“If I’m going to feel lousy, I may as well go into the office and get some work done.”

“I’ve got so much to do; I can’t afford not to go in.”

“It’s just a little cough.”

At one time or another, probably all of us have uttered these sentences in defense of dragging our sneezing, wheezing, coughing, flu- and cold-ridden selves out of our sickbeds and into the office.

Equally true, we’ve all heard the phrase, “I’m not that sick,” uttered from a co-worker or client’s lips — only to find ourselves down and out for a week with their illness a few days later. Going to work when sick has become such a growing trend that it’s earned its own moniker — presenteeism.

Wikipedia defines presenteeism as “the opposite of absenteeism. In contrast to absenteeism, when employees are absent from work, presenteeism discusses the problems faced when employees come to work in spite of illness, which can have similar negative repercussions on business performance.”

Of course, many web workers don’t actually head into an office, so don’t need to worry about infecting co-workers. But working while ill can have other repercussions, too. An October 2004 Harvard Business Review article titled “Presenteeism: At Work — But Out of It”, highlighted a study commissioned by Lockheed Martin to assess the impact of 28 medical conditions (including migraines, asthma and the flu) on workers’ productivity.

Researchers from Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston found that even employees with less severe conditions had impaired on-the-job performance and that, in total, employees who came to work with these 28 conditions cost the company approximately $34 million a year.

So if coming to work when sick is bad for the patient’s health, and equally as detrimental to the business’s bottom line, why do we continue to do it?

According to the findings of the Unscheduled Absence Survey by CCH, a part of Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 66 percent of those surveyed said that having too much work and fear of missing deadlines were the most common reasons they came to work when sick. Another 56 percent cited lack of anyone to cover their workload as the reason, and 36 percent are showing up out of company loyalty.

And while a strong work ethic and company loyalty are to be admired, they may not be reason enough to leave the house when you’re sick. This flu season has not only begun with a wallop, but on June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization declared that a global pandemic of H1N1 flu is underway. With all these nasty beasties floating about, but a pressure to be productive lurking, it’s hard to know what to do, when to stay home and when you’re clear to go out.

Of course, good old-fashioned common sense (and mom’s advice) dictates for most of us how to handle the situation: Wash our hands, cover our mouths, don’t go to work with a fever etc. But hey, why take my, or mom’s, word for it? According to the CDC web site flu.gov, here’re their recommendations for keeping the cruddy stuff from spreading.

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.
• Follow public health advice regarding school closures, avoiding crowds and other social distancing measures.
• If you must have close contact with a sick person (for example, hold a sick infant), try to wear a facemask or N95 disposable respirator.

As for the time required to be away from your fellow citizens, flu.gov says stay home if you are sick until at least 24 hours after you no longer have a fever (100°F or 37.8°C) or signs of a fever, without the use of a fever-reducing medicine. For more details, check out http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/guidance/exclusion.htm.

Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, I’m writing this column on my laptop from the comfort of my bed, which I have been confined to for the past four days since coming down with a whopper of a cold I picked up at a play. I guess all the hand washing in the world couldn’t make up for the guy in the row behind me hacking away at the back of my head all night.

Do you suffer from presenteesim,  and struggle to work even when you’re ill?

As Google is issuing Wave invites in a steady trickle, those fortunate enough to have an account are trying to figure out how this new tool might fit into their workflow and help them better communicate and collaborate with their teams and clients.

While the small number of people who actually have an account right now is probably going to be the first hurdle for many teams who would like to try it out on a live project, I count myself among the lucky ones who got a Google Wave invite early and spread my nominations amongst some colleagues and clients.

One of my clients to whom I sent a nomination wanted to try it out on our current project, so I thought I would share some of the early lessons we learned and some tips from my initial dip into using Google Wave for a real client project.

