Working Anywhere

Co-Working In Unique Places: Libraries

As a child I would go to the library often with my dad. Back then, the library was like being in a house of worship. Silence was the golden rule. Sure there were a few places where people could talk but those were few and far between. That said, when I was in high school, the Northeast Regional Library was where high school class groups would usually meet up to work on projects together. Little did I realize I was co-working in the 70s in a co-working space.

Fast forward to today, the public library may be the lowest cost co-working place around.

Women's CoWorking Spaces Are Growing With Good Reason

I grew up in Philadelphia and was a regular guest of many friends who were members of The Union League, Racquet Club, Rittenhouse Club and The Locust Club back in the 70's and 80s. Back then, the Union League was THE power broker club and was "Men Only" until the mid 80's just like the famed New York Athletic Club that back in 1989 broke the sexism barrier and allowed women in.

When I read about "Women Only" co-working spaces in Time I first thought back to how hard women fought to gain entry to Men Only clubs like those. There was an outdated (and by then outdated) reasons why the "Clubs" kept women out at first, but times and women changed. As more women had entered the workforce and were in leadership positions their being denied entry, curtailed them from the opportunities and dealmaking that was going on the "clubs."  But the more I thought about it, the more I like the idea of women only clubs even if it walks back on what women wanted in the prior generations. With all the upsetting news about sexual harassment and gender bias in today's society (and it isn't going away), giving a woman a place to feel safe, work without the wandering eye or groping hands of men is really good for them. They need sanctuary, much like the men did in their clubs away from the women. The clubs are about business. Not the search for Mr. or Ms. Right Now.

At the same time, it won't be a surprise to me if we see a rise and return of the men only, so called power clubs, like I grew up having lunches at with friends who were members (I was never a member though was asked a few times to join them,) as there can't be a double standard.  That's because clubs and private membership groups can only be one of two things. Inclusive or Exclusive, but not both. 

When In Roam

Grind TV has a nice summary about the Roam Co-working and co-living operation that currently have three properties up and running in Madrid, Miami and Bali. The company, which is promising more locations in the near future, has raised over $3 million dollars to fuel property acquisition and growth around the globe. 

Far more than a hostel or hotel, Roam is creating workspace/livespace communities for the digital nomadic community at relatively modest prices. Given the locations, $500 a week or $1800 a month for a private room and all the co-working facilities is fairly reasonable, especially given the promise of blazing fast, business grade Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity, and a full-time on site manager.

The winds of change in work, travel and residential living are here now, and properties like Roam and WeLive from WeWork are going to become the next phase in work, life, reside. It's only a matter of time and place.

A Man Wakes Up in A Room Without WiFi

We've all become so used to hotel WiFi being there, that when it's not we might go bonkers. But that doesn't always have to happen. At least not when you bring your own broadband.....I'm telling you this because this morning I woke up here in Seattle at the Coutryard by Marriott and the WiFi was connecting, but there wasn't any IP connectivity. I was too tired to care, didn't feel like being the IT guy for the hotel because thankfully I packed my AT&T LTE pocketspot! 

A few hours later, it's all back working. Someone must have called and gotten it fixed, but in the meantime, I wasn't disconnected. Besides, it's Saturday and time to go out and smell the coffee.

Let's Face It, You Get Hungry

Working on the road often means room service. Sometime, working on the road has you staying in extended stay hotels like Homewood Suites by Hilton or Staybridge by IHG. Those offer small kitchens but shopping for food isn't always convenient. Thankfully, today we have options that solve both the "I'm hungry now" and "I need some food in the fridge" for many of us.

For the hungry now crowd, there are now new services like GrubHub, Delivery.com and Doorstep Delivery, all of whom make it easy to have hot, or cold food, salads and beverages delivered usually within an hour.

For those who feel the need food to cook, or simply need things like shaving cream, mouthwash, toothpaste, deodorant, soaps and more, there's now Amazon Fresh in more cities. With Amazon Fresh you can order what you need, in advance or even in some cases, same day, and have it waiting for you. Just make sure there's a way to receive it, where you are staying as some AirBnB or VRBO locations may pose challenges for delivery.

Options on the road for the road warrior are changing, and getting better for us. All it takes is a little knowledged and some planning.

