There is a dichotomy in home-based web work: we’re more liberated than almost any other gainfully employed professionals, and yet it seems that at times this freedom makes us free to work all day and night in blissful (or not) isolation from our small home offices.
People are looking for ways to counteract the inherent isolation that comes from being a lone wolf. Whether it’s virtual tools that approximate the experience of having people around you, or the group of casual or formal co-working arrangements that seem to be cropping up, there is a growing movement to take web work back into a pseudo-office environment.
But why?
Why are we driving to coffee shops and meet-ups and other places that are filled with the distractions that we’re supposed to be getting away from through the peaceful beauty of our web workerhood? Could it be there is a happy medium between coding for five hours without seeing another human face and sitting in an open bull-pen listening to our colleagues yak about their mortgages, hairdos, man/woman trouble, man/woman success, and beer-drinking plans?
What do you think?
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2007\/07\/27\/avoiding-isolation-when-working-from-home\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_0d051ffe18d5e968a089516341acc63d","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}