1. Set suitable expectations. Despite the months of buzz, and blogosphere- and Twitterverse-wide clamoring for Google Wave invites, the product is still in preview and has some rough edges. Therefore, it does all parties good to be realistic, even if everybody is psyched to be the first kid on their block to use it on a live project. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll also encounter bouts of slowness, messages to refresh Google Wave, and perhaps even the random browser crash. Your project team’s level of tolerance for such things might vary.
2. Do a dry run with a Wave. The Wave concept is definitely a new model for many. It took me an impromptu “dry run” with my client for us to truly grasp the Wave concept and see how it could shape our online collaboration. For example, I could see how Wave could be used to keep all project information and communications online and out of our already cluttered inboxes, and it was great to able to see my client paste text as well as type into a Wave in real-time.
3. Take control of your Waves. It’s easy to get a little excited and end up creating Waves for all sorts of things, but you need to take control of the conversation in Google Wave, instead of letting Google Wave take charge of your conversations. For my project, we decided on one Wave per project document, for the sake of organization.
4. Use folders and tags. While the Inbox Zero and GTD crowd have yet to full plant their stakes in Google Wave, I must say that the use of folders and tags is prudent, especially because while the Wave platform breaks so much new ground, but folders and tags are concepts are familiar to many. I ended up creating a project-specific folder for all the Waves associated with the client project. My use of tags also came further into play as a tool to fine-tune my own organization. A simple tip is to remember you can resize the navigation pane to accommodate your folder list as it grows. By default, your folder list may not fully appear in the navigation pane.
5. Consider whether to use live editing or attachments. Google Wave melds email and word processing together. Thus, it is important to decide whether you want to collaborate on documents directly in Google Wave or via file attachments. Unfortunately, at this time Google Wave lacks version control for file attachments (thus putting the feature at the top of my wish list for a Google Wave extension). My client and I decided to work with file attachments for the project documents and write directly in Google Wave for direct communications with each other.
6. Have a Plan B. It’s cool to get jazzed as an early adopter, but if Google Wave isn’t enhancing productivity and communications, be sure that you have a fall back plan in case it end up causing more problems than it is worth.

While my initial entry into Google Wave on a real client project was really just scratching the surface of this new collaboration platform, I do see a lot of potential. However, with its rough edges, it may not be the collaboration platform for everyone just yet. Personally, I am looking towards more Google Wave extensions and gadgets going live, because my initial experience tells me that they are going to be key providers of critical functionality and user experience.

If you’re looking for more info on Wave, check out the report “Google Wave Explained” over on our subscription research service, GigaOM Pro.

Have you tried using Google Wave on any of your current projects? Share your experience below.

The folks at Ribbit Mobile are offering 100 invitations to WebWorkerDaily readers for the beta of their new communication service. Just sign up on the reservations page, and enter the invite code “wwd09″ in the appropriate box.

Ribbit Mobile has more features than Google Voice, and reminds me a bit of VoxOx, which I wrote about a few days ago. This service looks very promising, but, like VoxOx, it isn’t finished yet. I’ve been unable to test it fully, because it doesn’t yet support Sprint cellphones. I also can’t get my contact list to import, either from a CSV file or through Plaxo (the only options Ribbit Mobile supports). I hope to post a fuller review soon.

Try it out, and let us know how Ribbit Mobile works for you.

There are times when things are so hectic that 9 am becomes 5 pm, Monday becomes Friday, and the first day of the month becomes the last before you can even turn around.

The days and weeks run together, and everything seems to be moving at lightening speed. Even though the impulse is to run as fast as you can to keep up, sometimes the best thing you can do is stop, see where you are, and adjust the course of a runaway train.

As a small business owner, it’s possible to have several projects going on at any given point, and unfortunately, there are many occasions where the one that makes the most noise and fuss is the one that gets the majority of available attention. Time goes by, and the most important things get pushed aside for the most desperate.

Getting it all back under control is actually pretty simple. It’s done with a weekly review.

Step 1: Stop

Pressing forward aimlessly just because there’s so much to be done can actually be counter-productive. Taking time to gain big-picture perspective and then purposefully resuming work can help you get more done in less time. Although it can be tempting to simply start fighting the next fire in your path, stop doing everything and commit to getting a better hold on your load.

Step 2: See Where You Are

You can’t evaluate and prioritize without knowing what’s on the radar, so you need to lay it all on the table for sorting. Go through your email, notes, open projects, and someday-maybe list to see what exactly has to be done. Next, make a list of what’s important to you. What is it that you want to do? What do you want to accomplish?

Be realistic about what’s on your plate. Assign deadlines to every project and decide what’s doable and what should be eliminated or delegated. Simply removing some tasks and projects from your to-do list can bring clarity around what’s left to be done.

