Between Starbucks and Regus

There's a very interesting piece about third place working or co-working facilities - a kind of friendlier serviced office - in Business Week called Where the coffee shop meets the cubicle (also highlighted at BoingBoing). "Over the past few years, co-working facilities—both grassroots, co-op-like versions and for-profit models—have started popping up across the country and the world, from Seattle to Copenhagen," writes Kerry Miller. The article looks at the various benefits, both in terms of networking and collaboration between small businesses, and in terms of dealing with problems of isolation. Lots of excellent examples too in their slideshow here. Thanks to Alan Bucknam for letting me know about this. As he says: "Co-working areas provide a nice social (yet still productive) respite from the isolation of a home office. Don't get me wrong, I love working at home, but sometimes you need to actually interact with others to keep yourself from going cuckoo." I completely agree, which is why it's lucky there is a pub at the end of my road...