Our Top Five Favorite Instagram Photos of the Week
Here’s where we spotlight some of our favorite Instagram photos we’ve seen from the past week. The photos will be from members and venues worldwide and lean more artistic than marketing. If you haven’t followed us on Instagram yet, now is a good time. We may just include your photos in a future post.
Behold, this week’s top five!
The 2016 Venue Industry Award Winners
The 2016 Venue Industry Awards Luncheon—sponsored by Ungerboeck Software International, SMG, and The Expo Group and emceed by Chris Bigelow, founder and owner of The Bigelow Companies—took place during the 2016 VenueConnect Annual Conference & Trade Show in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The awards, hosted each year by IAVM, honor exceptional venues and professionals in several categories.
Our Top Five Favorite Instagram Photos of the Week
Today we begin a new series spotlighting some of our favorite Instagram photos we’ve seen from the past week. The photos will be from venues around the world and lean more artistic than marketing. And if you haven’t followed us on Instagram yet, now is a good time. We may just include your photos in a future post.
Behold, this week’s top five!
Happy Music Inspires Cooperation Among Employees
Cornell University researchers recently published a paper in the Journal of Organization Behavior describing two studies that tested the effect of different music types on employees working in teams. They found that when happy music was played (such as the “Happy Days” theme song, “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison, “Yellow Submarine” by the Beatles, and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves), employees were more likely to be cooperative with each other. When unpleasant music was played (such as heavy metal songs from bands not generally known), employees behaved more selfishly.
“Music is a pervasive part of much of our daily lives, whether we consciously notice it or not,” said Kevin Kniffin, a Cornell University behavioral scientist and the paper’s lead author. “Music might melt into the background in places like supermarkets or gyms and other times it’s very prominent like places of worship or presidential nominating conventions. Our results show that people seem more likely to get into sync with each other if they’re listening to music that has a steady beat to it.”
Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and a co-author of the paper, sees the good in the findings.
“What’s great about these findings, other than having a scientific reason to blast tunes at work, is that happy music has the power to make the workplace more cooperative and supportive overall,” Wansink said.
The researchers recommend that managers consider the employee experience at work when choosing to play music.
“Lots of employers spend significant sums of time and money on off-site teambuilding exercises to build cooperation among employees,” Kniffin said. “Our research points to the office sound system as a channel that has been underappreciated as a way to inspire cooperation among co-workers.”
(Source: Katie Baildon/Cornell University)
(Image: kasiQ kmjw/Creative Commons)
Allied Corner: Equal to the Test
“Our chairs can hold an elephant!”
We’ve all heard the outlandish claims seating manufacturers make regarding the amount of weight their products can hold. In reality, furniture testing is much more complex than just placing a weight on a chair to see if the chair can support the weight.
That’s why it’s important for furniture manufacturers to tests their products to meet or exceed standards set by the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association (BIFMA). An American National Standards Institute-accredited organization, BIFMA’s standards incorporate feedback from manufacturers, customers, and furniture testers.
“It’s important to differentiate between a product that can simply hold a large amount of weight and a product that has been tested to repeatedly meet the impact of that much weight,” said Doug Woodard, North American Furniture Leader, UL and founder of Advanced Furniture Testing, a UL Company.
The seating market demands multi-functionality, and manufacturers must test their seating to meet those demands. Partner with a manufacturer that puts their seating through a full battery of BIFMA tests, including but not limited to, seat drop, leg-pull, and stability testing. Brian Truelove, operations manager at Advanced Furniture Testing, a UL Company, stated, “People are dynamic. They are in constant motion, and testing needs to replicate actual movement.”
Customer safety should be a top priority for your facility and so should product durability. Make sure your furniture supplier shares these same values as well. The next time someone tells you their chair can hold an elephant, ask to see their BIFMA test results instead!
Meeting the New Flammability Standards
In 2013, the State of California adopted a revision to the flammability standard (TB-117), now titled TB 117-2013. Starting January 1, 2015, all manufacturers of upholstered furniture that use polyurethane foam were required to comply with the new standard when shipping to California. Over the years, TB-117 has become the de facto flammability standard for most states.
The new standard requires foam to meet a smolder test, which is much less stringent than the previous open-flame test. As a result, many of the harmful chemicals in polyurethane foam that aided in meeting the original requirement can be removed from the manufacturing process. This is critical because there is no longer exposure to the high level of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that were previously present during foam production.
When selecting upholstery for your next project, be sure it meets these new flammability standards.
(Image: ID Number THX 1139/Creative Commons)