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Social media is all about user/customer interaction — that much we know. But many businesses value staff engagement as well. Pinterest‘s collaborative approach encourages employees to not only get to know each other, but also to communicate their personalities and tastes to the wider public.

Marketing and communications agency Red Door Interactive recently launched a Pinterest project that encourages staff members to contribute ideas and inspiration for its new office. The board, titled “San Diego Office Inspiration,” encourages 63 staff member contributors to pin interior design, architectural and decor ideas for the new office, which they’ll be relocating to Oct. 2012.

Red Door’s director of social media, Crosby Noricks, is an early adopter of Pinterest, and was even featured on the social network’s blog back in Sept. 2011. She decided that Red Door’s collaborative office inspiration project was the perfect way to launch the brand’s own Pinterest presence.

“We value the opinions and aesthetic preferences of all our employees and have really enjoyed their discoveries as well as seeing the engagement on our collective suggestions,” she says.

SEE ALSO: Why Is Pinterest So Addictive? [INFOGRAPHIC]

And the sky’s the limit when it comes to inspiration. Red Door’s new office space will be significantly bigger than its old digs, and the staff was not given a budget cap. “This was unrelated to budget — it was more about collaboration, contribution and of course, inspiration,” says Noricks. “We encouraged a ‘dream big’ approach to creating the ideal office.”

Turns out, the staff is dreaming about gymnastics-inspired meeting spaces, giant hammocks and vertical gardens for its new office. Noricks adds her two cents: “I’m personally voting for the treadmill desks and a photobooth!”

Here’s a look at how a number of companies are encouraging their employees to get involved via Pinterest.

1. Red Door Interactive

Red Door employees are encouraged to share their versions of the perfect office as inspiration for the company's upcoming move.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Business, design, engagement, office, pinterest, Social Media, Startups

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A new study from Trend Micro shows that more workers around the globe are using social networks while in the office and on the clock.The survey took a look at the habits of 1,600 InternetInternet

users from the U.S., UK, Germany and Japan and found that over the past two years alone, social web use in the workplace has risen from 19% to 24%. In Germany specifically, social media use at work saw a 10% increase.It's still unclear whether this gradual but significant rise is being used to drive our businesses ahead, or if we're instead wasting our companies' time and money -- a distinction that's especially important to managers concerned with network security and productivity issues.For workers on laptops, these numbers are even higher -- 8% globally and 14% in Germany. All told, almost a third of laptop users around the world will use social websites while at work.A company's size also seems to make a difference whether or not employees will use social sites while at work. Especially in the U.S. and Japan, workers at larger companies are more likely to stay off social networks -- perhaps due to firewalling or other forms of restricted access. In the UK and Germany, however, employees at big companies are slightly more likely to browse the social web while at the office.Of course, many IT and project managers are concerned about loss of productivity and compromised network security due to social media use on work computers. But this increase could also be due to the rise in social media marketing and other social-based multitasking tools as much as slacking off. Remember that, once upon a time, general Internet use at work was considered frivolous; now, most of us use at least some websites to do our work every day.We might not be the best judges, though, since our jobs involve a lot of day-to-day social media use. What's your workday like? Do you use social media for business purposes? Is there some gray area between true productivity and pure socializing? Or are you a FacebookFacebook-using slacker while at work?Let us know about your social media and work overlap in the comments.[img credit: Balakov]

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