Meet Your New Office Mates An app that maps out quiet, comfortable workplaces for mobile workers
By Dan O'Shea
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
If your office is wherever you lay your laptop or smartphone, you can confidently call yourself a mobile worker. The next challenge is mitigating distractions.
Coffeehouses are an obvious stop, with Wi-Fi and productivity-enhancing java. But having a sensitive work conversation can be tough with the ear-splitting frappe-what's-it machine and the jabbering old ladies of the Sweet Potato Pie Book Club in the background.
Now there's an app for finding quieter places to work: London-based WorkSnug's iPhone app maps out a multitude of outposts in a particular city that are conducive to mobile work. Locations are recommended by other mobile workers.
The app was first available in London. WorkSnug will launch maps and reviews of mobile office hot spots in New York and San Francisco this quarter and several more later this year, according to founder Richard Leyland. Android and BlackBerry versions are in development.
Using the London version of the app is like entering a virtual co-working facility: There are hundreds of workplace suggestions from mobile workers traveling the same streets and sidewalks as you.
"There hasn't yet been a real community of mobile workers," says Leyland, himself an on-the-go tech consultant. "They end up feeling largely isolated in the working world."
