Just a few weeks ago I was putting yellow smarties on a lime-green dinosaur cake to celebrate my little guy's 1st birthday! Today I'm cake decorating again (minus the lime-green 😂) because COMUNiTI turns 10! 

To celebrate our 10 year milestone we created a series to showcase the awesome people who have shared in our journey. It’s been so rewarding — not only reflecting on everything we’ve achieved — but also thinking deeply about the next 10 years and what lies ahead for COMUNiTI and how we will continue to influence our human experience of work. 

It may have taken 100 years and a global pandemic to redefine the notion of ‘work’ and ‘workplace’, but I believe there are so many more fascinating changes just around the corner.

For example, research has shown a significant causal relationship between open-plan office noise and physiological stress. In parallel, other studies are putting forward a strong and measurable business case for integrating more biophilia in workplace design...

I don't want to use the word 'pivot'. It's so overused. But I will, because you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

The global pandemic forced many in the commercial design industry to pivot. 
 

• What happens if people no longer ‘go’ to work?
• What if corporate property portfolios are no longer needed?
• What value do we bring if we’re not building anything?

At COMUNiTI we’d been exploring these outer edges of the industry for a while — we were delivering workplace strategies that pushed beyond office design, and that saw us collaborating with HR and Finance departments to address a mix of interconnected challenges — performance, people, property, profitability.

But the pandemic gave one almighty push in redefining mainstream definitions of ‘work’ and ‘workplace’, and if I’m honest, it has really elevated the discourse between the corporate world and commercial designers.

Clients we work with are often surprised when I explain that the notion of work being the 9 to 5, Monday to...

 It was 2016. We landed Air New Zealand as a client. We were ready for take-off!

By 2016 COMUNiTI [known as MARSDEN Collective back then] was three years into our business journey and we had established a head office, built a team, and created a host of workplace designs that we were super proud of including multiple stages of a project with Plantation Homes — one of Queensland’s most awarded builders, Buildsafe, and the West Coast Eagles. Yep, the AFL team! 

And then, Air New Zealand invited us to fly to Auckland to pitch our vision for converting an old baggage area, in Melbourne, into an airport lounge.

I knew we’d be up against some of the biggest competitors in the industry. We were a relatively small and unknown brand, but we were a mighty and highly experienced team, and we threw everything at this opportunity. 

We won the contract. 
I distinctly remember this moment. 
I felt like we’d really made it.

On reflection, it was about more than just landing an impressive brand lik...

 21 kids. 30 team members. 10 years. The COMUNiTI Crew has achieved a lot! 

As part of COMUNiTI’s 10 year celebration I want to celebrate our network of employees, contractors, and collaborators. Our team size has ebbed and flowed over the years as we scaled the business and repositioned ourselves, and throughout the journey there’s so many who have been dedicated to our success and an incredible support network for my family and I.
 
If you run a business or lead a team I’m sure you’ll agree — teamwork is a special kind of magic. When people come together and minds meet, sparks fly. Teams bring simple joy to the toughest days. They share hopes for the future and make the plans to get there even better through creativity and fun. And over time, teams forge deep connections that go far beyond work itself. At COMUNiTI, the idea of our team being a ‘family’ is more than a cute label — our wider team has included 21 kids over our 10 year history, and counting! 

As we’ve shared our journe...

 In the 10 years that COMUNiTI has been designing workplaces and I've been supporting individuals to live a life by design, a megatrend has emerged: wellbeing. 

For business, in the early days, this meant focusing on injury management and occupational health — hello ergonomic chairs! Then the focus broadened to include proactive physical wellbeing — in some workplaces this meant replacing cookie jars with fruit bowls and offering lunchtime yoga, or my fav, the Step Challenge! In recent years, and certainly inside the most progressive organisations, health and wellbeing has become systemic — it’s considered through the lens of emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing, and it’s supported through all aspects of the workplace environment, the design of work itself, and leadership mindsets and behaviours.

It was a Podcast conversation with Dr Gary Webb, from Mars Inc (yep, the global manufacturer of some of your favourite snacks), that crystallised what I had been observing and experienc...

