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The Co-Working Belfast guys (David Rice and Andy McMillan) are really hoping that some of you will pledge a desk in the co-working building they have planned for Belfast. I’ve already pledged a desk (that I’ll be unlikely to use but will pay for anyway) and Mac-Sys is pledging a couple of iMacs. A lot … Continue reading “Co-Working Belfast”
The Co-Working Belfast guys (David Rice and Andy McMillan) are really hoping that some of you will pledge a desk in the co-working building they have planned for Belfast.
I’ve already pledged a desk (that I’ll be unlikely to use but will pay for anyway) and Mac-Sys is pledging a couple of iMacs. A lot of this depends on other people who are interested in finding an inexpensive workplace where they will meet other ‘working’ people.
Watch David and Andy’s blogs for more.
The Economist on Techno-Bedouin. “The proper metaphor for somebody who carries portable but unwieldy and cumbersome infrastructure is that of an astronaut rather than a nomad, says Paul Saffo, a trend-watcher in Silicon Valley. Astronauts must bring what they need, including oxygen, because they cannot rely on their environment to provide it. They are both … Continue reading “Bedou-working…”
The Economist on Techno-Bedouin.
“The proper metaphor for somebody who carries portable but unwieldy and cumbersome infrastructure is that of an astronaut rather than a nomad, says Paul Saffo, a trend-watcher in Silicon Valley. Astronauts must bring what they need, including oxygen, because they cannot rely on their environment to provide it. They are both defined and limited by their gear and supplies.”
“Urban nomads have started appearing only in the past few years. Like their antecedents in the desert, they are defined not by what they carry but by what they leave behind, knowing that the environment will provide it. Thus, Bedouins do not carry their own water, because they know where the oases are. Modern nomads carry almost no paper because they access their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Increasingly, they don’t even bring laptops.”
This is parallel to the Co-Working strategy that David and Andy have been working on.
It’s a tall order to fill a co-working space. Even at an offer acceptance of £10 000 per annum, that still means the costs will likely be £18 000 per year (when you add £6800+ in rates and minimal electricity) not including broadband and heating – that’s £1500 a month! To bring the costs to a manageable level that people might want to pay, you’re going to have to aim for occupancy of around 15+. You could do it with less people (paying more) but you’re then really buying into the idea that people will pay for a co-working environment.
I’ve already said that Mac-Sys will put money down to secure a space (which will likely be used once in a blue moon) and we’ll also supply some of the infrastructure as well, if required. I hope it works out – I’m a little jealous of the guys involved as my dance card is totally filled at the moment (with work, babysitting, writing the new book, spending time with her indoors and trying to actually live life!).
I still have my own dreams regarding a Co-Work space that will likely never be realised due to the costs and time it would take to set up (and the fact it’s not an affair for an attic). My theory is that a co-work space needs to have it’s own identity and, if necessary, it’s own employees. Someone needs to be responsible for cleaning the loos, someone needs to keep the place running, chase up the co-conspirators for rent money – and just like in a shared house, that can be incredibly wearing on the patience. Hence you hire someone to do it.
This is why my idea for it was based around the coffee shop. The idea being to straddle the space between public coffee shop and serviced office. I was never 100% sure if Belfast was the right place for it but I still would like to give it a go.
It needs more than just an office though. It needs to be a network.
Twinkle is the first iPhone product I’m looking forward to. Though it’s Twitter-based and could be opened to being a blogging client, it has the essentials – support for the camera support for conversations support for locations! Looking forward to June! Related posts: Nokia N800 versus iPod touch I want email everywhere Location Location Location … Continue reading “Twinkle: a location-aware Twitter client.”
Twinkle is the first iPhone product I’m looking forward to. Though it’s Twitter-based and could be opened to being a blogging client, it has the essentials –
Looking forward to June!
Publicspace.net I took my MBA on holiday to Spain over the Easter break and it’s just awesome as a light travel companion. It worked flawlessly, was no hassle lugging around the airport, worked fine on the Hotel’s free wireless network and best of all: it fits into a normal size room safe. No more chaining … Continue reading “MacBook Air for the Traveller?”
I took my MBA on holiday to Spain over the Easter break and it’s just awesome as a light travel companion.
It worked flawlessly, was no hassle lugging around the airport, worked fine on the Hotel’s free wireless network and best of all: it fits into a normal size room safe. No more chaining up your notebook to the radiators (of which they were of course none) or just worrying about it getting stolen.
The MacBook Air: the only way to travel.
