Q13 is doing a story on the Seattle Jelly scene

Karrie Kohlhaas of ThoughtShot Consulting hosted her first Jelly here at Office Nomads today.  Jellies first started in NYC to bring creative folks together that had been stuck in home offices.  They have since spread and grown and are saving people from isolation world wide.  It’s a simple format where you shout out to your community that you will be working from a certain location and invite people to join you.  Karrie posted this event on Biznik and it quickly filled up.  People are eager to get out of the house and find social interaction that doesn’t interfere with their work.    Coworking and Jelly have tight histories and I’m excited Seattle is embracing the concept.  There is also a Facebook page to unite folks and hopefully make these happen more often.

Q13 was here to do a story on the event and the wider Jelly scene.  We are not sure when that will go live and we’ll keep you posted.

It’s a busy day here at Office Nomads.  Not only are Biznik and Q13 running around but the front area only has one free desk today and that is after we added four more a few weeks ago.  What a great way to start the week!  I thought I heard someone say something about the economy not doing so hot but from where I sit things are getting pretty exciting.

Marketplace covers all aspects of business. Wait! Before you yawn and turn the dial, give it a listen because Marketplace covers business in a very colorful way. Somehow, even as they stick to the roots of business reporting (numbers, business trends and the like) they craft interesting and intricate story arcs that regularly engage my imagination.

Marketplace’s coverage of coworking, may not be a prime example of their best work because it is so short. Still, it’s an engaging piece with a few good quotes that, I think, really helps illustrate the feel of being a coworker.

At Nutopia, in New York, people are there “sharing the workspace, but not the work.”

The reporter also visited one of the most popular Jelly meetups (and possibly the originator of the concept) in New York City where he reported that people were “working together thigh to thigh” (that’s hot!) and even sitting on the floor to be a part of the scene.

Finally, he interviewed one person at that Jelly meet up who had an interesting take on that version of coworking: “I’m not more productive, but I’m happier.”

Nice.

The picture is courtesy of Flickr user petroleumjelliffe. Thanks!

I love this story–which highlights less-formal coworking arrangements such as Jelly in Atlanta and a more-involved model called Less Distracted in Portland–because the author illustrates quite well how weird it is for freelancers and other indpendants to realize that we don’t actually want to work at home, we just want to work on our own:

“The reason people work alone, is because they’re looking for freedom,” said Bachman, a 34-year-old Web developer who telecommutes part time. “It may be ironic that you crave isolation, but you also want to be socially interactive with others like you.”

I also love it because that quote makes me think of the excellent movie Clerks when Dante reminds Randall “You hate people” and Dante responds “But I love gatherings. Isn’t it ironic?” I do love that movie.