The scene at the big communal table at the May 29th Coffee and Code.
When is Toronto Coffee and Code?
Friday is coming up, which means that it’s time for another Toronto Coffee and Code! This Friday’s will take place at the usual location: the Dark Horse Cafe at 215 Spadina Avenue (about halfway between Dundas and Queen), and it’ll run from 11:00 a.m. to 6 p.m..
Why Coffee and Code?
For those of you not familiar with Coffee and Code, here’s a quick primer. Coffee and Code is where I set up for the day at a wifi-equipped cafe and work from there. I announce where and whn I’ll be working on that day, so it’s easy to sit down, have a chat, ask me questions about Microsoft, its tools and technology, the tech industry in general, or whatever else you’d like to talk about! My job is to be your man on the inside”at The Empire, and there’s no simpler, more direct way to make myself available to you.
Coffee and Code has caught on in a couple of other places. Whenever we folks from the Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism group tour the country during one of our cross-Canada conferences, we try to hold a Coffee and Code event in whatever city we’re visiting. Over in Guelph, Cory Fowler has taken it upon himself to host the weekly Guelph Coffee and Codes, which take place every Tuesday evening.
Why Cafes?
Cafes have been natural places for the exchange of ideas since the first ones in London were opened back in the 1650s. They became the meeting places for all sorts of people – the Norton Anthology says that they became the meeting places for all sorts of people:
Tories and Whigs, people of fashion and haberdashers, wits and clergymen, merchants and lawyers, booksellers and authors, stockjobbers and artists, doctors and undertakers — and politicians of every kind.
The Anthology also goes on to say that a French visitor, the Abbé Prévost, describes coffeehouses, whose numbers swelled to over 500 in less than a century, said that coffeehouses called them the “seats of English liberty”, “where you have the right to read all the papers for and against the government.”
The tradition carries on to this day. People still think of cafes as “third places”—gathering places that are neither home nor workplace – where they can meet and talk over a cup of legal stimulant. In the era of portable computing devices, wifi and mobile work, cafes have evolved to become places where independent-minded roving knowledge workers can be productive. So what better place to make myself available than a cafe?
See you on Friday!
Another shot of the big communal table at the May 29th Coffee and Code.
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This is the first I’ve heard of this — what a great idea. I work by myself (don’t know as I’d qualify as a great thinker, though!) and find it nice sometimes to get out just to be with other people, even if I’m not conversing with them. In fact, I need to do more of that. I’ve been doing some reading lately on knowledge workers and how to increase my productivity, which has led me to work on whole businesses, etc., which I need to know for some clients. Interesting stuff in “Reinvent Your Enterprise” by Jack Bergstrand. It is for the 2009 Global Knowledge Age what “Reengineering the Corporation” (by Hammer and Champy) was for the economic and business environment of the mid ’90s.
Hi,
I, also love the fonts and font sizes you are using with Thesis. Would you mind sharing
what the fonts and sizes are that you are using please?