Workspace at Space Ninja

Workspace

Posted by Scott on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at 12:09 pm

The idea behind Paragraph is pretty much exactly what I’ve pictured doing for tech guys. I’m sure there’s a decent population of tech people who telecommute, but sometimes need a place to go work that isn’t the living room. For me, this desire came out of wanting to recreate the atmosphere in the tech office from when I was a computer technician at PSU, but I think it would work well for lots of people. We provide wi-fi, desks, books, and a space to hang out, and people would come. We could probably even strike a deal with a coffee stand to set up a stand in the space to provide beverages… maybe not, though.

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4 Responses to “Workspace”

SeanM Says:
Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 4:23 am.

Parahraph looks TERRIBLE! If you want a quiet place to write away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, what about AT HOME?

An entire place full of nothing but writers who want to hang out with one another — non-stop banter by a bunch of people who consider themselves clever and witty. I am gouging out my eyes just thinking about this.

And I’ll bet you wind up with a bunch of writing that’s only about writing and writers ’cause they’ve isolated themselves from real life.

Why would people who work from home want to re-create the office environment they’ve escaped from??
Scott Says:
Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 10:29 am.

Well, I can’t speak from the writer’s perspective, but I can speak from the techie perspective. I had a job for three years where I telecommuted. While the perks of working from home were nice, I did find myself missing the office environment every now and then. It is nice to be around other people sometimes, and in particular, I was missing the tech room that I worked in during college. It was a basement office where all the techies hung out, even on off-hours, because we had the best computers. You always knew your buddies were there, and there was good music, and it was a fun place to be. If I could recreate that environment, I would work there in a heartbeat. Maybe not five days a week, but one or two for sure.

Would it be the same? Hard to say. Would everyone like it. Definitely not. But I suspect there would be a market for something like this in the tech community.

And clearly some people in NY feel the same way about the writing community. To quote from one of the founder’s husbands:

“It was always a mystery to me why people spend so much time hanging out at Starbucks. Notwithstanding the fallacious reality of sitcoms in which beautiful people spend all day cracking wise at their local coffee houses, the idea of committing more than thirty minutes to a visit to any retail outlet is a real stretch for me. That is, until I moved to New York seven years ago and discovered that the apartments here are tiny and, inconveniently, they often come with roommates. In this city, if you want to get any kind of concentrating done without all of the distractions of your television or personal possessions — and you want to do it away from the close quarters you share with your roommate, you need to escape your home. This is rarely truer than if you are a writer, someone who requires a certain reliable quietude in order to produce to the capacity of your creative prowess.”
SeanM Says:
Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 11:06 am.

seriously, if he doesn’t get quiet time at home, he could go to the library. i highly suspect this is just for writers who want some kind of arrogant circle-jerk

but yeah, techie, different kettle of fish.
Ryan Says:
Thursday, September 15, 2005 at 8:24 pm.

Well . . . I can speak from the standpoint of a “writer”, and can tell you that if I had the time to devote, and $100/mo to spare, paragraph sounds like an excellent place to escape the roommates as well as the annoying coffeeshop people. It looks like that excellent mix between quiet and studiousness and cameraderie.

Although, if the discussions in the kitchen area tended more towards the self-indulgent “we’re so insufferably cool” variety, I’d probably ditch out fast.

Like anything, the success of a place like that depends more on the people than anything else.