Working from Anywhere

It turns out that people need people.  Ah, yes.  That's why cities were invented.  And that's why urbanness makes increasing sense to the way we live today.

The Washington Post has a story on today's digital nomads that makes the point.  Clad in shorts, T-shirts and sandals, these nomads work "wherever they find a wireless Web connection to reach their colleagues via instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail and occasionally by voice on their iPhones or Skype."  It is the natural evolution in teleworking. Now that wireless is widespread, workers are fleeing the isolation of home to work where they please --  "especially around other people, even total strangers."

Yesterday, I was re-reading a story Malcolm Gladwell did nine years ago on why workplaces were being remade in the spirit of Jane Jacobs' Greenwich Village. 

Fueling the change, Gladwell asserted, was the need for innovation.  Innovation occurs when people from different domains share ideas.  Most idea sharing across domains and silos happens as a result of accidental meetings.  But, as Gladwell noted, " ...getting people in an office to bump into people from another department is not so easy as it looks." He cited MIT researcher Thomas Malone's work that found that the likelihood that any two people will communicate drops off dramatically as the distance between their desks increases: we are four times as likely to communicate with someone who sits six feet away from us as we are with someone who sits sixty feet away. And people seated more than seventy-five feet apart hardly talk at all.

"Allen's second finding was even more disturbing. When the engineers weren't talking to those in their immediate vicinity, many of them spent their time talking to people outside their company--to their old computer-science professor or the guy they used to work with at Apple. He concluded that it was actually easier to make the outside call than to walk across the room."

What Gladwell didn't anticipate nine years ago is that the workplace he described would eventually be bypassed by the city itself.  Why have a workplace that tries to emulate the city when you can have the city itself?

Coffee shops are standing in today as the office of choice for a growing number of nomads.  Should there be other responses to this trend?  Can cities respond in a smart way?  Can cities actually fuel innovation by the way in which they are designed, particularly as the number of independent workers grows? 

These questions ought to be given serious attention, especially when the economy and jobs growth are challenging all of us and our cities.

  

Brandon, July 26, 2009

What a great article. The way we work is certainly changing and it's for the better. Mobility is liberating. Who wouldn't prefer to work poolside or in a park?

Link: www.globizenproperty.com

Shana, July 27, 2009

Quite a timely story from the Post! I happen to be one of these digital nomads myself, but I've always missed the interaction of an office environment. I have also felt uncomfortable about a possible loss of tacit knowledge that comes with working by oneself. These "jelly" groups are a wonderful way to overcome these issues. There certainly seems to be more people working like this in the coffee shops and libraries I frequent! Great post! Shana Visit the APA Economic Development Division blog at: http://apaeconomicdevelopment.blogspot.com/

joyce mariani, August 5, 2009

Finally....an article that hits home to the way I've been operating and think the way a city innovates. My "office" is a coffee shop, which works. In 2 yrs. raised huge amounts of money for a public space restoration. viva the digital world and cool "offices!"

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