Step 3: Re-balance Your Load

Now that you know what projects are left to be completed, figure out how to balance the load. Hire a VA to help with menial tasks or things that take you away from your core responsibilities and projects. Batch your work so that you reduce the times you have to switch gears throughout the day or week. Find tools and systems to streamline your work and make you more productive. One example, I do a lot of interviews for the Upstart Smart blog and podcast. Coordinating schedules is very cumbersome and requires a lot of concentration and care to avoid double-booking and overextending myself. By simply using TimeDriver, I’m able to set my availability once and then interviewees can pick the times that work best for their schedules, saving me tons of time and frustration. That one quick adjustment has made my life so much easier.

Step 4: Set Up a Schedule

Block out set times that you’ll devote to the big rocks you need to move each day. Create uninterrupted windows where you can give 100 percent of your attention to making progress on each project. This doesn’t have to be a lifetime commitment. You’re simply deciding how you’ll spend your time for the coming week. You’re intentionally laying out a plan that will help you move things forward. If things mess up or don’t work perfectly, you can adjust the schedule and course again next week.

Step 5: Abide by the Schedule

A plan does you no good if you don’t look at it on a regular basis. Your schedule should stay open every minute of your day so that you refer to it often. If you think you’ll get sidetracked by email or surfing the Internet, be realistic about it. Put that in your schedule, too. Set aside dedicated blocks of time for email or simply checking your RSS feeds. That way, you’ll know that you have time for that coming up, too, but that right now, your focus is on the project at hand.

Step 6: Rinse and Repeat

Each week, set aside dedicated time to evaluate where you are and where you’re going. Figure out your most important projects and tasks for the coming week and hold them in your mind. By clearly identifying them, you can quickly check in with yourself and see if you’re focusing on the right things and moving your business in the direction you want it to go.

How do you ensure that you make progress in your business? What tools and tricks do you use to keep a runaway train on track?

Image from Flickr by by doug88888

Today marks the start of the fifth birthday celebration of my favorite browser, Mozilla Firefox. I don’t know about you, but I’m having trouble getting my head around the fact that it’s 5 years old — that makes me feel a little old myself!

In 2004, when Firefox 1.0 was launched, the first browser wars were all but over. Microsoft (msft) had beaten Netscape, Internet Explorer was — by far — the dominant browser, and those of us who actually cared about things like web standards were looking on in despair.

That changed when Firefox came along, showing the world that it was possible to produce a lightweight, fast, extensible and secure standards-compliant standalone browser. In those five years, it has grown from being a scrappy open-source upstart the geeks use to the second-most popular browser in use, taking about a quarter of the market, according to Net Applications (and on more technical sites like this one, Firefox is by far the most popular browser). Firefox’s rapid growth was helped in part by grassroots promotional efforts like the Spread Firefox campaign, but primarily thanks to Microsoft’s glacial rate of development of IE and its glaring security holes. Without the competitive pressure of Firefox, Microsoft might not have seriously developed IE beyond IE 7, and without browser development and innovation, some of the great web apps that we rely on today might not have been possible. Firefox’s own development continues apace, as the second browser wars — between Google and Mozilla this time — really start to heat up. Version 3.6 of the browser, which is currently available in beta (and works very well, I might add), should be released in December.

So, join me in raising a glass (or latte/tea cup) to Mozilla, the Firefox team, and everyone who has contributed to Firefox and its extension ecosystem over the years — it is a great product that many of us are truly thankful for.

Add your Firefox birthday wishes below.

Nimbuzz has launched a premium calling service called NimbuzzOut that adds the ability to use the mobile messaging client to make calls to wireless and landline phones worldwide, as reported by Om over on GigaOM.

Om has been using the pre-release version of NimbuzzOut for about a month and recommends it for making cheap international calls — the call quality is good and the app is easy to use. Check out Om’s post for full details.

Have you tried NimbuzzOut? What do you think of the call quality?

Bill On Site offers the ability to manage invoices from your mobile phone. No matter where you are, as long as your phone has a web browser, you can send an invoice to your client immediately — you don’t need to have a computer at hand.

Invoicing on the Go

To make preparing invoices on your phone as easy as possible, Bill On Site allows you to set up clients ahead of time, although you can access client information via your phone. You will need to provide an email address in order to make sure that your invoice makes it to the appropriate client. You can also set up your invoices so that your clients can pay you immediately if you happen to be meeting with them when you send the invoice, as well as accept payment by PayPal, check or money order. You can automatically add taxes, fees and discounts to specific clients as well, though they do need to be set up before you start using your phone.

