Working @ Starbucks — the other way…
No, this is not about making the perfect frappuccino. Nor about being member of a union.
It is about the observation at my favourite Starbucks outlet that more and more creative class freelance professionals seem to discover the cozy local coffee shop as a convenient replacement for working alone or in home office.
There is lots of well-brewn and affordable “cheap-refill” coffee available throughout the day, enough space and stylish interior to host client conversations, as well as large-enough tables for team-meetings. And free wifi along with your cellphone ready on the table makes sure, nobody needs to notice you’re not, well, “at work”.
While the ability to check your e-mail at the coffee shop isn’t exactly new, the idea of regularly going there for work, just as you would normally to an office (read: from early morning just until the late afternoon, when she location starts to get occupied by the more noisy “private” coffee-sippers) at least for me seems put new perspective on it.
As an interesting alternative/supplement to the contemporary co-working movement with probably somewhat less cross-pollination intended, working at Starbucks however doesn’t come without benefits on the house:
The coffee shop gets its rooms filled at times of the day when commonly “to go” is the appreciated bestseller. Fortunately, at the same time, the new guest group won’t alienate the more traditional customers by staring a their laptops with a shining blue glare spread over all their surroundings (as common in the early days of free wi-fi offered in cafes). The aforementioned screen-workers just by their nature flee from more lively visiors during the afternoon hours, probably seeing the coffee outlet more as their favourite Third Place, rather than a work enviroment.
And even though Starbucks management by now may as well not have fully gotten the actual business potential coming with providing public co-working space — their prospects definitely have.
Hamburg and the Semantic Web Paradigms
Joining a seminar session on practical semantic web applications yesterday evening, I found myself in a conference room at Hamburg’s Haus der Wirtschaft, mostly among what seemed to be scientists, consultants and librarians.
While the talk by a Adobe representative’s talk on XMP did not exceed much what can be found on their respective websites, Hans-Peter Schnurr, CEO of Ontoprise GmbH, brought in not just some very insightful experiments with the audience, but also impressive case studies showcasing their Service Resolution Management software, a structured and centralized repository of technical repair information to help companies fulfilling contracts all over the world learn from mistakes.
If you like to take a peek at the lecture yourself, I recommend having a look at the video documentation on the event organizer’s website.
Fascinating Insights from the First Ontologist Workshop at Max-Planck-Institute Leipzig
Having joined the OBML workgroup‘s 1st workshop at the University of Leipzig Max-Planck-Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology for the last two days, I am left quite impressed.
Not only by the presenters’ track records, but also by the sheer number and diversity of researchers and practitioners Prof. Dr. rer. nat habil. Heinrich Herre managed to bring together for the event. Commonly such gatherings here in Germany would consist of ten people at most 
— this time there were more than 50 experts, including international guests, from institutions and companies all over the country.
Nevertheless, something extremely re-assuring that I am taking away is not only the obvious development progress in the ontology sector, but also the fact, that even the most renowned experts in the field struggle with the very same technical insufficiencies as we do, when designing new data models for our SemaWorx application base.
Therefore we also had a very enlightening (entertaining goes without saying…) evening at local Cafe Madrid, where over the delicious meal discussion focus lay more on the practically achievable short-term benefits of current semantic modeling approaches, rather than their long-term optimization wishlist (hopefully I didn’t get this imprecise now… ).
9th JCI Leipzig "Wirtschaftstreff" 2009
at the Radisson Blu Leipzig
Coming Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 07.30 p.m. the "Wirtschaftsjunioren" local JCI chapter here in Leipzig invite to their monthly social gathering "Wirtschaftstreff" at the Radisson Blu Hotel’s "Spagos" Bar/Lounge.
This time the public event includes an update by Ines Falkenhan on Family Affair: Balancing Family And Work for working parents living in the Leipzig area.
In case you are not from here or don’t know the Radisson, this map will assist you finding us. The facility exists right opposite from the well-known Augustusplatz.
See you on Thursday ! 
Darmstadt: Even more regulars joining Cosima’s IT table on each month's second Tuesday
O.k. it’s been some time, since I visited or even wrote about the tables for coding regulars taking place the second Tuesday every month in Darmstadt. What has changed since then not only is that you now get your invitations mostly via XING instead of e-mail (though you’re of course still welcome to join unannouncedly as well…), but also location and size: the crowd regulars gathering there seems to have grown pretty much from intimate (once) to almost intimidating size; rarely finding a pub capable of seating the now at least 30 people together every month. Even though I did not meet with all too many acquaintances, I had a very pleasant evening with wonderful insights from most any part of the IT industy. Convince yourself and drop by next time you’re in the area…
