> Sunday, March 11, 2007 (SF Chronicle) > WHERE NEO-NOMADS' IDEAS PERCOLATE/New 'bedouins' transform a > laptop, cell phone and coffeehouse into their office > Dan Fost, Chronicle Staff Writer > > > A new breed of worker, fueled by caffeine and using the tools of > modern > technology, is flourishing in the coffeehouses of San Francisco. > Roaming > from cafe to cafe and borrowing a name from the nomadic Arabs who > wandered > freely in the desert, they've come to be known as "bedouins." > San Francisco's modern-day bedouins are typically armed with > laptops and > cell phones, paying for their office space and Internet access by > buying > coffee and muffins. > "In 'Lawrence of Arabia,' the bedouins always felt like they > were on the > warpath. They had greater cause," said Niall Kennedy, a 27-year-old > San > Franciscan who quit his day job at Microsoft Corp. to run his own Web > company, Patrick Media, out of cafes and a rented desk. "At a startup, > you're always on the go, plowing ahead, with some higher cause driving > you." > San Francisco's bedouins see themselves changing the nature of the > workplace, if not the world at large. They see large companies like > General Motors laying off workers, contributing to insecurity. And > at the > same time, they see the Internet providing the tools to start > companies on > the cheap. In the Bedouin lifestyle, they are free to make their own > rules. > "The San Francisco coffeehouse is the new Palo Alto garage," > declares > Kevin Burton, 30, who runs his Internet startup Tailrank without > renting > offices. "It's where all the innovation is happening." > Burton and Kennedy are among those popularizing the bedouin name, > separating the movement from traditional freelancing by stressing the > workers' involvement in technology, in general, and Web 2.0 > ideology in > particular. While the movement is at its apex in San Francisco, where > young urban independents can easily find a coffeehouse with the > right vibe > for them, it's also happening across the more suburban reaches of > the Bay > Area, and across the country as a whole. > The move toward mobile self employment is also part of what > author Daniel > Pink identified when he wrote "Free Agent Nation" in 2001. > "A whole infrastructure has emerged to help people work in this > way," Pink > said. "Part of it includes places like Kinkos, Office Depot and > Staples." > It also includes places like Starbucks and independent coffee > shops, where > Wi-Fi -- wireless Internet access for laptops and other devices -- is > available. > "The infrastructure makes it possible for people to work where > they want, > when they want, how they want," said Pink, who is based in Washington, > D.C. Pink said numbers are hard to pin down, as the Census Bureau > does not > count independent workers. Using available census data and private > surveys, Pink estimates that one-fifth of the workforce, or 30 > million out > of 150 million people, are working on their own. > In February 2005, the census identified 10.3 million independent > contractors, 2.5 million on-call workers, 1.2 million temporary help > agency workers, and 813,000 workers with contract firms. The > independent > workforce is hard to track, as the workers are neither employee nor > employer -- and yet, in what Pink termed a "Zen turn," they are both > employee and employer. > "It's been a slow steady trajectory over the last 15 or 20 years > for a > whole host of reasons. One of them, obviously, is there's no > lifetime job > security any more. I'm going to be more secure working for myself." > Pink calls it "Karl Marx's revenge, where individuals own the > means of > production. And they can take the means of production and hop from > coffee > shop to coffee shop." > Funny he should mention Marx. Soviet iconography is popping up > all over > the Bay Area's bedouin landscape, from the coffee cup and star on > the red > background of Ritual Roasters' logo, to the cell phone and mouse > that look > suspiciously like a hammer and sickle on the logo of Web Worker > Daily, a > blog that covers the bedouin phenomenon. > Web Worker Daily is published by GigaOm, a media company that > practices > what it preaches. Om Malik, 40, a technology journalist who lives > in San > Francisco's Financial District, started blogging five years ago and > last > year quit his day job, taking an undisclosed amount of venture > capital to > launch GigaOm as a business. He now has a full-time staff of five > and a > team of freelancers, all scattered about, contributing to different > online > journals. One is in Oakland, one in San Mateo, two in San Francisco > and > one at Lake Tahoe, he said. The freelancers are in Utah, Denver, New > Jersey, Washington, D.C., and spread around the world. > "There is nothing more free than being a Web worker," Malik > says. "There > is no boss. You work for yourself. This is the new Wild West. The > individual is more important. That's