We joined 40,000 of our nearest and dearest design friends at NeoCon this morning for a crash course in the key to unlocking creative office. Oh, and it involves cognitive psychology. (We promise it won’t be over your head. Our GPA wasn’t anything to brag about either.)

Creative office is one of the hottest topics in commercial real estate (1K Fulton, 1871, loft office, oh my!), but asking how you can make space more creative is really the wrong question, author and cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman tells us. (And the space will probably turn out hokey. Not everyone wants a dream board.) Creative productivity in the workplace happens when you activate your employees’ imagination networks, i.e. that inner brain network that sparks during mind wandering and daydreaming. (You thought they were slacking off staring out the window, but that time could translate into your next big piece of business.)

Productivity and innovation (key intangibles for companies’ bottom lines) are natural outgrowths of passion, inspiration, and intrinsic motivation, Scott says. Most of us can’t get our creative juices revved up from high ceilings, open plans, or foosball tables alone. But design principles (like in Herman Miller's "living office," above) can make space an environment that supports innovation by fostering a sense of autonomy (not surveillance), flow, feedback, and belonging (not excessive competition). Inspiration is spontaneous, but you’ll see more of it around the office if employees have daily opportunities to make contact with inspiring material and people. Are any of these principles playing out in you or your tenants/clients' creative spaces? Send marissa.oberlander@bisnow.com your thoughts!