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A death knell for cubicle-farm drudgery?

by Glenn H. Reynolds

I’m writing this at the Downtown Grill and Brewery. Thanks to the wonders of wireless Internet, I can sit here sipping a beer while working on a column. The computer travels with me, and research is just a Google away. I do a lot of work that way—I write most of my columns somewhere besides my office or my study—and yet, somehow, it doesn’t really feel like work.

Knoxville has gotten to be a better place for that sort of thing, because more and more businesses are offering free wireless Internet as a way of attracting customers. Besides the Downtown Grill and Brewery, the Mellow Mushroom offers wireless Internet at both of its locations. Several places on the downtown Square allow you to surf, blog, and email wirelessly for free. Even the Krystal on Cumberland Avenue offers free wireless—as, of course, does the whole UT campus. (Borders offers wireless Internet, too, but it’s not free—you have to pay T-Mobile by the hour, day, or year. It’s easy enough to do, but, alas, it’s not free.) With the cost of a DSL or cable internet link falling, and with wireless network routers practically free, the phenomenon is spreading. (Hello, Panera Bread—are you reading this?)

As it spreads, I notice more and more people taking their work outside the office, and I know of several self-employed professionals who have given up their offices entirely. With a laptop, a cellphone, and a table at Starbucks when they need to have a meeting, they’ve decided that they don’t need to pay monthly office rent any more. I suspect that this phenomenon is just beginning to take off, too. In a few years, we’ll probably see a lot more people operating this way.

When we do, we’ll have gone full circle. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, many people did business out of coffeehouses. (Lloyd’s of London is named for Lloyd’s coffeehouse, where it started.) The move to offices didn’t happen so much because people preferred to work that way as because new work technologies (like typewriters and telephones)—plus bosses’ desire to keep employees on a short leash—required it. But now you can take that technology with you wherever you go, and bosses are often too busy outsourcing to supervise workers anyway.

This has spawned what some have called a “comfy chair revolution” in public spaces, as businesses start to compete for the business of people who can work when and where they want to. Wireless Internet is a lure. So are, well, comfy chairs, food and drink, and easy parking. People are even starting to build so-called “lifestyle malls” that encourage people to hang out, not just to shop. (I understand that Knoxville will be getting one of those as part of the Turkey Creek complex).

Because of these changes, we’re seeing more of what sociologist Ray Oldenburg called “third places.” The third place had several characteristics: It had to be free or inexpensive, offer food and drink, be accessible, draw enough people to feel social, and foster easy conversation.

Oldenburg also thought that third places were an important part of the social fabric. They let people meet in settings that were neither home nor work, settings that fostered conversation and interaction in ways that could produce all sorts of spinoffs. (Those 18th-century coffeehouses weren’t just the birthplaces of business—they were also the incubators of democracy, and of literature).

The other thing Oldenburg said about third places was that they were disappearing. And when he wrote his book, “The Great and Good Place,” back in 1989, they probably were. Neighborhood bars and coffee shops were vanishing (except on “Seinfeld” and “Friends”). But now they’re coming back, because of a combination of technology and capitalism.

This comeback, and the increased socializing that Oldenburg was looking for, may be magnified by another factor: Research that the networks find worrisome indicates that the more time people spend surfing on the Internet, the less time they spend watching television. Just as bars, restaurants and lots of other places have put out televisions for people’s amusement and to draw business, free wireless Internet is likely to follow. But it’s much easier to surf the Internet on a wireless laptop while sitting in a bar or a coffee shop than it is to watch television, beyond a quick glance at the scores or the news crawl. And it’s much easier to stop surfing or tapping at the keys and to actually talk to the person next to you than it is to turn your attention away from a television show. That web page will still be there in five minutes, with no danger of missing a crucial plot point or play.

Put it all together, and it looks pretty good. Instead of sitting at home, isolated and eye-glazed in front of the tube, or drudging away in an office, people are more likely to be out and about, meeting and making friends, or at least talking to strangers. And if this process goes far enough, we may see a few office buildings and cubicle farms replaced by more congenial settings along the way.

I think that’s a great thing, and I’m glad to see Knoxville businesses ahead of the curve on this trend.

Glenn Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee, and writes for InstaPundit.com, MSNBC.com, and TechCentralStation.com.