My company is very new, very small. It’s employees are scattered across two US states and one European country. We don’t have an official office (our corporate mailing address is a P.O. box). This is, of course, good and bad. If you’re a regular telecommuter, you already know the pros & cons. For me, there are more cons to working at home since I don’t have a room I can carve out as a workspace. I have kids, a dog, stay-at-home mom, a stocked refrigerator, TVs, etc. Lots of distractions.
So I work wherever I can find a hot spot. Borders / Seattle’s Best and Starbucks mostly. Amante is also nice. Coffee shop offices also have pros and cons. Lots of people moving around, ambient music, loud conversations. I usually just jack-in to my laptop and listen to Radio Paradise to drown it all out and focus.
But I am not alone. The number of people I see conducting business in coffee shops is astounding. Is this the new corporate model? Virtual offices with everyone communicating strictly via e-mail, IM and Skype? Or is this backlash for years of horrible mass volume “office coffee”?
[...] met for coffee at the Starbucks in Broomfield’s FlatIron Marketplace, which had been a common work hide-out for me when I wasn’t traveling. We chatted about NaviGo and my uncertain plans for the [...]