I have noticed that when my own virtual office congregates at Panera for a day of work, the place is busy all day long and the tables are filled with people working, studying or meeting with clients. It is a fascinating work environment because we are surrounded by doctors, sales reps, creative, clergy, attorneys and students. This is Oklahoma City…I can only imagine what it must be like in the areas you mentioned!

Hey – and sorry about the poor editing job in my first comment.

This is a trend that many people have been predicting since the internet boom of the late 90s, but it hasn’t really played out as predicted – yet. Sure there have been increases in the number of person telecommuting and as connective technology improves this number will grow, but it has not spelled led to the widespread distribution of workers that we might expect.

Much of our economy is now made up of industries that focus on creativity and innovation, and these industries seem to thrive when clustered geographically. So you get clusters in Silicon Valley or up here in Boston for high tech / biotech companies. There are also clusters for media industries, fashion industries, advertising, design, financial services, etc spread in major cities throughout the world. Many of these industries are hiring from within the same pool of workers. So if you are a skilled worker in that industry you are likely to move there to find a job, and if you are a company in that industry you are likely to move there to find workers. As the industry clusters it also benefits from unplanned meetings and exchanges, whether at a coffee bar or a social outing. These extra meetings outside of normal business hours, lead to new connections, new ideas, etc.

People are certainly becoming more mobile in the way they work. I think we will see this technology change the way we think about the workday or vacation time – productivity (not time) becomes the measure. But face-to-face interaction is still important to many industries. I wish I had a better answer. I will post anything I find and hopefully we can figure it out together.

Thanks. I loved this article.