As I lug my 17″ MacBook Pro around the house, I do notice how bulky and heavy it is but then it’s a desktop replacement. That said, even the 17″ screen cannot adequately serve my needs for screen space as an hour working with XCode today proved. I need maybe 2x the amount of space which would be ably served by an external screen. But, I hear you say, external screens are not particularly portable and that’s very true.
I have been spoiled though. Would you believe that I actually enjoy fetching the MacBook Air owned by my SO from another room? It allows me a couple of minutes to hold the unit, appreciate the thin-ness of the unit, how light it is and how easy it is to carry along with other things. I can definitely see a MacBook Air in my future. Just not before the wedding.
If I do go down that road, however, I’ll have to re-jig some of the hardware we have lying around. I’ll need a capacious file server more than ever. And somewhere to work with a massive screen. I’m tired of fiddling about with only 1680×1050 on screen (I missed out on the high res screens and I would now love to have one of the 1920×1200 screens on this baby).
The MacBook Air, with only 1280×800 is a significant decrease in screen space but makes up for it with simple portability. Attach an external screen to it and you’ve got one really useful workstation. A laptop that is actually portable for once. And when you’re at a desk, a huge amount of real estate to play with – which is why I intend to leave a large screen or two at the local co-working place, should it progress.
HiveLogic on getting into The Zone in modern offices: “There’s no choice about how or when you’re expected produce, or under what circumstances. Here is your computer, here is your workstation, you have the tools, the florescent lights are turned on, why don’t you go ahead and get to work, thanks, bye.” “In a best … Continue reading “Co-Working guidelines.”
HiveLogic on getting into The Zone in modern offices:
“There’s no choice about how or when you’re expected produce, or under what circumstances. Here is your computer, here is your workstation, you have the tools, the florescent lights are turned on, why don’t you go ahead and get to work, thanks, bye.”
“In a best case scenario, they do a mediocre job and feel OK at the end of the day. In the worst case, they’re miserable.”
The article mentions co-working in passing but I want to focus on the above paragraph. There is an idea that co-working is a “phenomenon” and there are some who think it might be a panacea to their productivity woes.
Looking at the quote above gives one aspect that can’t be ignored. You arrive in $BIG_COMPANY and if their processes are working correctly, you should have a desk, a computer, a phone and it’s just a case of getting your userid for the system, setting your passwords and starting to work (which may or may not include weeks of reading documentation). For some people this will idyllic, for others sufficient and for some of you, it may sound like hell on earth.
So what to do about it? The co-working movement assumes some things.
In short, you need to be a good co-working citizen and expect the same from others.
If you are considering a co-working facility, you could do worse than to have a look at David Rice’s blog where these questions are being considered.
One thing that is nice about John Dvorak is that he truly has a visionary streak. In all the years I’ve read about technology, Dvorak has seldom been right. He’s managed to cherry-pick the absolutely wrong from the blatantly obvious for years. That has to count for something. The rant this week is that he … Continue reading “Mobile/Portable Computing Caveats”
One thing that is nice about John Dvorak is that he truly has a visionary streak. In all the years I’ve read about technology, Dvorak has seldom been right. He’s managed to cherry-pick the absolutely wrong from the blatantly obvious for years. That has to count for something.
The rant this week is that he reckons in 2008, the perfect machine is a big old clunky desktop manufactured from the cheapest components. He rails about others who use laptops (and who can’t keep a cup of coffee from landing on it) or PDA/Smartphones (and who can’t remember not to drop it in the toilet bowl).
There is a difference between portable and mobile computing. Using a laptop is certainly now portable computing. You port this device from location to location and when you stop moving and find a seat, you work. Because the device is portable, it is possible to leave it in a cafe, forget to pick it up out of the taxi, have it lifted by some larcenous scumbag. There’s definitely a liability with it but the convenience outweighs the dversities. Conversely, using a phone/PDA is what I call mobile computing. You can reply to email or update your blog while standing in a queue. Unlike a laptop, the smartphone likely even follows you to the toilet (which is why some people have dropped theirs in the bowl). Now, I’m not advocating ‘plogging’ (though Twenty is about a decade too late to have claimed to have invented it), but there’s definitely a difference between using a smartphone and a laptop.
His main attack on portable and mobile computing is with regard to backups – both of data and of a workable machine and the relative cost of replacement.
Backup Your Data
“They drag the machine everywhere, and if it gets lost or broken, they’re toast, since they never perform any kind of backup. (Nobody backs up much these days.) Even if people do back up, though, they’re likely still SOL since the restore function typically doesn’t work well when a new machine is involved.”