Bill On Site offers a mobile interface that you can use on any phone that allows you to access the web. It is a relatively easy interface to use, and you can turn out invoices on the spot.

The service has three separate pricing plans, ranging from $15 a month to $45 a month. The basic account is limited to sending out 25 invoices a month and is for solo users only. The other plans offer more invoices each month, as well as staff accounts so that multiple members of an organization can access the invoicing system. Each of the three plans includes a 30-day free trial.

Using Bill On Site

The ability to send an invoice from your phone is very useful — if you’ve had to go on-site to see a client or you’re otherwise away from your computer, it’s a practical feature.

However, many invoicing tools can be used on a smartphone. Some have created applications (like Freshbooks’ Minibooks iPhone app, for example) or mobile interfaces, but with a little perseverance, even those that have not can still be used.

One thing I’d love to see from Bill On Site that would make it really stand out from other invoicing apps is a way to send invoices from mobile phones that aren’t smartphones (maybe via an SMS or voice interface).

In general, Bill On Site stacks up well against other invoicing tools. It does encrypt all invoice and client information and transmits it over SSL. Data is backed up in three different locations, according to the company’s web site. The system also records all changes to each invoice, so that you can review how an invoice has been updated and changed at any time. The question worth considering is how different the mobile interface is for Bill On Site when compared with other invoicing tools, but if invoicing from your phone is a concern, it’s worth giving Bill On Site’s free trial a go.

What do you think of Bill On Site’s mobile interface?

Holiday season is just around the corner. Some of us will stay home, some will go away. Some will work every day that’s not a public holiday, or on which our presence is not required elsewhere by friends and family. Others will take days, if not weeks, of time out from work. Some will remain connected at every moment, come hell or high water. Others will switch off, kick back, and only get online to read the news, check personal accounts, or find out if the weather will be fair tomorrow.

Whatever your plans, there’s a lot for the web worker to prepare before the holiday season hits and business in many parts of the world grinds almost to a halt. Here are some of the steps I’m taking to ensure things don’t go pear-shaped over the next month or two.

1. Work Plan

When time is short, I like to prepare a work plan which outlines what I need to do and how much time I have to do it in. I break those tasks down to a daily to-do-list and endeavor to stick to it. I make note of the date on which I can expect work to return to normal, so that I can ensure I’m prepared to hit the ground running when the wheels of commerce start turning again.

Like many freelancers, I’ll also be looking at my task list from a budget perspective this holiday season: How many billable hours will I need to fit in between now and when things pick up again in the new year? And where can I find work to fill any budget gaps?

2. Holiday Plan

You probably already have an idea of how much time you’d like to take off this holiday season, and how much vacation time you’ll be able to take. Once I’ve got an idea of the amount of work I have to do, I can schedule my break time to take in commitments with family and friends. But my vacation timeframe will also be affected by my colleagues’ and clients’ schedules.

We’ve all been through the frustration of working when everyone else is holidaying: you can’t get the inputs you need, you have trouble accessing information or gaining approvals — it can be a real nightmare, not to mention a complete waste of time.

Of course, depending on the types of jobs you have to do, you may find this “quiet time” while everyone else is vacationing to be a blessing for your productivity.

3. Connectivity Plan

Whether you’ll be Twittering pictures of your Thanksgiving turkey as it’s being devoured, or you’re heading for the hills, to a little place with no phone or web access, it’s fair to say that all web workers need some sort of connectivity plan for the holiday season.

For me, that plan will entail periods without connection. But work commitments will necessitate that I’m not away from my computer for more than a few days at a time. I’ll build this into my schedule as well, and try to stick to it on the basis that the break from the everyday will do me good.

Your connectivity plan may, of course, necessitate a packing list if you’re going away and need to take your gear with you, or even a wishlist of equipment you’d be happy to receive as gifts this season…

4. Goal Plan

Depending on your work and workload, you may choose, as I will, to set a rough goal plan for next year now.

Yes, now. I don’t want to sail into the new year and then start wondering what I’m going to do next. As a remote worker, I find that planning past the holiday season helps my motivation, and lets me maintain momentum through the lazy days ahead.

In some ways, it even helps me to relax over the holiday season: since I know I have things to get on with after the break, I don’t spend the time worrying about what’ll happen when the fun stops.

These are the kinds of plans I make against the ravages of the heady holiday season. How about you?

