Laura Forlano is a visiting fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and a PhD candidate in Communications at Columbia University. As an adjunct faculty member, she teaches Design in Everyday Experience, Design and Management, and Sustainable Design in the Design and Management department at Parsons the New School for Design. Forlano serves as a board member of NYCwireless, a non-profit organization that promotes the deployment of free, public WiFi networks, and the New York City Computer Human Interaction Association (NYCCHI). In her receiver contribution, Forlano shares some of the key findings of her research into the communities that form around WiFi hotspots and the emerging mobile work practices of "Generation Mesh".

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Artwork for this article by Julia Flanagan

One Starbucks Coffee is just like any other, right? Since its founding in 1971, the company has grown to over 12,000 stores worldwide, becoming the epitome of global brands. There are over 180 locations in the New York City area alone; 153 of which have wireless internet access provided, for a fee, by T-mobile. However, for a new breed of mobile professionals, choosing a Starbucks – where they will spend the next two to twelve hours – is a deliberate, strategic and, sometimes, daily decision.

For Generation Mesh, Starbucks – as well as independent cafés, parks and other public spaces where it is possible to access the wireless internet – is a vital site for social interaction, professional support, collaboration and, even, community. I use this term in reference to mesh networks, sometimes called ad hoc networks, which are decentralized wireless networks in which every node can both send and receive information. They are dynamic, flexible and self-organizing.

Since the mainstream adoption of the internet along with mobile and wireless technologies over the past ten years, scholars and business leaders alike have grappled with questions about the way in which the use of these technologies interacts with the changing socio-economic landscape. Without a doubt, organizations – whether they be companies, governments or civil society groups – have been transformed by the introduction of these technologies. However, much of the focus has been on how to coordinate the activities of a network of colleagues working virtually, "anytime, anywhere" rather than attempting to understand the daily routines of their decentralized, mobile workforce.

The phrase "anytime, anywhere" – grabbed from the pages of magazine advertisements for software and mobile phones – has come to signify both freedom and mobility and, at the same time, the need to be constantly tethered to a mobile phone or wireless device. But, "anytime, anywhere" is the lingua franca of a homogeneous, globalized "space of flows" rather than a meaningful "space of place" as Spanish urban planner Manuel Castells has theorized.

Large corporations have downsized their operations while, at the same time, small start-ups have been launched in San Francisco cafés. As a result, more and more people are working "remotely" or telecommuting one or more days a week. Others are independent contractors, freelancers, self-employed professionals or entrepreneurs. These professionals are expected to make up 10-30% of the workforce in the United States. In New York, the media and technology industries including advertising, publishing, film and television, technology and the arts employ the large majority of freelancers. This is Generation Mesh.

Seeking to create an officelike atmosphere – in contrast to the prospect of working at home in their pajamas – pioneers have founded collaborative office spaces, such as the Village Quill, a writer's loft in TriBeCa, and formed Google Groups for coworking communities around the country. In fact, nextNY, a networking group for technology professionals in New York, holds "Café Slamming" events where members can work together at over a dozen different independent cafés around the city that offer free wireless internet access. In essence, these new, ad hoc organizational forms that rely on clustering, in a "smart mob"-like fashion, around WiFi hotspots are simulating the office environment that they lack as remote workers, telecommuters, freelancers or self-employed workers.

nextNY

As the following examples will illustrate, Generation Mesh adeptly negotiates organizational, technological and spatial boundaries – participating simultaneously in the networked "space of flows" while transforming Starbucks into a "space of place" filled with opportunities for social interaction, collaboration and community.

Mobile workplaces

Cafés, parks and other public spaces, when appropriated as mobile workplaces are still public or semi-public places. As such, they blur, and often reverse or contradict, traditional dichotomies such as employee and employer, work and play, online and offline, public and private, presence and co-presence, individual and community, and local and global. For example, since a significant number of mobile professionals are freelancers, self-employed workers and entrepreneurs, the distinction between employee and employer is not well-defined.

Work and play are blurred through the heterogeneity of activities occurring simultaneously in mobile workplaces. For example, in the café that I studied, while many of the clientele were working on their laptops, others were talking with friends, making mobile telephone calls, eating, playing video games, drinking beer, reading or writing in their journals. In addition, the clientele often spent more than two hours in the café both working and socializing intermittently, and sharing beers with other patrons at the end of the workday.

Mobile workplaces are sites in which online and offline activities coexist. This includes the coexistence of knowledge-work, service-work and unemployment. In one café that I studied in a comparative survey of WiFi use in New York, Montreal and Budapest, many mobile professionals work from the café in order to use the free wireless network. However, James, an academic, reported that he specifically comes to the café in order to be offline, specifically, to do his writing. James has access to the internet at home where he is constantly bombarded with telephone calls and emails. Thus, for him, the café represents a haven where, while others are online around him, he can escape from the demands of communication.