Meraki Sponsors WiFi Access At San Francisco City Hall Chambers

In what should NOT be considered "Free" WiFi, Meraki, the makers of a lightweight mesh networking platform, have sponsored the deployment of WiFi inside San Francisco's City Hall, reports MuniWireless.com

To me there is a huge difference between "free" and "sponsored" even if the general public perceives it to be "free." The rationales are quite simple as the sponsored model in this case is the same as a park's beautification being underwritten by a benefactor. If the benefactor says no more, the ongoing beautification of the park stops until a new one can be found.

In the case of San Francisco, the city won't be subsidizing the WiFi anytime soon, so Meraki stepped in and in a very self serving (in a good way) developed a plan to bring greater attention to the merits and benefits of WiFi.

Well done by all, and hat tip to Esme Vos for drawing attention to this.

Devicescape Makes Printing Easy, Brother

Devicescape, best known for Easy WiFi, the app that makes connecting to multiple hotspot networks including Boingo, T-Mobile and if you can find one, even FON hotspots, has expanded into the connectivity to printers in a deal with Brother.

Hip Work Spot Opens in London-No More Need For Starbucks

Cameron Sinclair pens a piece about a new hipster style work spot called the "Hub Pavilion" that has opened in London this week, over on the Huffington Post.

I think we are seeing the rise of the temporary office, networking "hub" and candidly think Starbucks really missed it.

For many a year I referred to Starbucks as Conference Room "S" to many. You could head over to one, and then organize a meeting. They had chairs, tables you could rearrange, couches, work desks, all that you wanted, and of course, amazing broadband from T-Mobile.

Then somewhere along the way, as their success overcame them, they lost their way. First they turned up the music. Then they turned down the temperature. Next came less and less tables. And then the final blow. Bye Bye T-Mobile and the amazing bandwidth. Hello AT&T and usually a DSL line. A slow DSL line.

These new Hub Spots though are the wave of the future in my book. Already Regus/HQ has opened a similar spot, dubbed the Business Lounge in Cupertino, CA not far from Apple's HQ. While they haven't added all the glitz and "social" components of Hub and Hub Culture, what they have both done is given the road warrior, and the "no need for an office" type of worker, a series of quiet, well decked out and useful locations to get down to work in environments that are serene and very functional.

Plus, they serve better coffee than Starbucks.

Why Wi-Fi Is The Real 4G

Martin Suter of Bel-Air Networks has penned a very strong case for why Wi-Fi is really in my view the baseline that 4G should be measured with.

One point that Martin left out of his well written and very factual account as to why WiFi is so important and a better performer than Mobile 3G data was the need for backhaul.

Backhaul is what gets the data back onto the Internet, it's the upstream tributary that the bits and bytes ride on to reach the Net to be offloaded onto the main Internet. Over the next few years we'll start seeing backhaul backlog and in my view is when you'll start to see things like first class, second class and third class mail rates being applied.

Get ready for tiered pricing, both for speed and for size. Those reasons are why we need more WiFi access, more local loop fiber rings. More local municipal fiber routes and great capacity.

Tales of Hotels and Bandwidth

As a regular road warrior I can’t stress enough the importance of having really solid bandwidth and decent access when you’re traveling. It may seem like a broken record, but for those of us who actually work on the road and consider hotels, coffee shops, remote work sites and friends’ houses an extension of our own office, try in this day and age of living without it.

First, you have to get past the idea that Internet access should be free. It isn’t. So get over it. And, like most things that cost real money, the better the grade of service you get may not always be at the highest price. Much of what I’ve learned about solid, dependable and reliable comes from two things. Trial and error and the willingness to spend money to be well connected.

Let me first blow through some myths that may help others save their hard earned money:

1.       All hotels with the same brand name will deliver the same experience consistently

FALSE—I’ve stayed in Marriotts, Courtyard By Marriotts, Spring Hill Suites, J.W. Marriotts and even with the same provider delivering the so called “same” experience, after the sign-on screen it remains a guessing game as to what the experience will be like once you hit the Net. I’ve stayed at Hilton’s family of properties, even two owned side by side by the same management company and no two experiences have been the same.

