Skip to main content

Alternative Offices

I was telling folks about Ritual Roasters over a year ago. Its not a coffee house, it's an alternative workspace! It feels good to be validated by the SF Chronicle, check it out:

WHERE NEO-NOMADS' IDEAS PERCOLATE
New 'bedouins' transform a laptop, cell phone and coffeehouse into their office

There are just some huge limitations to working from home. I like going to cafes because I get bored with working on my kitchen table in my tiny apartment. I cant even bring clients here it's just that lame. Besides, the coffee at Ritual is fantastic.

I've actually observed users at Ritual Roasters. OK I worked on mail.aol.com and I did a little guerrilla style research in some cafes (just glancing over some shoulders). I observed allot of email and messaging. I have also witnessed (and been party to) a few client reviews and meetings there at Ritual Roasters. I wish there more Ritual-like cafes would spring up all over the place.

What is YOUR favorite 'alternative workspace'?
Labels:

Comments

  1. hollyster9:13 PM, March 14, 2007

    I like Orchard Valley Coffee Shop in Campbell. It has a home town feel where sometimes people bring dogs. There is always a chess game going on or a book club... REALLY cool!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Human / Nature

About twelve years ago I didn’t really understand Climate Change but I was actually looking forward to it, sort-of like a good mystery I could become enthralled with.  At the time all I knew was I wanted a different lifestyle, and I thought, maybe Climate Change might make that happen? Maybe my life will actually be better because of it?  I had this fantasy about being a self sufficient bohemian gourmet, growing my own food harvested right in my yard. Mother Earth magazine seemed so bucolic. I wanted the opposite of my cramped apartment in San Francisco. In 2008 Climate Change was just an excuse to make changes, quit a job and move.   I moved East, close to my dad. I didn’t mention anything about Climate Change to my father, a total denier who was a meteorologist when he was in his 20s. There was no amount of practical data that would change his mind. He retired in ’93, with nothing to be stressed about so he simply didn’t care about anything but football, fishing and food.  
Post a Comment
Read more

UX Design Process aka Web Product Design Process

So... I'm on Pinterest updating a 'board' for my portfolio and I discover that other people have pinned my Experience Design Process graphic from my website. Apparently this graphic comes right up in Google Searches if you search on on Experience Design Process. Since the image on my site is small I'm re-posting the graphic here! Can anybody guess what this image was originally create for? I don't know what I was thinking about these colors! So what is going on here? In the middle of the graphic is a series of linear main steps to take in order to design an interactive digital product. The process starts with identifying a project's goals and ends with meeting those goals. In order to meet those goals you need to do some careful work... Surrounding the steps are a set of tasks (or methodologies) to perform in order to complete each step of the process. Over-arching the entire process are guidelines like "vetting" and "informed iteratio
Post a Comment
Read more

The Unsatisfying Story of Vegan Penn Jillette

Every so often my husband will mention how he’s interested in becoming vegetarian. Yesterday he was telling me about Penn Jillette, the famous comedian from Penn & Teller. He had read how Jillette is now a vegan, saying with personal interest that Jillette said “he feels so much better now.” First I was perplexed, we are both Penn & Teller fans and as performers over the years Penn Jillette struck me as an unapologetic manly man, veganism seems totally at odds with his character. I also barked at my burger loving husband, “What would you eat if you became a vegan? What do you even like that’s vegetarian?” There was no reply because my husband leaves all the food decisions up to me and I am nowhere close to being a vegetarian myself.  I wanted to know more about this so I go online and Google ‘Penn Jillette Vegan’ and found this LA Times article ;  “At 6 feet, 6 inches and 330 pounds, he was hospitalized for his high blood pressure and a 90% heart blockage. Already taki
Post a Comment
Read more