Backups do happen, especially for smart folk that use Mac OS X along with Time Machine or Time Capsule. The backup argument is well made but it shouldn’t be singled out against laptop users. Everyone should backup. It’s not hard to do, it’s not expensive. Unless of course your laptop doesn’t hold your Data. James at Eirepreneur has been torturing himself with an eee PC for a week or so and keeps all of his documents in the Cloud (Google Docs, GMail, etc). The downside to using web services is that without Internet coverage you’re screwed. Is this a bad thing? Not really. It’s widespread and cheap. Similarly with a smartphone it’s likely that your documents on the phone are backed up to your ‘main’ computer so your data will not be lost.
Dvorak’s whine that restores don’t work well. Well. That’s just him. He uses Windows you know.
Backup your hardware
“And these devices are poised to become the next desktop replacement platform? Splash. Splash. Splash.”
This needs reinforced. If you work for a living and your machine gets toasted, ideally you should have a new machine pronto because the cost of being out of action will quickly offset the cost of getting the new machine. Every business should keep at least one spare machine. It doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest. Even a low end MacBook at £699 is a great machine for a spare. How long would it take for your worker to make back the £699? A day or three? And after his usual machine has been restored to full working order, you still have the spare for the next time (or as a loaner to a staff member who really wants to work from home). The cost is easily made back. So buy a spare already. Making your livelihood (whether you’re a sole trader or an employee) depend on a single machine is simply stupid. Or, if you don’t want to plonk down the readies for a machine that will gather dust, make friends with your local AASP as they’re likely to be able to supply you with a loaner or machine to rent in the interim. You will have to pay for the privilege but again, how many days before you’d make it back?
His page 2 arguments are easy enough to defeat. He mentions ten reasons to keep using desktops which are all ‘easier’ or ‘harder’ and none of them are absolutes. The one advantage of laptops and smartphones is an absolute however. There are desktops that are more expensive than laptops. There are laptops with immense amounts of internal storage. And they can also use USB drives too, John. But there are no desktops which are as portable as a laptop or smartphone. Period. Or that can be used for a couple of hours on a train journey. Or while waiting for your partner to finish browsing in a shop. Portability is an absolute and that’s why these devices are popular.
This article is not about refuting Dvorak because that could quickly become a full time job. This is about establishing behaviours for the next generation of knowledge worker.
…would be a last point that needs underlined. Dvorak’s wisdom extends to any uses of Smartphones or laptops. But he made the title of the article “The iPhone is no desktop” which shows a couple of things.
Cheap tricks designed to lure people in to view his ads and get more revenue.
But take what I say on board. Don’t think the right method is the Dvorak method – “go back to using a cheap desktop”. The right method is to back up your data. To have a spare machine. And to be careful while plogging.
Back in 2006 I seriously investigated the possibility of setting up a co-working facility in Belfast. At the time I was pretty much asset-free 🙂 I had a working, profitable business but not enough capital to undertake something of this magnitude. We were looking at a 3 storey building within half a mile of Queen’s … Continue reading “more on co-working”
Back in 2006 I seriously investigated the possibility of setting up a co-working facility in Belfast. At the time I was pretty much asset-free 🙂 I had a working, profitable business but not enough capital to undertake something of this magnitude. We were looking at a 3 storey building within half a mile of Queen’s University as a potential location for this nascent business. We worked out cash flows based on a café, with pay-for workspace ranging from shared desks to enclosed, secured offices. We even drew maps and applied for funding but, being asset-free, I was kinda buggered when it came to financing it.
Just bad timing really and I think that maybe my plans were a little over the top.
It doesn’t mean, however that they were bad plans, I just didn’t have the reach I needed. I probably still don’t have the reach I need but I do have other potential plans. For instance, considering moving Mac-Sys to the centre of Belfast (because, yes, it’s a pain to get to Mallusk to get a simple Mac repair done) and sharing the resulting space with a Co-Work facility has been heavy on my mind for a while and definitely given solidity by the co-working thoughts bandied around last night.
Darryl Collins, local poster-boy for entrepreneurship, writes about how nicking Wifi is bad. I caught this piece on Radio 4’s “You and Yours†last Thursday. I was so incensed by the lack of balance they were giving the issue of people accessing open wifi networks that I went back and listened again. … The Home … Continue reading “Steal WiFi: 5 years in prison.”
Darryl Collins, local poster-boy for entrepreneurship, writes about how nicking Wifi is bad.
I caught this piece on Radio 4’s “You and Yours†last Thursday. I was so incensed by the lack of balance they were giving the issue of people accessing open wifi networks that I went back and listened again.
