Creativity is a buzzword in most industries today, with the corporate agenda becoming increasingly enamored with the idea of effectiveness over traditional work cycles. From nine-to-fives to near-total flexibility, workplaces worldwide have seen a shift in personality: sleek, modern offices, ping-pong tables and ambient music, rooms decked with beanbags that offer the illusion of comfort. The Guardian describes these as neoliberal workspaces, or offices that take pride in their dynamic organizational structure and claim to be more effective than routine-based work-cycles. The more spontaneous and independent the work atmosphere, the more effective. Although popularized in theory back in the nineties, this shift didn’t reach full potential before the early to late 2000s. Egypt’s experience with the flexible workspace first appeared a little under a decade ago, where the creative sector – brimming with youthful, up-and-coming entrepreneurship – decided to latch onto the concept of hybridizing work and play; no longer was it fashionable to focus for hours on end in the company of a computer screen. Individuals were given the liberties of working remotely and having ritual smoke breaks, they were granted the freedom to plan their own days down…
