A Cafe sans Screens and Wifi

A coffee shop. A nice place to work, right? Or socializing?

In October, Preservation in Pink discussed the Coffee Shop Conundrum: coffee shop atmosphere and aesthetics, the cost of a cup of coffee, how much to spend in a small business, and how long to stay. Do you have coffee shop guilt? How can a coffee shop be the best atmosphere, the most inviting, and still make a profit?

You might have seen the recent NPR story on August First, a coffee shop/cafe in Burlington, Vermont that has banned screens (laptops and tablets) as of March 31, 2014. Why? Customers were squatting, staying too long and the business was losing money. Buying a few cups of coffee for a few hours was just not cutting it for profits. Additionally, when all of the tables are always full with people and laptops, it does not create the community feel that August First wanted. Rather than being social and neighborly, people were setting up shop with more space than needed and not leaving. The tables were not turning over. So August First made a bold move. Two years ago they cut the free wifi, and this year they banned screens (smartphones are allowed). The result? Sales have increased, even with people’s complaining.

August First in Burlington, VT.

While banning screens sounds crazy, you can probably understand August First’s point-of-view. Haven’t you ever walked into a cafe where the tables were all full, some with one person taking up a table for four? That isn’t fair to anyone.

If you read the comments on the NPR articles (hundreds) you’ll see that there are many issues at hand:

1. Customers squatting at tables cuts down in revenues because tables do not turn over;
2. Tables that do not turn over will discourage people from returning because they expect to not be able to find a table;
3. What sort of atmosphere are the business trying to create?;
4. Cafes are not meant to be alternate offices for freelancers (although I’m sure we’ve all wished about that!);
5. Is there more of an issue for small business owners than chains such as Starbucks or Barnes & Noble?

The first two are easy to comprehend. Customers spending a few hours and drinking two cups of coffee, for example, will not create as much business as a group of people drinking a cup of coffee or eating a meal. Customers taking up more than one chair and space for one person, prevent more customers from choosing to drink/dine in this cafe.

Yet, some businesses might want the creative writing/academic/business crowd to settle in for a while and appreciate the space. Some people crave working in environments where you are allowed to drink coffee (as in, not the library) and hear the hum of everyday life around you while you work. As discussed in Coffee Shop Conundrum, Starbucks is not an environment where you’d want to say a while (in my opinion). A local, cozy, friendly coffee shop is. At that point, the issue becomes about respect and etiquette, issues often overlooked when screens are in front of our faces. Do not use the coffee shop as your office and spend enough money when you are there. However, what is the appropriate amount of money?

The issue of coffee shop space diverges into credit card v. cash purchases and the evolving nature of how we communicate, interact, and work.

Are there solutions? Well, for those who do not understand that a coffee shop is not an office, they should consider collaborative/co-working office space: renting a desk in an office with other freelancers. If you find the right space, you’ll find your ideal coffee shop/work atmosphere. Even the small city of Montpelier, Vermont has such a space – Local 64. Look around in your city.

What about a different approach? How about a pay-as-you-go space? A cafe in the U.K. and one in Buenos Aires serve as the examples. You pay for the amount of time that you’re in the cafe, not for anything else. It hearkens back to the days of the internet cafe, when you were paying for internet. It’s another version of the co-working space.

And then there are variations. Some coffee shops give you a code when you place an order. Once you run out of internet time, you have to buy something else to get additional time. Other places request that you limit your time and table space during busy hours. Perhaps creating a screen section would work.

Of course, each business can do what is best for its business and create the environment it would like. As we become more mobile and screen-attached, small businesses will have to be creative and find solutions to keep up their profits. Good job to August First for being braving and finding what works for them. Not to mention, the food is delicious, and August First is located in a historic building.

What do you think? Are there other issues? Does your favorite coffee shop have wifi? Any other solutions? What’s the balance?

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Digital Calendars and Paper Planners

For all of my school years, from middle school to graduate school, I kept meticulous planners that were color coded for exams, assignments, track meets, newspaper deadlines, club meetings, birthdays and more. I religiously wrote my homework each day next to the class name/number in the daily/weekly pages and organized those important dates in the monthly calendar pages. My best friend (hi Landau!) did the same thing. And we’ve kept these planners after all these years. Ah, the memories. Surely, we cannot be the only two organizational dorks out there. Confess? Who else needed planners to survive and loved his/her planners?  Choosing a new planner each year was an important new school year decision. And then decorated the planners — usually with a fun magazine ad and clear mailing tape. The few times I left my planner in the locker room or a classroom, I felt so lost without it! Planners were no joke.

Despite my love for this planning system, in the years between college and graduate school, I did not need such an intensive record keeping/organizational system. Even though my job had many dates to remember and I had other commitments, it was easier and less hectic than my school days. A monthly planner would suffice; those daily/weekly pages were looking empty and lonely. It was difficult to find a calendar system that suited me. Call me crazy or OCD, but this bothered me. After all, my planners were almost works of art, choreographed  with colors and now full of nostalgia. When I look back at those planners, I often wonder how I managed to do everything on there. They seemed so superior to my current planners that represented a less hectic life.

Needing to use a familiar planner once graduate school began gave me more joy than it would should have warranted. However, once I completed school, I found myself in the same predicament. What kind of planner would work for me?

