Still toiling away in a grey office building? Boring! According to BT\u2019s \u2018soonologist\u2019, you\u2019ll get more done with coffee, cake and connectivity<\/p>\n

Working in the coffice
\nOnly connect:<\/strong> who needs to commute when you can be a coffice worker?
\nAge<\/strong>: As old as free Wi-Fi.
\nAppearance<\/strong>: Half coffee shop, half office. Hence the name.<\/p>\n

Just a few words in and you\u2019ve already lost me. It\u2019s where all the cool kids work. Rather than commuting to a boring old office, they take their laptops to their local Starbucks or Costa, where they can \u2026<\/p>\n

Yap into their mobiles, hog the tables and wreck the atmosphere for anyone who just wants an espresso and a read of the papers? Well, yeah. But they can also surf the net, check their emails and access their Google Drives.<\/p>\n

Is this another puff piece for the Guardian\u2019s \u201cachingly trendy\u201d Shoreditch-based coffee shop? No. This is a piece about the changing face of work, as described by Nicola Millard. She\u2019s a futurologist for BT.<\/p>\n

A whatologist? She is paid to advise BT and its big customers on how working life will change over the next few years. She prefers to call herself a \u201csoonologist\u201d.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s joking, of course? One can only hope so, though one of her peers does call himself a \u201ctrend DJ\u201d. Millard\u2019s favourite place to work, she says, is somewhere with a bit of a life but no colleagues to distract her. \u201cMy four criteria for working,\u201d she says, \u201care that I need good coffee, I need good cake, I need great connectivity \u2013 the Wi-Fi wings to fly me into the cloud \u2013 and I need company.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all very interesting \u2026 But what does it mean for the rest of us?<\/p>\n

Precisely. Not much if you\u2019re stacking shelves or changing old people\u2019s incontinence pads. But if you\u2019re a \u201cknowledge-based\u201d worker, Millard points out, all you need for most of the time is a phone, a computer and an internet connection. This could be in your local cafe \u2013 or it could be in your home. \u201cThere is no reason why knowledge workers shouldn\u2019t all be working flexibly in five years\u2019 time,\u201d according to Millard.
\nHow much does a futurologist earn? I too have a gift for stating the obvious. It\u2019s not obvious to everyone. Just last year the internet giant Yahoo! banned its executives from working at home. Being \u201cone Yahoo!\u201d, apparently, \u201cstarts with being physically together\u201d.<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019m going to be physically sick. I\u2019ve got a better idea. Let\u2019s go to the pubfice.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m working late.\u201d
\nDo say<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019ll be working on latte.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: The Guardian<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"