Here are some interesting posts from around the ‘Net to catch up with over the weekend:

• John Borthwick: “lines in the sand …”
• AFP: “Technology not causing social isolation: Pew study”
• CNET: “Google tries its own take on customer service”
• Six Revisions: “How to Get Your Ideas Across to Clients”
• Forbes: “How Far Will Google Wave Go?”
• HorsePigCow: “Feeling Lucky?”

What are you reading this weekend?

This week, my husband was laid off for the second time in five years. This one hurts more than the first. At that time, I held a corporate job, so our health insurance and other benefits remained intact. But I became a full-time freelancer after he found a stable job with benefits. Now that’s all gone or won’t be around for long.

After I stopped reeling, it was time to start dealing. And deal I did — by taking these actions.

Accept the situation. It does no one good to scream and worry about it. Of course, I still worry about the situation, but I don’t let it paralyze me or prevent me from moving forward. It’s OK to scream when you hear the news, just know when to stop and move on.

Stick to the schedule. Despite the bad news, you need to try to stick to the schedule and make your deadlines.

Respond to emails at the right time. Sometimes you may not be in the best frame of mind to reply to a difficult email. Address problems and more challenging emails when you know you can respond logically and not emotionally.

Take care of your physical self. Exercise eases some of the pent up stress and symptoms that come with it. I also make sure I get my seven to eight hours of sleep, drink plenty of water and follow a balanced diet.

Help with the job search. This gives you a feeling of some control. Plus, you might be able to contact some people that your spouse doesn’t know.

Reach out to friends and colleagues. Letting others know about the situation ensures others understand why you may not act like everything is hunky dory. They might also help by contacting their connections who may have jobs or know people who do. If your friend is laid off, wouldn’t you want to know?

Write about the situation and your feelings. For some people, writing down their thoughts and emotions can ease the frustration and anger.

I know we’re no different from the many families with at least one person out of a job. My sister, my friends and others have all had loved ones out of work for months. All we can do is talk and support each other while pushing forward to find the right job where employee and employer can benefit from the partnership.

How do you handle a life-affecting situation like a layoff?

Photo credit: Tree Faerie

With the new beta of Firefox 3.6, new tab previewing functionality has been made available in Firefox — you can preview tabs using the “List all tabs” button, and you can see a preview when using Ctrl-Tab to switch between tabs.

These two new features are not enabled by default, so you’ll need to go to the about:config page and toggle “browser.allTabs.previews” and “browser.ctrlTab.previews” to “true” (either right-click on the entry and hit “Toggle”, or just double-click the entry).

I made a quick screencast showing how to enable tab previews and how it works:

(Via gHacks)

Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week:

• Does Multitasking Make You More Productive?

It’s easy to think that just because you’re a demon multitasker, you’re automatically productive. But is that really the case? Karen investigates.

• Google Dashboard: Find Out What Google Knows About You

Google has just released Google Dashboard, a window onto all of the data it stores about you.

• What Is Google Wave, Anyway? New e-Book Explains

Charlie introduces “The Complete Guide to Google Wave.”

• 7 Handy iPhone Apps For Your Work

Aliza looks at iPhone apps from seven web apps that are favorites of ours.

• Do this One Thing Before You Accept that Job

Georgina explains why you need to get the get the inside story on what it’s like at a company before accepting a job.

We’d like to say thanks to this month’s WebWorkerDaily sponsors:

• FreshBooks: Look Professional with FreshBooks.

My recent post “5 Web Office Considerations: Beyond the Buzz” garnered some thought-provoking comments, which got me pondering on the proper place for the web office suite (whether it is ThinkFree, Zoho or Google Apps) in today’s world.

As a technical writer by trade, I have fairly strong opinions as to how a web office suite can fit into the workflow of a team publishing moderately complex documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. I do believe that a web office suite and Microsoft Office don’t have to be “natural enemies in the wild” and can coexist to offer web workers, their employers, and their clients the best possible document authoring, publishing and collaborative working solution.

This post is going to dive into some things web workers should consider in a mixed Microsoft Office/web office environment, and in environments where multiple web office suites are used.

