The Gunnar Optik glasses from the Inc. list "Good office gifts for a bad economy"

Inc. Magazine hrecently came out with pretty cool lists that I thought I’d share…

The first interesting list is 7 Gadgets That Help You Do More with Less - While all these products are pretty interesting, I want to point out my two favorites:

Get gifts for the family and one for yourself, from Steelcase.

We are making the spirit of giving a little more rewarding. Now through Dec 14th, when you do your holiday shopping at the Steelcase store and spend $500 or more, you’ll receive $50 for yourself!

Choose from a $50 amazon.com gift card or $50 off your next purchase at the Steelcase Store. Your choice.

This season, enjoy a little give and take. Make holiday shopping a little easier…from the Steelcase Store.

The Steelcase formula for sustainability

Sustainability has been an important philosophy within Steelcase for quite a while. Ever wondered how we incorporate sustainability into our products? Read on to find out…

We believe sustainability is part of our social contract. That’s why every step of the way…through design, manufacture, delivery and product lifecycle…we consider the impact of our work on the environment and uncover opportunities to make things better.

Designing for the Environment
Our approach to sustainability is holistic. We aim to produce products that are durable and long-lived; are made from safe and sustainable materials; can be easily disassembled and recycled at the end of life; manage waste and air emissions; conserve natural resources at every phase of the lifecycle and are made in socially responsible ways.

Materials Chemistry (MC)
Three years ago we enlisted the expertise of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) to help us better understand the chemical makeup of our products and production processes. We evaluate chemicals against 19 human and environmental health criteria and are working to eliminate them in our new and existing products.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
LCA measures a product’s impact on the environment…from material selection to the end of a product’s usefulness. We measure the impact of every new and existing product to continuously improve our performance.

Recycling & Reuse (R2)
Recycling and Reuse means choosing the right materials, as well as designing to enable the recycling of products. It also means offering a convenient way to dispose of products through the Steelcase Environmental Partnership.

Cradle to Cradle Product Certification: Your Sustainability Assurance Policy
Cradle to Cradle Product Certification is based on the most comprehensive environmental protocol that matches our sustainability philosophy. So, when you see that our products are Cradle to Cradle certified, you can be assured that we have designed them against stringent environmental standards and requirements.

We offer a growing collection of Cradle to Cradle products including:

• Leap, our flagship task chair is Silver Cradle to Cradle Certified
• Think, the FIRST EVER certified product is Silver Cradle to Cradle Certified
• Amia, our newest task chair, is Silver Cradle to Cradle Certified
• Move, stackable seating from Steelcase with Silver Cradle to Cradle Certification
• Tour Workspace, desks by Turnstone with Cradle to Cradle Certification
• Scoop Stool, cafe seating with Cradle to Cradle Certification
• Groupworks, tables and conference tables with Cradle to Cradle Certification

The Walkstation is now available at the Steelcase Store.

Delivery and installation included.

Ever thought of ways to burn calories at work? Nix the elevator and start taking the stairs…park at the end of the parking lot…walk at lunch…how about walking while you work? The Walkstation makes it really convenient to incorporate a little physical activity in our busy lives.

The Walkstation is a treadmill with a height adjustable desk and a maximum speed of 2 mph (you can’t run even if you try) to keep you concentrated on work while incorporating physical activity into your work routine.

The average person will burn about 100 calories per mph. Assume you walk 1 mph for 2 hours per day each work week for a year and that could equate to 15 lbs lost without dieting or leaving your office!

Don’t think you can walk and work at the same time? Neither did I. I am definitely not the most coordinated person and may have stumbled once or twice, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly. As the Good Morning America clip indicates “It’s like walking and chewing gum at the same time.”

If you are like me, you prefer to walk when you are on the phone…so for those all too frequent conference calls, you might as well be on burning some calories on the Walkstation. Put a few Walkstations together in a circle and find yourself talking and walking on the Walkstations rather than sitting in conference room. There are many ways to easily incorporate walking and working into your everyday routine.

The Walkstation has been getting lots of press since its introduction. Here are a few more articles for you to peruse in your spare time. Wish you could be über productive and read this while working out? Sounds like you need a Walkstation…

So how many of you have ever spent more time opening a toy package than you spent in assembling the toy afterwards? Or you find yourself with the kitchen steak knife in hand, the junk drawer scissors cast aside, as you piece, puncture and wrip at that dreaded plastic clamshell package, long past the point where you care whether you damage the product inside?

That consumer frustration has lead to the introduction of numerous tools for opening packages without the frustration outlined above. There is the As See on TV Pyranna, the One Open-sezz-me Plastic Package Opener that claims it cures “wrap rage” or the abysmally rated Package Shark Pro Opener with Bonus Scissors.

Then there’s the approach taken by Amazon.com: frustration free packaging. Like a good doctor that treats the cause rather than masking the symptoms, Amazon is going to the heart of the problem. As their FAQ says:

We work directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used.

That means they are also not creating waste by throwing away the original packaging and re-packaging the items. And the scope of their plan is impressive:

This is just the beginning of a multi-year initiative. It will take many years, but our vision is to offer our entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging.

While I wouldn’t qualify Steelcase and the Steelcase Store as innovative when it comes to our packaging I do hope you’ll find our packaging to be “frustration free. Some strong hands or a basic utility knife will probably do the trick on your next Leap chair purchase. Although I admit that i just might have to add the Zibra-ZPCOPEN-OR to my Christmas wish list.