123.(LV3-11)Neo-Bedouins MS

Publish Date: March 14, 2007
Old Audio Article Archives Available At:
https://www.effortlessenglish.libsyn.com
A new breed of worker, fueled by caffeine and using the tools of modern
technology, is flourishing in the coffeehouses of San Francisco. Roaming
from cafe to cafe and borrowing a name from the nomadic Arabs who wan-
dered freely in the desert, they've come to be known as "bedouins."
San Francisco's modern-day bedouins are typically armed with laptops and
cell phones, paying for their office space and Internet access by buying cof-
fee and muffins.
San Francisco's bedouins see themselves changing the nature of the work-
place, if not the world at large. They see large companies like General
Motors laying off workers, contributing to insecurity. And at the same
time, they see the Internet providing the tools to start companies on the
cheap. In the Bedouin lifestyle, they are free to make their own rules.
"The San Francisco coffeehouse is the new Palo Alto garage," declares
Kevin Burton, 30, who runs his Internet startup “Tailrank” without renting
offices. "It's where all the innovation is happening."
The move toward mobile self employment is also part of what author Daniel
Pink identified when he wrote "Free Agent Nation" in 2001.
"A whole infrastructure has emerged to help people work in this way,"
Pink said. "Part of it includes places like Kinkos, Office Depot and Staples."
It also includes places like Starbucks and independent coffee shops, where
Wi-Fi -- wireless Internet access for laptops and other devices -- is avail-
able.
"The infrastructure makes it possible for people to work where they want,
when they want, how they want," said Pink.
Pink calls it "Karl Marx's revenge, where individuals own the means of
production. And they can take the means of production and hop from coffee
shop to coffee shop."
"There is nothing more free than being a Web worker," Om Malik says.
"There is no boss. You work for yourself. This is the new Wild West. The
individual is more important. That's the American way. It's about doing
things your own way. Web workers represent that. ... It's the future, my
friend."
Ritual Roasters in San Francisco's Mission District is in many ways the epi-
center of the bedouin movement. Ritual, on Valencia Street near 21st Street,
is almost always packed with people working on laptops.
Every bedouin seems to have a Ritual story. There's the time someone
buzzed through the cafe on a Segway scooter. Rubyred Labs, a hip Web
design shop in South Park, had its launch party there. Teams from established
Web companies such as Google Inc. and Flickr, a photo sharing site that's
now owned by Yahoo, meet there. "You'd never know these guys were mil-
lionaires," said Ritual co-owner Jeremy Tooker.
As for why they're there, Sean Kelly said, "I'm visiting with my friends
instead of being locked up in a big building in the South Bay."
Using a cafe to run a business is nothing particularly new. Venerable insur-
ance firm Lloyd's of London was actually started in a coffee house, Kennedy
points out. According to the Lloyd's of London Web site, "Edward Lloyd
opened a coffee house in 1688, encouraging a clientele of ships' captains,
merchants and ship owners -- earning him a reputation for trustworthy ship-
ping news. This ensured that Lloyd's coffee house became recognized as the
place for obtaining marine insurance."
Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of their best work in
Parisian cafes. And in San Francisco, writers and poets of the Beat genera-
tion, such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, wrote in the cafes of North
Beach.
Caffe Trieste was among the most popular North Beach hangouts. "To have
a cappuccino, you come to North Beach, to Caffe Trieste," says Giovanni
"Papa Gianni" Giotta, the founder.
Now Caffe Trieste has joined the ranks of Wi-Fi cafes. It would figure that
the one laptop in action on a recent afternoon belonged to an art dealer. "A
cappuccino for overhead isn't bad," said David Salow, 33. He struck out on
his own three months ago, and has yet to open a gallery. "Sixty to 70 percent
of what I do can be done with the standard tools available to everyone -- a
phone, a computer and a laptop connection."