Coworking Crawl

Today we’re on a crawl of the wifi hotspots of Birmingham. It’s like a real ale pub crawl only much more nerdy. The idea is to find places with free wireless and see whether they’re good to work in during the day. My companions on this journey, at least at the outset, are Pete Lewis and Simon Hammond. Here’s Simon in the Kitchen Garden Cafe:

We’re eating breakfast before Pete arrives. While a little pricey it was fantastic, particularly the organic sausage, and set us up for the day.

Wifi here is free with a password – “kitchengarden”. If you’ve been here before you’ll know it’s a lovely place and fairly quiet at 10-11am, though I know from experience it gets a bit mental at lunchtime. Talking about it’s potential for coworking Si suggested the upstairs room could be used as a drop in office space in the mornings. That would make sure the rest of the place isn’t full of laptops which, to be honest, doesn’t add to the lovely ambiance of the place. One to ponder.

After this we’re heading to Jibbering Records in Moseley – should be there about 12.30 or so, and then into Digbeth. You’re welcome to join us!

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And on to Jibbering Records in Moseley at 12.30pm. Quiet in here, which is handy as there aren’t a whole load of tables. Very chilled, lovely music and tea at £1 a pop. If I was someone who bought music in physical formats I might check the racks, but I’m not.

This is Andrew Dubber’s favourite place as it acts as a social centre as much as a workplace and, limited space aside, it’s a great example of mixing things up coworking style. It’d be nice to see if this could expand somewhat – maybe into the Dance Centre Cafe next door? I only noticed they’ve got loads of space the other day…

Jibbering is also the home of the Digital is Dangerous campaign, which makes being a digital nomad worker in here rather amusing. At least they’re covering all the bases, I guess!

Great art exhibition at the moment here by Glenn Anderson. Mixing up collage, graffiti and what look like oils to me on a variety of sized pieces. These two massive ones in the corner are particularly impressive.

Next stop, Rootys @ Custard Factory!
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The problem with a coworking crawl is we keep stopping to work which kinda gets in the way of finding new places. It’s now 3pm and it looks like we’ve just covered the 50 bus route, and even then only places we already knew (although Pete hadn’t been to Jibbering before). Still, it doesn’t have to be a one day thing. Maybe, if you’ll excuse the wanky terminology, some of Flashmob/coworking where we descend on an area for a day might be in order? Jewellery Quarter next perhaps?

So we’re in Rootys in the Custard Factory, somewhere I know very well as it was my office last year before it got too cold in the winter. Like most places it gets busy a lunchtime but is quieter in the mornings and afternoon. They have (shockingly fast) wifi, which is great, and not too many working power sockets, which is not so great. Though I notice today there’s a handy extension cord which means more than two people can plug in. For the record there are two main sockets – the ones under the DJ booth (when they’re not being used for DJing!) and one behind the right hand (as you walk from the bar) dividing wall.

The staff here are lovely, especially Rod. I’ve heard people say they can get a bit arsey about people working in here but I’ve never had that problem. I’m guessing, as with all these things, it depends on what you do besides hook up your laptop, and of course it’s always good to buy at least a drink or two. Also it’s worth noting that this isn’t the only wifi place in the Custard Factory. The Kitchen is favoured by some but I think their tea comes in too small a cup. And if you’re sitting outside you can usually pick up a free wifi node. Look for “IT Lab” as that’s the general internet provider on the site.

The nice thing about Rootys recently has been the choice of seating. They have nice rigid chairs with big tables should you want to crack on with the serious work and a few sofas in the corner for slacking. Food wise I generally just go for the sandwiches which are reasonably filling for £2.50. They also do hot food which I gather is really good.

The main advantage of working here, especially if you’re in the “creative industries”, is that many likeminded folk tend to pop in, not just from the Custard Factory itself but also The Arch, Maverick TV and various BCU mini-campuses about the place. It’s perfect for the accelerated serendipity thing that Stef‘s always going on about. And speaking of which, he’s here having a serendipitous meeting with Martin from Walkit.com.

Not sure if we’ll go anywhere next. My off-peak bus pass isn’t valid again until 6pm so I doubt I’ll be traveling on, plus there’s stuff at Millennium Point this evening which is around the corner so I’ll probably stay here and actually get some work done. ;)