!44: The Math Doesn't Add Up - Why Don't Brick & Mortar Companies Go Virtual?

!±8± The Math Doesn't Add Up - Why Don't Brick & Mortar Companies Go Virtual?

The Mathworks, according to their web site, "is the leading developer and supplier of software for technical computing and Model-Based Design." Certainly a company that specializes in software for technical computing must be home to a technically astute, tech savvy group of employees. One would think a high tech company like this would be a leader in virtual collaboration, actively promoting the need to telecommute, to reduce fuel consumption and wasted travel time. But it seems to be quite the opposite. The Mathworks seems to embrace a "water cooler philosophy", at least that was my take on things when I listened to their presentations to the Natick Planning Board. Why were they addressing the Natick Planning Board? The Mathworks applied to the Town of Natick to dramatically expand their brick and mortar campus, against the vehement objections of abutting neighbors. Neighbors are distraught because every morning there is already a one mile commuter backup in front of the Mathworks campus on Route 9 (and the abutting neighborhoods). Many commuters were cutting through neighborhoods to bypass traffic, the road infrastructure in the area was saturated and Route 9, an overused two lane road, has been two lanes for decades with insufficient room to add another lane. There were also concerns about pollution, noise, water runoff, density and environmental impact.

Regardless of these concerns, the Natick Planning Board allowed The Mathworks to essentially max out their development for parking, density, height and lot capacity. The neighbors in the area often refer to the Natick Planning Board as the "Building Board", because there seems to be an abundance of building and a dearth of planning. Case in point, a massive expansion was approved for the Natick Mall with the accompanying high rise condos and parking garages. And where is the Natick Mall located? Naturally, it is on Route 9, which was two lanes before the massive mall expansion and remains two lanes after the expansion. Ironically, The Mathworks expansion is on the same road, about a mile apart.

There was an abundance of discussion in the Planning Board meetings about The Mathworks' real estate tax contributions, payroll tax contributions and community contributions. I remember listening to a litany of supporters, offering accolades for the economic benefit to the community. These supporters didn't seem to mind that the expansion was so large it was expected to increase road use by approximately 1,500 vehicle trips per day. That's a lot of traffic, a lot of gas and a lot of pollution. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be as much discussion around the resulting pollution issues. In fact, the Natick Conservation Commission told neighbors that air pollution was out of their purview.

Development, zoning, expansion, commuting, and density are a challenge for many communities, with neighbors and local politician's scrambling for elusive answers. An obvious one seems to be telecommuting, distributed workforces and virtual contractors. In an era of rapidly increasing globalization and decreasing fuel reserves, in a time of dramatically improving and inexpensive web meeting solutions, in an age where Netflix offered a Million prize to anyone in the world who could "create an automated system that predicts how users will rate a sample set of films 10 percent more accurately than Netflix's in-house system does". This competition was won by a small hybrid global collaborative team - "a coalition of four teams calling itself BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos - made up of statisticians, machine learning experts and computer engineers from America, Austria, Canada and Israel."*

Why do some companies still promote traditional commuting over telecommuting and brick and mortar infrastructure over virtual business? It seems counter intuitive, particularly for such a high tech company. Perhaps it is old fashioned thinking, perhaps it is a lack of trust, perhaps it simply revolves around the cliché about "teaching old dogs new tricks". Whatever the reason, companies that don't embrace a more virtual model are embracing a commuting centric, oil consumptive, pollution oriented, urban sprawl world, no matter what their intentions or pretenses. The good news is, I'm virtual and can live anywhere. But I feel a sense of sadness for the families in the area that cannot move and the commuters on Route 9 and Route 27 who will be adversely impacted for years.