[vechagup]

And perhaps when enough of these like-minded remote workers are living near each other, some of them will find that they enjoy working in the same physical location at the same time. Then some of the space in the community can be turned into hubs for in-person collaboration, or offices!

[mb7733]

Not sure if you're being dismissive, but that still sounds great. It would lead to many small, livable communities with opportunity dotting the country. As opposed to everyone living in suburbs and and making long commutes to a small number of massive urban centers.

[toyg]

That’s basically the model IBM was actively pursuing in the 90s-00s (no idea whether they still do). They ran a bunch of studies in the previous decades, showing the various trade-offs involved into office locations; eventually they decided the best overall policy was to prefer mid-size offices in suburban settings, away from business districts and other high-density areas. At one point I think they had an outright ban on new city-centre offices.

(Or at least this is what I was told when I was a contractor for them in the mid-00s in Europe, wondering why they avoided getting a single building in Manchester city centre and spread over two separate locations in the surrounding suburbs instead.)

[ghaff]

HQ is in Armonk which is Westchester County. Somers (since sold) and Poughkeepsie are there as well as is IBM Research at Yoktown Heights. Raleigh is in an industrial park (RTP). I'm by no means familiar with all of IBM's locations but, yes, many of them are suburban. IBM also sold their building in Manhattan in the 90s though they may still have some space there; they did when I last visited but that was quite a while ago. Most of the IBM people I work with work remotely.

[wjamesg]

I’m not sure RTP qualifies as “an industrial park” but suburban, sure

[rexarex]

You ever try living in SF? You seem to have described it in a sense.

Also see this great South Park clip for an analogy: https://youtu.be/a3ezyTXFgYM

[mb7733]

I don't follow. What part of my post described SF, and what is the analogy with that South park clip?

What I said was that if small communities spring up around places where remote workers converge, that is a good thing. It doesn't defeat the purpose of remote work.

[rexarex]

I might have misinterpreted your comment, however I’m poking fun at the cyclical nature of change.

The fact that people want to go remote and distributed and then maybe start up these things called ‘offices’ is analogous to quasi anarchist hippies at festivals that want to move off the grid and let a new society flourish organically. Ultimately we end up in the same place.

[jdbernard]

Key difference is that in this model offices are built around the community, not the corporation. Seems likely to lead to very different results.

[pimterry]

Self-chosen hubs for work are dramatically better for the individual than a company office though. They're not the same thing.

Advantages:

- Employee picks the location, so it's likely far more convenient for them

- Because employee has freedom to pick their work location, they have far more freedom to pick where they live

- Because employees have freedom to pick their work locations, all of a sudden "work location" is a competitive market, everywhere, and multiple options appear vying to fulfil different preferences (how quiet should they be? are pets allowed? do you want sharp & suited & professional, or lively with events every night, or chilled and friendly, or...?)

- Employee doesn't need to change their commute or desk or _anything_ when they change jobs

- 'Office' social life independent of your colleagues: you meet a wider range of people, and you separate work relationships from those friendships

- Less presenteeism, because it's harder for people to tell when you're present (not impossible, but it pushes in the right direction)

[chippy]

this is the wework model. Instead of the companies running the offices, the companies pay the workers to use 3rd party offices.

[toyg]

It’s the AWS model applied to real estate: move that $$$ from CapEx to OpEx, woot!

[blaser-waffle]

Office leases were always OpEx mang

[toyg]

You're right, I was thinking Old Businesses who actually bought their real estate (long-term thinking, such madness!)

[renewiltord]

As it so happens, in the long term they were all dead.

[edw]

Or coffee shops.