Year: 2012

This could well be the perfect office location for chocolate loving climbing instructors! The world’s first chocolate-based climbing wall was opened at Alton Towers theme park this Easter. Employees and climbing instructors who work at Mt Rocky get to work on a 32 feet tall, chocolate-centric climbing tower in the form of a Rocky biscuit bar! Mt. Rocky features a cascading four tonne chocolate waterfall flowing at a rate of 70,000 litres an hour and a chocolate grotto. In addition, it also has scratch-n-sniff chocolate scented seating areas that would be great for informal meetings or a catch up with the team!

The installation was the brainchild of a group of food technologists, engineers, a rollercoaster designer, sound artists, fashion designers and the UKs top climbing instructors.  Mt Rocky is the largest scratch-n-sniff structure in the world and is a great office location for those that have a sweet tooth. With all the paint used on it impregnated with micro-encapsulated aroma molecules, visitors and employees would certainly be able to smell it a half a mile away!

Tickets are available from Alton Towers.

Mt Rocky Alton Towers

Never again will your cuppa go cold while you get stuck on that forgotten conference call or the boss drops by your desk for a chat! Simply plug in this cup warmer into your USB port and pop your mug onto the hot plate to keep your cuppa hot and extend the drinking time by up to 30 mins!

This low voltage (5V) gadget is powered solely by a cable plugged into your PC or laptop’s USB port, the hotplate fits most sizes of mug (although cannot be used with plastic cups or containers) and will maintain your drink at a temperature of 40 degrees for up to an hour.

The USB cup warmer measures 12cm x 12cm x 2cm – so can fit on most desks and has a cable length of 50cm.

USB Cup Warmer

At The Serviced Office Company we love gadgets and are always on the look-out for ones that will brighten up your day in the office.

Here are a couple ideas to ease going through all that paperwork!

Electronic dictionary bookmark

Ever get stuck not quite grasping the meaning of a word, especially in legal documents? Rather than reaching out for a conventional dictionary, wouldn’t it be much more convenient if you could just ask your bookmark?

Perfect your knowledge of any tricky words with this very thin and stylish dictionary that you can keep inside your books or at hand in your office drawer. This electronic dictionary bookmark knows 38,000 words! Just tap the troublesome term into the bookmark using the sleek built-in keypad and it will bring the definition back to you in seconds and display it on the LCD screen, allowing you to read on without major disruption.

Like and dislike stamps

With these straight-to-the-point ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ stamps, you can whack a succinct appraisal on documents landing on your desk.

With the phenomenon of Facebook’s ‘like’ button – symbolised by an instantly recognisable thumbs up icon – this age-old hand signal has taken on a whole new lease of life in cyberspace and now on your paperwork.

The Emirates Office Tower is a 54-floor office building along Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is connected with the 56-floor Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel by a retail boulevard. The two towers form what is commonly referred to as the Emirates Towers complex. The tower has a total structural height of 354.6m (1,163ft) and roof height of 311m (1,020ft), making it the 19th-tallest building in the world. The Emirates Office Tower is taller than the neighbouring Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel, but has two fewer floors.

The Emirates Office Tower achieves its iconic status not only from its striking profile, but from its outstanding standards of finish, design and functionality.

Sharp lines and high technology meet in a place which provides the optimum working environment, natural light and panoramic views. Each floor features spectacular views over Dubai, computer based centralised lighting and air conditioning plus impressive public areas and high-speed lifts.

Emirates Office Tower, Dubai, UAE

How about an office in the air? The American president has just that on board the Air Force One aircraft. It’s by no means a conventional plane. Air Force One comprises of 4,000 square feet of floor space, split over three levels. Mr President’s working suite comprises of a large office, additional conference rooms and a very decadent lavatory.

The plane’s other conveniences include a medical suite, complete with an operating theatre and full-time surgeon, two food preparation galleys capable of serving 100 passengers, two big sofas, 85 telephones, 19 televisions, 238 miles of wiring and a treadmill for stretching your legs on those long haul flights.

Air force one

At The Serviced Office Company we love gadgets and are always on the look-out for ones that will brighten up your day in the office.

Here are a couple more practical ones we’ve come across this month.

Brown Paper Lunch Bag

Ah, the brown paper bag. An office lunchtime staple all over the world has just been given a massive and much-needed overhaul.

The Brown Paper Bag lunch bag is made from tear-proof, leak-resistant insulating tyvek; a material that won’t split in the rain or let its contents fall out of the bottom like your conventional paper bag. Where you would twist a normal bag shut, the lunch bag has a sturdy double-magnet at the entrance. The tyvek bag is also insulated so that cool food stays chilled and hot food stays warm for longer.

Equal parts an eco-friendly lunch box, a thermos and an excellently designed piece of retro cool, the lunch bag can be used over and over again. It can even be customised with the use of any standard felt tip pen if you want to give it your own unique spin!

USB Desktop Hoover

It’s a well-known office fact that once you’ve cleaned your desk, it won’t be long until it’s untidy again. Use this handy little USB desktop cleaner and stay on top of the dirt and dust with a quick once-over every so often. Chargeable through any standard USB port, the desk hoover is just 15cm long, making it the perfect tool to clean every nook and cranny on your desk or workspace.

Vodafone is one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies. Following the company’s mission statement “Life in Motion”, architects José António Barbosa and Pedro Guimarães managed to create a building to truly resemble this statement. The HQ in Porto, Portugal, really defies architectural rules and appears to be a structure in motion!

From the outside it seems like the whole building has fallen out of the sky and crashed into its place. The uneven angles and undefined spaces are also a feature of the interior, where vibrant pieces of furniture complete the design.

Now here’s a view with a difference for those meetings. Marina Bay Sands is an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay in Singapore, developed by Las Vegas Sands.

The resort features a 2,561room hotel, a 1,300,000 square foot convention/exhibition centre, an 800,000 square foot “The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands” shopping centre, an iconic ArtScience museum, two large theatres, seven “celebrity chef” restaurants, two floating Crystal Pavilions, an ice skating rink and the world’s largest atrium casino with 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines.

The complex is topped by a 340m long SkyPark with a capacity of 3,900 people and a 150m infinity swimming pool, set on top of the world’s largest public cantilevered platform. The SkyPark also boasts rooftop restaurants, nightclubs, opulent gardens and a public observatory deck with 360 degree views of the Singapore skyline.

What better place to host a meeting or entertain clients!

At The Serviced Office Company we love gadgets and are always on the look-out for ones that will brighten up your day in the office.

The start of a new year is always filled with resolutions. Why not make yours a green one with our top eco finds!

Eco Cup

Why use disposable cups, filling up landfills with waste, when you can have one of these reusable porcelain Eco Cups? This single walled porcelain cup will keep beverages hot for longer with its silicone lid helping to keep heat in, whilst also ensuring you can enjoy your hot beverage on the go without spillage issues. To make it look even more like an average takeaway cup from a coffee house the cup also comes with a handy silicone sleeve in place of the standard cardboard one to make the Eco Cup safe and easy to pick up or hold without risk of burnt fingers.

The Eco Cup will hold approximately 450ml of your favourite beverage and it’s great for people who want to enjoy a takeaway coffee whilst being green in the process.

Frog Drinks Can Crusher

It isn’t easy being green, but we’ve found that with this fab Frog Drinks Can Crusher, it’s a lot easier than you would think! Simply pop an empty aluminium drink can on top of froggy’s feet, then push down firmly on his head and voila, one crushed can ready for entry to the recycling bin.

This froggy can crusher is great for bringing a bit of fun to an otherwise mundane task!