With many cafes offering free Wi-Fi access and a growing number of people having laptops, iPads and iPhones, working from a cafe has become an attractive alternative to offices.
Rachel Wells wrote: This has always been a favourite spot for writers of various types, even before computers when they would scribble in their notebooks as they slowly sipped their coffee and gained inspiration for their stories from the other people in the cafe. (For example see the recent blog of a writer calling himself Hack the Novelist)
It is also appealing to business people as well. Natalie Frid of Melbourne, who works some days at the 'coffice' and some days from home, was quoted as saying: ''Working in an office, nine floors up in the sky behind closed doors, doesn't lend itself to someone walking by, joining you for a coffee and offering an opportunity for new business. Cafe offices do."
Quoted was Ben Kingsley is the director of a wealth advisory business specialising in residential property, is a regular at a new North Melbourne eatery which also has two private meeting rooms which seat eight to 10, can be booked and are free, though people using them are expected to order catering.
Mr Kingsley says: "Our business is very much about people and relationship building. For example, we recently had a meeting with a prospective employee at the cafe because we wanted to see how they handled themselves in a social environment rather than in a stale boardroom.'' (www.smh.com.au)
Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson, a retired Baptist minister said that Missions have been doing this sort for thing for as long as he can remember. The idea is a well proven one. The writers were spot on.
"I've held mission meetings in airport meeting rooms, in cafes and restaurants, in motels and hotels; I've had consultations over morning and afternoon tea, breakfast, lunch and dinner," M V Tronson explained. "As I have travelled a lot over several decades, I often have limited time and no other private office in which to meet people in any one place. This for missionaries is nothing new."
In more recent times, he has noticed that there are some 'new' ideas at these meetings. Many mission people now each have their own laptops; and in one memorable meeting, many people (led by the younger generation) had smart phones or tablets or Blackberries and for them, it was their walking office equipment.
So he fully understands why some business people have discovered this convenient way of utilising this type of community meeting space.
Like the missionaries and writers before them, they are finding inventive ways to minimise their office expenses. Moreover internet access allows the "office" to be anywhere.
Mark Tronson now has the latest 3G internet access where a simple plug-in can allow anyone to access the internet almost anywhere! In other words, one does not even need a venue that has Wi-Fi access, as long as there is 3G mobile phone reception.
This is what Mark Tronson carries with him when mission travelling or when at the Basil Sellers Laguna Quays Respite facility on the Whitsundays. His plan allows him more than enough access for a two-week trip.
So although mission people have always been prepared to set up their office wherever they happen to be, in recent years it has become even more convenient to have their base "wherever" and "whenever" as the internet and Skype have made the location of even the "home office" immaterial.