to the underside of the desk.

The monitor arm also allows me to move my keyboard past my screen, and get my screen up in line with my eye. In the 20 years I’ve spent behind computer screens I’ve never felt so comfortable looking at my screen.

Given that we spend a good 8 hours a day behind our screens, this arm is well worth every cent. It seems manufacturers of monitors with the fixed base have forgotten that humans are all different.

Besides its sleek lines, the Freedom Chair’s simplicity is ingenious, with three inconspicuous controls my the chair can be perfectly adjusted to perfectly support my back. Echoing the designers Niels Diffrient’s motto “Comfort is the lack of stress”.

And if this seems like one of those terrible product placement blog posts, that’s because it is. The difference here is that I wholeheartedly endorse this brand and their products, that and my computer science antics aren’t extreme enough for Kastner and Partners’ other brand – Redbull.