"I'm going to the hills of Mullumbimby to live off-grid with chickens and my art studio!" 

This is my go-to threat that I shout at the universe when things get tough.  

It’s a half-joking, half-serious kind of release that usually signals I’m in the weeds and need to take a step back, a deep breath, [maybe pour a glass of wine] and look at my career and business with a more elevated perspective.

It’s the field mouse versus the eagle analogy that Samantha Wills and I talked about in Episode 56 of the Work Life by Design Podcast.

If you’re not familiar with Samantha Wills, she’s a creative entrepreneur from Bondi whose self-titled jewellery quickly earned world attention after being worn by the likes of Taylor Swift and  Eva Mendes and appearing in the Sex and the City 2 movie. Now based in New York, Samantha went on to build and then sell her hugely successful business, and she shares this journey in her book: of Gold and Dust.

Needless to say, when Samantha accepted an inv...

I’m not sure if it was Professor Scott Galloway who said it first, but he says it well when he talks about entrepreneurship and the future of work: “greatness is achieved in the agency of others”.

If you’ve started a company, scaled a business, or been a team leader, you’ll appreciate that at times it can be a lonely place, where waves of imposter syndrome leave you second-guessing everything! Buoyed by the thrill of chasing a big vision or goal, you push on.

Thankfully, my intuition led me to find like-minded entrepreneurial spirits early in COMUNiTI’s 10 year journey, and their mentorship, guidance, and support has been invaluable. 

COMUNiTI’s success has been a shared endeavour. I find that everything is better and a lot more fun when I collaborate, solve problems, exchange hair-brained ideas, and learn with others. 

So, as COMUNiTI celebrates 10 years, I also want to recognise the influence and impact of my ‘agency of others’.

EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organisation, Queensland). ...

It’s no secret that COMUNiTI could not do what we do for our clients without THE BEST industry suppliers and partners. From builders to organisational psychologists, engineers, architects, and technical advisors, to certifiers and furniture & material suppliers.

This is my concern: There are a lot of talented teams that work behind the scenes to bring COMUNiTI’s workplace strategies to life. My list is long. In fact, it’s a whole other blog. So today, as part of COMUNiTI’s 10 year celebration series, I want to say a huge thank you to all of our suppliers and partners, but in this post, I can showcase just a few.

I think one of the more challenging aspects of COMUNiTI’s 10 year journey has been building awareness about what workplace strategy is, compared to traditional commercial interior design [you know, the old ‘how to fit lots of little squares inside one big square’ approach]. Workplace strategy is innovative ...

 To celebrate COMUNiTI’s 10 year anniversary, we’re releasing a series to showcase the amazing community of people who have been part of our journey. 

And of course, who better to kick-start the celebrations than one of my favourite clients — Entain.

If you’ve ever had a cheeky flutter on the horses, a punt on the ponies, or placed a bet on your favourite sporting team, odds are, you’ve done business with Entain — the home of Ladbrokes and Neds. They’re the smart and talented team shaping the future of digital entertainment by creating the next generation of betting products.

Together we delivered a workplace strategy that addressed Entain’s immediate space and growth challenges. After a series of business mergers Entain acquired adjacent tenancies to provide space for their growing team. But this had also created mismatched and segregated areas, with outdated work points, limited collaboration space and poor layout planning.

With space and growth solutions sorted, Jess and I didn’t st...

In the coming weeks, COMUNiTI celebrates a significant milestone... we're turning 10!  🎉

Whilst I didn’t realise it at the time, when I started COMUNiTI, [MARSDEN Collective back in those days] this was the beginnings of a new philosophy to work. I was championing the evolution of organisations prioritising employee engagement and wellbeing. 

I fundamentally believed [and still do!] that work can and should be an experience that people love. The way I see it, humans intrinsically enjoy the construct of work — creating things, connecting with others to solve problems, and making a meaningful contribution to the world. But all too often the places where people would go to ‘do work’ were soulless boxes filled with rows of smaller boxes that ‘accommodated’ people from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. 

As a commercial designer, I could see the untapped potential for businesses and their people. For me, creating a workplace is about so much more than making it ‘look pretty’. I am fascinated by the i...