the American way. It's about > doing > things your own way. Web workers represent that. ... It's the > future, my > friend." > There is a downside, Malik readily admits. "I can put in an 18- > hour day," > he said. "You don't know when to stop." > The Starbucks model > If you could split the Web workers into two main camps, you > could say that > one camp plugs in at Starbucks, while the other chooses independent > neighborhood cafes. The two have vastly different ethics. > Starbucks offers a more corporate culture, and is a popular > place for > business meetings. Executives who travel a lot often prefer Starbucks, > knowing they can find many branches in whatever city they go to. > They also > pay for the Wi-Fi, through Starbucks' partnership with T-Mobile. > Malik, for instance, swears by his Starbucks. (He doesn't want > to say > where it is, for fear that publicists from the companies he covers > will > stake him out there and ruin the experience.) "The biggest day of > my own > little boy life was when my own local Starbucks made me 'customer > of the > week,' " Malik said. "That's a Web worker gold medal." > Yet many of the scrappier startups, particularly those who have > not taken > funding from venture capitalists, prefer the ethos of the independent > cafes, where the music is a little louder and the Wi-Fi is free. > Ritual: the scene > Ritual Roasters in San Francisco's Mission District is in many > ways the > epicenter of the bedouin movement. Ritual, on Valencia Street near > 21st > Street, is almost always packed with people working on laptops. > Every bedouin seems to have a Ritual story. There's the time > someone > buzzed through the cafe on a Segway scooter. Rubyred Labs, a hip Web > design shop in South Park, had its launch party there. Teams from > established Web companies such as Google Inc. and Flickr, a photo > sharing > site that's now owned by Yahoo, meet there. "You'd never know these > guys > were millionaires," said Ritual co-owner Jeremy Tooker. > The founders of Web video startup Dovetail Television were > meeting there > one day, griping as usual about how hard it was to find talented > programmers. > "I'm looking around and there's gotta be 50 people with > laptops," said > Brett Levine, 31, a co-founder and the company's lead programmer. > "I got > on a chair and yelled, 'Hey, are there any ActionScript programmers > in the > room?' People at the counter looked at me glaringly, but a couple of > people looked around and raised their hand." > They lined up for interviews. None were actually hired, but it > cemented in > Levine's mind the notion of where the talent pool lies. > Kennedy, the self-professed bedouin who has worked at blog > aggregator > Technorati and at tech giant Microsoft but who is now working on > his own > idea of developing a new more personal way to search the Internet, > is a > regular at Ritual and blogs about it often. Kennedy tries to earn > his spot > in the cafe. "They'll come up to me and say, 'Did you notice that the > Wi-Fi is down?' I can troubleshoot that kind of thing. Or when they > were > talking about redesigning their Web site, I was able to give advice." > "In the old days, people used to yell, 'Is there a doctor in the > house?' " > Kennedy said. "In cafes now, it's, 'Is there a Wi-Fi technician in the > house?' " > On one recent weekday, software engineer Chase Tingley, 29, > worked at one > table, where he telecommutes for Idiom, a Massachusetts software > company. > Tingley moved to San Francisco when his wife took a job at a law > firm. At > the next table, three friends worked on their own projects: system > administrator Sean Kelly, 36, wrote database reporting scripts, while > Kaytea Petro, 28, worked at her job in publishing, and Robert > Boyle, 37, > hacked out code for the company he's co-founded, Podaddies.com, > which he > said will "monetize user-generated video." > As for why they're there, Kelly said, "I'm visiting with my friends > instead of being locked up in a big building in the South Bay." > And he added, cheekily, "If you bring a flask, you can tip it > into your > coffee and your boss isn't watching you." > Tingley, at the next table, turned around and asked, "Can we be in > separate articles?" > Coffee to the people > Kevin Burton, an expert in blogs and RSS feeds who runs a Web > startup > called Tailrank.com that claims to "track the hottest news in the > blogosphere," spends about 10 percent of his time at Ritual, but the > crowds have driven him elsewhere. His favorite at the moment is > Coffee to > the People on Masonic Avenue. > When you enter, you have no doubt you're in the Haight-Ashbury > neighborhood. The coffee drinks have names like Flower Power, the menu > includes a vegan blueberry cornbread. At one table, a woman with an > open > laptop talks on her cell phone, while the man reading a paperback > next to > her keeps a hand over his ear. (Most bedouins say cell phones need > to go > outside the cafe.) Nearby, Kiff Gallagher, 37, pursues his passion, > making > music, while trading stocks online. > "I have a home office, but I just get cooped up," he said. > Burton arrives at 11 a.m., and his lead engineer, Jonathan > Moore, 30, > arrives a few minutes later. Burton has a double latte and a > cupcake, and > starts explaining how his site uses "wisdom of the crowds" > algorithms to > scrape the hottest news from the blogosphere and upend the mainstream > media. > As he talks, Gallagher joins in, and advises, "Lower your voice. > I already > know the ins and outs of your business plan from the last time I was > here." > That is an occupational hazard in the bedouin workforce. Kennedy > rented a > desk at San Francisco's Obvious Corp., a Web company in South Park, > so he > could have confidential meetings. Kennedy also said he has equipped > his > laptop with a firewall that's always on and e-mail and instant > messaging > encryption. He said it's fairly easy to sit in a cafe and start > "sniffing > the network, see what sites people are accessing, get an idea of a > site > that hasn't launched yet, see people's e-mail logins and passwords." > Bedouin history > Using a cafe to run a business is nothing particularly new. > Venerable > insurance firm Lloyd's of London was actually started in a coffee > house, > Kennedy points out. According to the Lloyd's of London Web site, > "Edward > Lloyd opened a coffee house in 1688, encouraging a clientele of ships' > captains, merchants and ship owners -- earning him a reputation for > trustworthy shipping news. This ensured that Lloyd's coffee house > became > recognized as the place for obtaining marine insurance." > Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of their > best work in > Parisian cafes. And in San Francisco, writers and poets of the Beat > generation, such as Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, wrote > in the > cafes of North Beach. > Caffe Trieste was among the most popular North Beach hangouts. > "To have a > cappuccino, you come to North Beach, to Caffe Trieste," says Giovanni > "Papa Gianni" Giotta, the founder. > Now Caffe Trieste has joined the ranks of Wi-Fi cafes. It would > figure > that the one laptop in action on a recent afternoon belonged to an art > dealer. "A cappuccino for overhead isn't bad," said David Salow, > 33. He > struck out on his own three months ago, and has yet to open a gallery. > "Sixty to 70 percent of what I do can be done with the standard tools > available to everyone -- a phone, a computer and a laptop connection." > > So, how much coffee do you need to buy? > > The proliferation of Wi-Fi cafes brings with it a moral dilemma: > If you're > one of these people sitting around and working on your laptop in a > cafe, > how much coffee do you need to buy? > Every cafe owner has wrestled with the flip side of that > question: How > much do I need to sell to make it worth letting someone take up > space in > my cafe? > Roger Soudah, owner of Cafe Reverie on Cole Street, was > persuaded in 2004 > to add Wi-Fi by one of his steady customers, Craigslist founder Craig > Newmark. But Soudah got fed up with the Wi-Fi squatters by the next > year. > "I got fed up and pulled it out of the wall, and my employees > cheered," he > said. "My space is really small. We count on turnover for that > reason." > He tells of one woman who designs places with feng shui > principles. "She > comes in with all these humongous blueprints and a laptop, taking > up four > tables, then has the nerve to say, 'Can you turn the music down?' " he > said. "I feng shui'd her out of here." > Newmark says he won't be deterred. "My evil plans include using > a cellular > data connection," he said. "I plan to foil Roger again." > Other cafe owners welcome the bedouin workforce and its laptops. > At Ritual Roasters in the Mission, co-owner Jeremy Tooker said > the main > downside is the cost of power, which he said runs $2,000 a month. > (Some > laptop workers in the cafe said that's not so bad, calculating on > the fly > that that pencils out to about $64 a day, or $4 an hour.) Ritual > covers up > its outlets on weekends, and Tooker said it will likely eliminate many > other outlets altogether, figuring that will increase turnover. > The hardcore customers shrug off the change. "I bought three > batteries" > for the laptop, said system administrator Sean Kelly. "It's a little > spendy, but it's totally worth it." > Cafe Lo Cubano in San Francisco's Laurel Heights is > contemplating a tiered > system for access, according to floor manager Jeremiah Vernon. > "People sit > outside in their cars, stealing the Wi-Fi without buying anything," > Vernon > said. > To solve the problem, the new system would give small purchases > an hour of > free Wi-Fi, modest purchases would get five hours, and $10 or more > would > buy a full day. That allows the morning business customers the > chance to > buy their