Category Archives: The future of work, today

This ‘review’ site lists 20 coffee shops that people have bothered to comment about: Compare Coffee Shops.  That suggests to me that there are dozens more across our towns and cities…so what? Have you sat in one recently? Yes, sure you have…but why? Quite possibly you bought a coffee to make yourself feel less guilty about “camping” in Costa, Starbucks or wherever, with your laptop and phone out on the table…working! Did you actually want a coffee? Maybe, but equally likely you just came out of someone’s office where you already had one or two cups…

The question is, what are you paying for here? $2 for a desk for an hour, with a free coffee? Or $2 for a coffee, and a free seat? I know that I have paid both ways…if you’re a ‘glass half full’ person, you’ll think its a cheap coffee for $1 and you pay $1/hour for the “desk”. Thats not bad value, is it?

So how long before coffee companies just admit this is going on, and set up “business class”…? A “frequent drinker” card (no, OK, doesn’t sound like ‘frequent flyer’), which lets you turn left at the end of the coffee bar in to the business area, instead of right into the ‘normal’ cafe? With a chip+pin, to charge the account back to your company account. And you get larger seats, space to plug in your laptop, perhaps waitress service, etc..? Its gonna happen isn’t it…you heard it here first (unless its already happening – in which case you didn’t…!)

So for the corporate occupier, this is another facilities management operating cost, is it not? Another cost of employee mobility, along with the phone and laptop.

But its far lower cost than most corporate workstations. Especially where these are used by mobile employees in a desk-share arrangement, often at a desk-share ratio (DSR) of 2 or 3+. If a workstation in the office costs $10,000 per annum, thats say $40/day…thats too much coffee for the average person!!

Watch this space my friends….you will have a low cost flexible workplace on every High Street, properly set up for business users, very soon…that won’t Costa too much….