Sneak keeps hearing about an imaginative approach to workplace ergonomics coming out of the US, called work-walking, or walk-working, or walk-and-work. As the names suggest, this is basically working while walking - which in short involves replacing the ordinary office desk with an ordinary office desk on stilts, and replacing the normal office chair with a gym-style treadmill. The main motivation for this seems to be to attack the growing plague of obesity, worsened by jobs that involve no exercise beyond hauling a mouse across a mat.

Sneak thinks the proponents of the combined desk and gym are missing a trick, however. The average corporate laptop drains a battery at a rate of about 15 watts, whereas walking on a treadmill burns up about 100 kilocalories per hour, or 116 watts. It seems enough energy is going spare to power a laptop if the treadmill is hooked to a dynamo, with suitable audio/visual prompts (or perhaps physical prods) to go faster as required.

Go green, get fit. What could go wrong? Other than all the lawsuits for sprained ankles. Plus, of course, your office will smell like a locker room...

29 May 2007