For work I need to keep track of which projects I work on each day or which meetings I attend, etc. My solution has been to use a blank notebook and start  a new page each day to take notes and record my daily work activities. I use a book until it’s full and then choose another small book. It’s my own daily record, but not a calendar, I guess. I use my outlook calendar to keep track of meeting dates and now add them into the trusty iPhone as well.  However, it’s just not as satisfying as my old planners.

Recently, I’ve been pining for my hard copy planners. They are such complete records. I’m tempted to start using a daily/weekly/monthly planner again. The only thing stopping me is that I might not have enough space for each day. I like to keep my notes with the corresponding day.

Maybe this doesn’t seem like such a dilemma to anyone else.  Maybe it’s more information that you can care to know about me. However, it brings up a choice between the digital world — so much of what I do and how I communicate is digital — and the trusted, lovely hard copy records. And you probably know how much preservationists value documentation. My phone is more likely with me than a book (generally speaking) and the calendar can be shared easily. It’s convenient and yes, still a novelty sometimes. But what is more likely to be around in a few years – my electronic calendars or my planner books? Obviously, the books. Is it strange to choose a calendar/planner system in the present based on what I might want to keep in the future? Again, preservationist = documentation. I think I might have to custom make a planner that works for me. Maybe I’ll solve this dilemma in time for 2013.

Who has converted from hard copy planners to electronic means? Who else is this obsessed (or more) with planners and calendars? Do you pine for hard copy planners like you pine for snail mail rather than email? How have you adjusted from school to work, from hard copies to electronic calendars? What do you think is better for documentation and posterity?

Let’s Talk Twitter

 Do you “tweet” or have a twitter account? Do you know what a Twitter account is? If you are my parents, you might not, so in brief: Twitter is another social media platform in which you can post messages of 140 characters on your twitter homepage. Anyone (unless you choose privacy) can read your page of “tweets.” You can follow what other users are “tweeting” about and reply to them, form groups or list and share anything: news articles, thoughts, clever one-liners, photographs, questions and more. So, it’s kind of like Facebook except shorter, or an online text message. (Actually, all of these can be linked nowadays.) People use Twitter for a variety of reasons, from personal to another way to entertain blog readers to networking to actual conversations.

 Why do I want to talk about Twitter? In all honesty, I’m undecided on how useful I find it – for me. I’m curious to hear why people love it so much and how it has benefited them, personally or professionally. Yes, Preservation in Pink has a Twitter account (@presinpink). I jumped on the bandwagon, which is one of the few times in life I caved to peer pressure. When a new post is published, WordPress automatically informs Twitter and a tweet with the name of the post and the link is shared on the @presinpink home page. In that manner it serves as another means of publication for blog posts. Once in a while I’ll share a news article or “retweet” an interesting link for someone else, but then I feel too addicted to the internet in a media platform that I don’t love. When that happens I tend to ignore Twitter and let WordPress do the work for me (thank you WordPress!)

Originally, when I first learned of Twitter years ago, it seemed like another “look at me!” platform, which it probably was at the time. Now it has evolved to be almost as popular as Facebook. It is a way for people and businesses to get their news out and form connections. There are entire conversations on Twitter, too.

Ever since hearing about Twitter chats, I’ve been decidedly more undecided about Twitter. The National Trust has been hosting monthly Twitter chats for a few months now and they sound like a great time. Kayla at Adventures in Heritage is one of the moderators and she explains how to Twitter and summarizes the chats along with a few others.

Remember when instant messenger (IM & AOL) was huge? (That’d be in the late 1990s/early 2000s.) In middle school and early high school days, it was so exciting to “talk” with friends in a chat room rather than having individual conversations. Snooping sisters couldn’t hear the conversations about boys and school. We could have multiple conversations at once. I loved it.

Are these Twitter chats similar? They seem to be, though I can’t get into Twitter conversations. Part of me finds it incredibly confusing. Part of me is against shortening words into code enough to fit within 140 characters. Annoying so, there are very few words which I’ll abbreviate or translate into text slang when text messaging. Thus, Twitter fuels my pet peeve of poor use of the English language.

However, perhaps the benefit of Twitter is keeping us verbose internet savvy preservationists brief. Get to the point, craft your 140 characters and move on. Share a link. Spread good news.

Is Twitter another must have for professional networking? Or is it a feel-good social platform? Is it actually useful for encouraging preservation? Or is it a case of a bunch of keyboard preservationists tweeting? I’d say both are the extreme. I mean, hey, any form of preservation chatter is good, right? Indeed.

I’m not trying to bash Twitter or those who use it. Whatever you find useful in this digital age is obviously a good thing. The power of education and conversation! But, I would like to hear from others on the advantages and disadvantages, or when you use Twitter or when you don’t. Do you have Twitter boundaries? Is there such a thing as keeping up with too many internet social platforms? Please, share!

My work schedule doesn’t allow me to be available at 4pm EST for these chats so I have missed out on them so far (but there’s always hope, right?). And now that I’ve openly questioned Twitter in public, it’s probably a good time to try it out to the full extent. To those who have asked, I will give a Twitter chat a try, I promise.