…
The Home Office call it “theft of bandwidth†and that “stealing that internet space is potentially an offence under the Computer Misuse Act and Communications Actâ€The penalty is up to 5 years in prison!
I think that Darryl agrees with me when I suggest that anyone running a Wireless network in 2008 should reasonably be expected to secure their network to their desires. I wrote about it here and here.
As I said:
Next they’ll be arresting people for illegally smelling the perfume and aftershave of people as they walk past. Or illegally hearing conversations spoken aloud in a public place.
The government are taking this very seriously of course and have assigned someone to look after all of this. He has to, of course, be utterly out of his depth when talking about technology. Days like this make me want to become a politician. But not that much.
Careful, Darryl, your blog could be considered an admission of guilt.
“self-funded small business that encourages people to stay away from the VCs, says you don’t need to live in San Francisco to be successful, suggests that charging for your products is a good thing, espouses the advantages of small teams, applauds shorter work weeks with more reasonable hours, rejects the notion of traditional ‘seriousness business … Continue reading “Working conditions”
“self-funded small business that encourages people to stay away from the VCs, says you don’t need to live in San Francisco to be successful, suggests that charging for your products is a good thing, espouses the advantages of small teams, applauds shorter work weeks with more reasonable hours, rejects the notion of traditional ‘seriousness business stuff,’ and believes keeping it simple is the way to success.â€
Jason Calacanis was hounded a little last week with his comments about workaholics but it’s worth looking at what he said rather than the rants about how people interpreted them.
when you don’t love what you do it sucks.
I can totally empathise with this as I keep working on trying to do the switch again? Explain? Okay. I will, but not here.
Jason also says
Very much paraphrased here…and removing some points which I don’t feel can apply universally.
This, the Jason Calacanis/37Signals model is the model I already run with for the most part, but there are limits, e.g.
but the issue with all of this is in terms of equality. Rolling out something to one group and not another isn’t egalitarian and therefore I’m not willing to consider it. It’s not an issue at the moment because the hosting company and Infurious are both still in startup mode. Working conditions are not bad at all – it’s not a stressed environment, they get to work with interesting people every day, they do stuff they enjoy and the only aggro was who gets to play their music on the Airport Express. But it’s not perfect, we’re starting to get tight on space and I’m feeling more and more that a city centre location (or one walkable to from the major bus and train stops) would be better for everyone.
I think 2008 will be a time for me to work on improving the working conditions for everyone.
37Signals are one of those companies that you either love or hate, I guess. I like them a lot, with their cheeky, no-nonsense approach to things. It’s true that a lot of problems come down to doing the right thing so you have to ask – what are the barriers to doing the right thing? … Continue reading “Workplace Experiments”
37Signals are one of those companies that you either love or hate, I guess. I like them a lot, with their cheeky, no-nonsense approach to things. It’s true that a lot of problems come down to doing the right thing so you have to ask – what are the barriers to doing the right thing?
At our company-wide get together last December we decided that 2008 was going to be a year of workplace experiments. Among other things, we discussed how we could make 37signals one of the best places in the world to work, learn, and generally be happy.
They’ve implemented the following so far:
Love them or hate them you have to admit it’s pretty forward thinking. Some people will dislike the environment in a 4 day week and you could follow the pattern recursively until down to a 0-day week and then they’d be happy. You’d be out of business soon after and then they’d be sad. But they’d blame you.
The last two points deal with money and my opinion is that if it can reasonably be counted as a work expense then it probably should be one. For example, woodworking and pilots lessons would not, but driving lessons might, as should cooking, because really, everyone benefits from cooking lessons.
I think that it should be standard practise for a technology company that is established to have some sort of account with O’Reilly or one of the other book vendors so that the staff can get reasonable access to decent materials like these. If there’s an IT conference, let them go. (in comparison, getting just paid leave to go an IT conference is difficult in $BIG_CORP even if you’re paying your own travel and subsistence).
Why not just pay a higher salary?
Well, for a 4 day week, you’ve just got a 20% bonus. And if you provide a higher salary, people will adjust their lifestyle to fill it and still want work to buy books. And then you have to consider the tax implications. It quickly gets to a point where you’re going to pay people more money just for a third of it (or more) to go straight to the government. And no-one likes that.
My interest in this comes more from the work-life balance. I’m more interested in the results from a 4 day week or from the opportunities to be gained from remote working or working from home. In my experience it made me a lot happier. I missed out on being in the office but my team was virtual anyway – we only spoke over the phone or via email/IM.