2.       The more expensive the chain the better the connectivity will be.
FALSE-I’ve stayed in some places like Accor’s Sofitel a hotel I love and used both their own wired and the T-Mobile Wireless network in the property. T-Mobile blows away the wired network. On the other hand in the same chain’s Pullman Bercy property in Paris, the connectivity is always better wired. Now let’s step it up to Fairmont in San Jose. In the original and older building the connectivity is never as good as the newer, all fiber tower. Why? The way the network was installed. The older network is similar to DSL, while the new fiber network literally moves things faster than any network around. Difference in download speeds can be as much as 20 megs a second. In San Francisco both the new St. Regis and Intercontinental properties have done it right, dropping in 20-50 megs of available bandwidth. However, get in the wrong end of the hall and use the hotel’s Wi-Fi network and your upload speeds will suffer. Instead pack a travel router of your own (know how to change your IP address to avoid conflicts) and make your own wireless cloud with blazing speeds and your own PUBLIC IP address that lets you use VoIP via Skype or any SIP provider (I use three including OnSip, CallCentric and a private Truphone test account) as well as Vidtel’s video with either Counterpath’s Eyebeam on the Mac or Bria on my Netbooks.

3.       Hotels don’t snoop on you.
FALSE- I was staying in the Hilton Santa Clara within the past few years and my connectivity was detected as to doing something wrong. I was on a Mac running both Mail and Entourage, each checking various email accounts using a combination of Exchange, IMAP and POP. I was also running Skype (P2P), Gizmo (SIP), SightSpeed (SIP Video) and a few other IM sessions. Then there was Flash video and audio, plus some uploading to my blog. The monitoring software kicked in and I was kicked off. A call to the provider yielded some insight, but it was obvious the folks on the other end of the line couldn’t tell what caused it. I went up a few levels and found out that it was what is best called, a false flag alert. Still it slowed me down, and cut into the work time I had before an appointment. Note to hotel operators. If you want business travelers, you better know what business travel technology is today.

4.       Consumer grade access points work just as good as the expensive ones from Cisco.
FALSE-All you have to do is go to the beach front hotel offering free Wi-Fi and compare what their D-Link or Netgear consumer grade router does when the hotel fills up vs. the high end Cisco gear found inside the Hotel 1000 in Seattle or the Intercontinental in Boston. Both properties were built the right way from the ground up and the experience proves it. In the case of hotel infrastructure, you get what you pay for too.

Here are some hotels I like that have given me a great business grade experience over the past few years:

Seattle WA- Hotel 1000-without a doubt the smartest of the smart hotels.

Scottsdale, AZ – Courtyard By Marriott– Mayo Clinic

San Jose, CA – Fairmont San Jose

San Francisco-Intercontinental on Howard Street, as well as he St. Regis and W San Francisco.

Philadelphia, PA – Sofitel Philadelphia, Courtyard By Marriott on 13^th Street, Marriott Airport, Embassy Suites on the Parkway

New York City- Sofitel New York and The London

Miami FL – Hyatt’s Hotel Victor and the Renaissance Eden Roc

Las Vegas, NV – Palazzo Hotel and Casino, Renaissance Hotel, L’Hotel at Mandalay Bay

Chicago, IL – Fairmont Chicago

London England-The Andaz and the Metropolitan Hotels

London Heathrow Airport-The Yotel in terminal 4. For the money, best deal going.

Paris France Sofitel (now Pullman) Bercy

Valence France – Novatel Valence Sud

Montpellier France – Sofitel Montpellier (may now be Pullman brand)

Lyon France – Sofitel Place Bellecour

Beaune France – Novatel Beaune

Munich Germany – Hotel Kempenski Munich Airport and Sofitel Munich Bayerpost

Lisbon Portugal - Hotel Heritage Av Liberdade

Madrid Spain-The Urban Hotel

Barcelona Spain Hesperia Presidente and Hotel Prestige Paseo de Gracia

Valencia Spain-Palau de la Mar

 Bottom line. Be selective. You wouldn’t accept poor water pressure from your shower and stay at the hotel again if you like to take long, hot, and rejuvenating showers when on the road. You wouldn’t accept slow delivery of lousy tasting food from room service, so why accept anything less with your hotel broadband.