Brian Kerr

Today is the one-year anniversary of µcoworking / microcoworking. It’s a thing that happens at certain intervals. Here’s the original invitation:

Microcoworking calendar for folks in and around Ann Arbor. If you have work to do, but not a place to work, you are invited to join us whenever and wherever there is something on the calendar. You may also add time to the calendar, just make sure to be there.

Over time, this got burned down to:

You are invited to microcowork (e.g. work together, or alone but in the presence of others) at any of the times and locations on the calendar.

People have been sitting around in cafes or on benches or in other folks’ conference rooms or the like bitterly fighting off structuration and incubation and all that control addict bullshit for longer than a year. But/and before during and after that flickering timespan when “coworking” meant anything to anybody, y’all have wanted this fire in the Delta City.

But today, after a year of Wednesdays, observe. A nice thing about µcoworking, as opposed to other non-membership-based non-organizations, is that you can drift towards and away from it without distress. There’s nothing at the center besides a calendar and a cup of coffee. You come and you go.

Limited peripheral participation (read: ripeness) is all.

(tags: coffee cybernetics fire invitations microcoworking network notwork time year)

Late last week, Catherine twitterinvited folks to bulk up Ann Arbor on Placeshout. Three days later, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are the first and third most “shouted” cities, with San Francisco coming in second. This reminds me of the early, happy days of upcoming.org, when Ann Arbor was one of the locations with the most user and event churn.

So what the hell is Placeshout? Take a look. For context, see Ed’s notes on the KARB/KYIP Placeshout event. Here’s all of my activity on the site.

It’s too bad there’s no API, and no feeds. You can search and Google Maps browse and so forth right on the site, so there’s no pressing need, beyond the standard desire to pipe Placeshout white noise into various filters. Or grab a KML. Or update Placeshout from Twitter (I can only assume that’s what the additional 40 characters in twitterspace are for).

I do like how you aren’t expected to make friends with everybody. It’s enough, at least for now, to see a username you know and think O HAI and just move on with the pressing business of downrating inappropriately positive reviews of Ann Arbor’s crappier brewpubs.

(tags: annarbor coffee food interaction media microneogeography networks placeshout representation twitter ypsilanti)

 _________________________________________ 
/ On a clear disk, you can seek forever.  \
| Man, I could use another cup of coffee, |
\ black as midnight on a moonless night.  /
 ----------------------------------------- 
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

 _________________________________________ 
/ Also: Ypsilanti links in sidebar, whose \
\ vital microcorrespondence is missing?   /
 ----------------------------------------- 
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

 __________________________ 
< Fall Out -- goodnight... >
 -------------------------- 
        \   ^__^
         \  (--)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

(tags: coffee narratives remediation visual)

Waiting for a break in the rain — ducked into the just-opened Artisan Bistro at State and Packard, formerly Atlanta Bread Company. Apparently the place changed hands recently, and new owners have put together a better show than the bread company (hardly an accomplishment).

Links — (1) a review from John Hritz; (2) the cafe site, advertised but not resolving; (3) an a2 snooze write-up; and (4) Artisan Bistro on Plazes.

Tons of seating, ground floor and basement, with relatively few outlets. Doesn’t look like there is house wifi (yet?). Veggie menu is pretty huge, and the coffee + snack I ordered is looking good. This would be a great microcoworking venue.

(tags: annarbor coffee food)

Text of an announcement I tried and failed to send to the a2b3-coworking mailing list:

Introducing ‘a2b3-microworking’ a public calendar over on Google Calendar.

HTML: http://tinyurl.com/37neb2
ICAL: http://tinyurl.com/3a4m8d
RSS:  http://tinyurl.com/377xnk

Syndicated at http://a2pla.net/a2b3/ and etc.

What is microcoworking? http://wordie.org/words/microcoworking

Why not Yahoo calendar? because it’s more stingy with feeds and I bet more of us use Google Calendar anyways. The only grossness is that one of the people who are using it already will have to ’share’ calendar posting access with you.

I’ll conclude with the description I wrote for the google calendar:

“Microcoworking calendar for folks in and around Ann Arbor. If you have work to do, but not a place to work, you are invited to join us whenever and wherever there is something on the calendar. You may also add time to the calendar, just make sure to be there. Send a note to brian@joechip.net to get magic calendar posting privileges (sorry for the hassle).”

If any of you putative microcoworkers have ideas for how I can make this work better for you, let me know.

(tags: annarbor coffee collective invitations microcoworking public-transportation)

Café Ambrosia has two locations — one in Ann Arbor, MI, the other in Evanston, IL. The Ann Arbor store was run by brothers Mike and Ed, until Mike moved to Evanston and opened the second one. Found on Flickr: kittenry’s Evanston Café Ambrosia photos, including pictures of Matt and Mike in their new stomping grounds.

(tags: annarbor coffee)