cafe Cubano and check their e-mail, as they do now, without > allowing others to clog up the space for hours. One regular buys a > cup in > the morning, and returns with the cup hours later asking for a free > refill, Vernon said. > One coffee shop, Coffee to the People in the Haight, even > wrestled with > the issue on its blog last year. "Here at CTTP, we need to bring in on > average $100 PER HOUR simply to cover our costs," co-owner Karin > Tamerius > wrote. "That means, if all of our customers were people who stayed for > three hours and spent $1.50 for coffee, we would require 200 people > in our > shop every hour we were open, 7 days a week, just to stay in > business." > "Fortunately, not all of our patrons are quite so thrifty." > Indeed, almost every mobile worker interviewed said they try to buy > something at least every hour. > But not everyone. > Ryan Mickle, 26, moved to San Francisco last month to run a Web > site he > co-founded, DoTheRightThing.com, which lets users rate companies on > their > social value. But Mickle can't always afford to do the right thing > himself. > "We're bootstrapping entrepreneurs. We don't have any funds," he > said. His > Web site is not yet bringing in any money. "I'm reluctant to pay $9 > for > the overpriced food that tends to be in the cafe," he said. "It's the > Wi-Fi user's dilemma. ... It's a mind game I play with myself: How > many > coffees is fair? I need to be sure to invest in them as a consumer or > they're not going to last very long." > But Mickle vows that when he does incorporate, make money and > issue stock, > he will give shares to the cafes that he used as office space. > In a way, argues author Daniel Pink, the Wi-Fi cafe is bringing > efficiency > to the commercial real estate market. > Most offices sit vacant all night long, he said, creating an > "incredible > inefficiency." Pink, the author of "Free Agent Nation" and "A Whole > New > Mind," said people can rent interim offices from companies like Regus > Corp., where the coffee is free, or do their work in a cafe. "This > is just > confirmation that Starbucks and its cousins are all really in the > commercial real estate business," he said. "They're giving very > cheap real > estate for a very pricey cup of coffee." > -- Dan Fost > > Laboring by latte > > A sampling of coffee shops favored by the bedouins by the Bay: > Grove Cafe: 2250 Chestnut St., San Francisco. Vibe -- A Marina > neighborhood joint popular with Marin businesspeople who need to zip > across the Golden Gate Bridge for meetings in the city. > Ritual Roasters: 1026 Valencia St., San Francisco. Vibe -- Mission > hipster, and Web worker-friendly. It helps to have tattoos, and you > have > to like loud thumping music. The coffee gets rave reviews. > Coffee to the People: 1206 Masonic Ave., San Francisco. Vibe -- > Haight-Ashbury all the way, with Martin Luther King poster, music > from the > '60s and '70s, and walls of bumper stickers. > Cafe Lo Cubano: 3401 California St., San Francisco. Vibe -- > Laurel Village > business casual. One man seen sleeping at his laptop; floor manager > Jeremiah Vernon once saw a pro football scout and an agent talk to > players > for six hours. > Caffe Trieste: 601 Vallejo St., San Francisco. Vibe -- Old > school North > Beach classic, with the aging photos of Ferlinghetti and Pavarotti > on the > walls, and special greetings from founder Papa Gianni. > Starbucks: 3595 California St., San Francisco. Vibe -- According to > district manager Ian Ippolito, "Our store in Laurel Village is a 24- > hour > location, so we attract a lot of business professionals working on > projects after hours, students and night shift workers." > Starbucks: 2727 Mariposa St., San Francisco. Vibe -- In the dot- > com days, > this was Starbucks' experimental Circadia cafe. Although the > experiment > went the way of the dot-coms, the cafe survives and still features a > conference room customers can rent for $20 an hour. Call ahead, it > books > up. > Barefoot Coffee Roasters: 5237 Stevens Creek Blvd., Santa Clara. > Vibe -- > Bedouin worker Niall Kennedy favors this spot when he's in Silicon > Valley, > not only for the coffee, which the cafe takes very seriously, but > for its > attention to the technology, particularly the security. The cafe also > provides WPA keys, among the latest in wireless protection, Kennedy > says, > "so your traffic is encrypted if people want to sniff your laptop." > Nomad Cafe: 6500 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. Vibe -- East Bay eco- > hip, with > local artists on the walls, organic food and drink, and bins for > recycling > and composting. > For a more complete list of San Francisco Wi-Fi cafes, check out: > www.cheesebikini.com/wifi-cafes > www.bestofsanfrancisco.net/cappuccinocafes.htm > www.tinyurl.com/2382xp > > E-mail Dan Fost at [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle >
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