One of my favorite hotels in New York is the Ace. It’s hip, idiosyncratic, and they even put record players and vintage vinyls in your room to enjoy. Best of all is the lobby - with its free wifi, great Stumptown strength expresso and communal desks - in other words, the perfect place to work. And that, of course, is also the problem. As you can see in this photo I shot on my last visit, hotel guests aren’t the only ones who have decided that it’s more fun to work away from home.
Of all the interesting sociological by-products of the digital revolution - the rise of ‘co-working’ is one of the more curious. The Web has liberated millions of potential office slaves. Either as entrepreneurs low on cash, digital freelancers with a global customer base, or simply creative types who like to pretend they don’t have a real job - coffee shops, hotel lobbies and newly styled ‘co-working’ centers are full of digital nomads who like to work alone, with other people around. As a writer, I totally get the paradox of social solace. If I’m alone at home, I get distracted by the echo chamber of my own mind. In a busy cafe, the white noise and activity can actually help me focus and be more inspired to create.
One of players to watch in this space is Loose Cubes. Think of the company as an Airbnb for the nomadic global co-worker. Jump online and you can find literally thousands of potential cool spaces to work in for the day - whether it be an artist studio in Berlin, or a gamer friendly tech cave in San Francisco. A funky place to work is only part of the appeal. There are also practical benefits of sharing work and projects with similar peers that you might meet at co-working facility. Where Loose Cubes is particularly clever, is that they integrate with Facebook to make office recommendations based on who you know. The dashboard shows if any of your friends know the office host, or whether your contacts have used that space before.
If you feel like you are missing out on all this fun because you are stuck at work - don’t despair. The good news is that ‘the office’ per se, is not the problem. Given the choice, freelancers seem to prefer somewhere to work rather than staying at home. So ask yourself this. How does your space stack up? if your office was listed on a website that people could choose to hang out in - would anyone do it? And if not, why not? Keep asking that question enough, and maybe someone will do something about it.