Mobile workplaces also blur the boundaries between private and public in unique and interesting ways. Laptop screens are often used to indicate when someone is engaged in their work or open to being interrupted. Similarly, iPods and other portable music players are used to create bubbles of privacy in the midst of the public space of the café. Finally, mobile workplaces are sites of temporal, spatial and project flexibility. While work in a traditional white-collar office environment typically begins at 9 am, the hours of a mobile workplace are not dictated by economic forces alone but rather by a mixture of social, cultural and personal norms.

Mobile workplaces offer ample opportunities for social interaction. This is because each interaction represents a negotiation for location (Is that seat free?), electricity (Can I plug in here?), connectivity (What is the password for the wireless network?) and security (Will you watch my laptop?). For those who spend long hours working in these locations, the security of their equipment and belongings is vital especially since they don't want to lose their seat despite the need to get up to make a phone call, eat lunch or go to the bathroom. In order to maintain their location, while being granted some flexibility, they may turn to the nearest person to determine whether they are trustworthy. They may initiate the interaction by making a comment about the music and waiting to see how their neighbor answers. Based on their neighbor's reaction, they may decide whether or not to leave their laptop in the care of the stranger. Thus, the community plays a surveillance function in order to maintain a casual and relaxed but secure environment that makes others feel comfortable leaving their belongings unattended.

It happened at a WiFi hotspot

For Generation Mesh, WiFi is an important factor in determining where they will spend the day. In fact, according to a 40-question online survey of WiFi users that I conducted in New York between October 2006 and April 2007 in partnership with NYCwireless, a community wireless organization, and the Downtown Alliance, a business improvement district in Lower Manhattan, 70% of a total of 614 respondents indicated that WiFi is, or sometimes is, the reason that they went to the location.

In New York, WiFi users reported that they had used it at Starbucks (34%), Bryant Park (33%), the New York Public Library (23%) and independently owned cafés (21%); 63% of them used it for both work and personal reasons. Finally, when asked the reason that they used WiFi, 58% indicated that they wanted to get out of their home or office. 27% replied that they wanted to get information when they were passing by and 23% wanted to see familiar people or be part of a community.

In addition to the survey, I conducted 29 one-hour, open-ended interviews with WiFi users in New York. The interviews were conducted on-site at the WiFi hotspot that the respondent used most frequently, which, often, happened to be Starbucks Coffee.

Here's one example: on a particularly busy day in one of the world's busiest Starbucks, Victor, a self-employed 30-year old graphic illustrator, was queuing for his ideal seat. While waiting on line, he began talking to Richard, a freelance web designer and musician. Victor and Richard became friends and began working together on an almost daily basis. In the morning, the first person to arrive "at work" would stake out space and notify the other by phone. If one coffee shop is too crowded, another one nearby is checked until an appropriate workplace for the day is identified.

Victor and Richard have collaborated on several Web-design projects together, a sign that they have built trusting relationships that enable them to access new employment opportunities. In addition, Richard mentions that working alongside Victor allows him to relieve stress more easily rather than becoming frustrated and giving up on his projects. This scenario is typical of the WiFi users that I interviewed; many report having made friends, found colleagues and formed collaborative partnerships while working at a Starbucks. In fact, at one store in Brooklyn, a group of about seven regular freelancers and remote workers have prevented shoplifting and bought holiday gifts for their baristas, a clear sign that they consider the coffee shop to be an important local community.

Others report that just being around people is enough to stimulate their productivity, or at least make them feel like they are accomplishing more. For example, Jackson, a freelance translator in Brooklyn who works at Starbucks daily from about 4 pm to midnight, finds that being surrounded by people – despite the fact that he doesn't know them – makes him less likely to "goof off".

Anytime? anywhere?

Victor, the graphic illustrator in the example above, has three regular mobile workplaces: during the pre-production phase of his projects, Victor requires books and materials that surround him at a Starbucks located within a Barnes & Nobles bookstore in order to research the history, settings and characters for the storyboards that he is illustrating. However, these stores are often smaller and have very few electricity outlets.

During the production phase of his projects, Victor moves to another Starbucks nearby where he can plug in his laptop and light-box (needed for tracing and drawing). It is there that he spends most of his time. His drawings are often spread out on the table and he has a constant stream of friends and visitors who know that he works there regularly.

Victor commutes 40 minutes to get to this Starbucks from his apartment. When asked why he commutes rather than going to another store, he replies, "Everything is here", adding that he likes the neighborhood and knows people in the restaurants and bars nearby. Finally, when he is on deadline, Victor goes to a Starbucks in Koreatown. He doesn't know anyone there and can work uninterrupted until he finishes his project.

This is why, for Generation Mesh, a Starbucks is never just a Starbucks.

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This article was written for receiver. Note: all names have been changed to protect the privacy and anonymity of informants.