The New Office Space: Going Bedouin

Om Malik’s guest columnist, Jackson West, explores the The New Office Space, namely wifi-enabled cafes, all over San Francisco, and the various protocols that are springing up:

Of course, the business of coffee shops is to sell food and coffee, not to take the place of VC-run incubator offices. While some have dealt with the problem of freeloaders by charging for their Wifi, this often turns geeks away. Coffee to the People in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury is trying to come up with guidelines, and the issue of coffee shop etiquette is a popular topic of discussion among digerati. Some cafe owners only share the WEP or WPA key with paying customers, limit the number of wall jacks to recharge batteries, or shut down wifi on the weekends to encourage offline socializing.

Niall Kennedy has proposed a number of ideas for proprietors to keep up their cash flow and the loyalty of the laptop-toting set. Other services, such as community office space offered by Coworking, have also begun to answer the needs of freelancers and small startups who need a place to plug in. Backoffice wikis, group chat and social calendars also promise to make it easier for teams of nomads to work as a group even if scattered across the four corners of the globe.

I was intrigued by the notion of guidelines — like recommending the number of dollars per hour you should be spending to mooch off the free WIFI — a sort of self-policing model. Reminds me of the joke about Cambridge: “they are so hip in Cambrdige there is a co-op bar where you can make your own drink, pay and make change, and if you get shitfaced you have to throw yourself out.”

Om suggests making a Google mashup for the list of cafes that Jackson lists: no need to. Just use Plazes! They have already built the mashup with Google maps, and a number of the bedouins — like me — have been tagging and reviewing the various wifi-enabled spots in the Bay Area and beyond. I have tagged over 124 wifi spots using Plazes (just behind Joi Ito!), most of which are cafes.

Today’s high tech bedouins leave marks behind, through tools like Plazes, as a secret semiotics, so that others following will know which are the best oases.