Complementary Technologies: The 80/20 Rule
In my recent post, commenter Ray Stahl brought up the 80/20 rule, which says that 80 percent of an organization’s employees will have their needs met by a web office suite, while 20 percent of the employees (the “power users”) need full Microsoft Office licenses. Microsoft itself believes that this hybrid approach is likely to work in the future, with the desktop Office suite and its own Office Web Apps coexisting quite happily (although as Tom Reestman points out over on our subscription research site GigaOM Pro, its approach may actually be good for its web office competitors).

While each company’s needs will vary, the 80/20 rule seems like a reasonable rule of thumb. Microsoft Office licenses can be expensive, so only providing full Microsoft Office licenses to power users like technical writers and the accounting staff makes sense.

Web workers need to be aware with the 80/20 rule as it’s important that recipients can open documents without much fuss.

Here are some considerations:

• Is the recipient using Microsoft Office? If, so what version?
• Does the final deliverable require the advanced features of Microsoft Office? For example, does a spreadsheet rely on pivot tables or complex formulas?
• Only use document templates that don’t lose formatting or have issues when opened in a web office suite. Ask where does the power user sit in the document publishing process? If they are the final publisher then you may also want them to take on the bulk of the template, table of contents generation, and other tasks that require advanced features only available in Microsoft Word.

Web Office Applications Coopetion

The web office productivity world is very competitive, but there is also the opportunity for coopetion when different vendors integrate their services with each other.

Take, for example, the recent update to Zoho Projects (Zoho Projects 2.0 was covered by Doriano last summer) that now includes integration with Google Apps. This latest update includes single sign-on, enabling users to login with their Google credentials; the ability to upload documents from Google Docs to Zoho Projects; view project milestones in Google Calendar including project milestones, tasks and meetings from your Zoho Projects; and an embeddable Zoho Projects gadget you can insert in iGoogle, Gmail and Google Sites.

Perhaps coopetion could even better serve web workers better than all-out competition between the web office suites and Microsoft Office, as companies could build robust online and desktop Office ecosystems, offering web workers more opportunities to have collaborative and publishing solutions that best serve their employers and clients.

Do you use multiple web office productivity tools in your organization?

MacHeist is well-known for packaging together and heavily discounting some great Mac apps. As reported over on TheAppleBlog, though, the latest MacHeist bundle, the “MacHeist nanoBundle” will cost you precisely nothing — zilch, zip, nada.

The bundle contains six apps that would normally collectively retail for $149:

• ShoveBox — A clippings organizer that lets you capture, view, organize and edit data.
• WriteRoom — A simple, distraction-free word processor that Sam wrote about here.
• Twitterrific — A Twitter client.
• TinyGrab — A screenshot utility that I reviewed last week.
• Hordes of Orcs — A tower defense game.
• Mariner Write  — A full word processor, unlocked when 500,000 people have downloaded the bundle.

The bundle is only available for a limited time (there are six days left as I type this), so go grab it now.

Yesterday I took part in my first Jelly session — and I’ve got to say it was a fun and productive experience that I will be repeating in the future. Jellies are informal, free coworking events that are open to anyone. There were 10 participants at the Jelly I attended, from a range of different backgrounds although they were mainly freelancers, as you might expect. At times, particularly in the morning, the atmosphere was studious and productive, but there was also some interesting chat and opportunities to make new connections.

I always find that a change of scenery does me good, but considering that I was working in a room with 10 other people, sitting around a conference table, and occasionally getting stuck into conversation, I was surprised at the amount of work I got through (and that’s despite the speed of the Wi-Fi connection getting a little slow with 10 people working away).

If you’re feeling a bit isolated at home (or perhaps you just want to brainstorm some ideas) and would like to try out the coworking experience, but perhaps aren’t quite ready to commit to membership of a coworking space, attending a Jelly would be a good first step.

The first Jelly was started in New York back in 2006 by roommates Amit Gupta and Luke Crawford, who originally wanted to recreate some of the benefits of working from an office (without having to work from an office): brainstorming, sharing and camaraderie. So they started inviting people over to work from their house occasionally, and thus Jelly was born. It’s an idea that has spread worldwide.

The Jelly I attended was organized by CoWorkingWest and held in the nice office space of The Office, Bristol, UK, but Jellies are held in over 100 cities all over the world. (Some of them are even held weekly.) If there isn’t one near you, you can always start your own — you just need to pick a venue and get some people involved. They are often held in people’s houses, but also take place in other locations, like coffee shops and offices. As long as there is space for everyone, power and Wi-Fi, you can have a Jelly.

Have you tried working at Jelly?