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French revolution in London
July 15th, 2009 -
Dim sum at your desk
June 23rd, 2009 -
‘Authentic hospitality’ at Hyatt
June 17th, 2009
Editor's Blog
HOT DESKING
A new company is offering free desks to mobile professionals, and it’s turning to them to help it launch the idea. Will you be one of the first to join the Flaming Desks community?
CROWDSOURCING
THE WORLD IS BECOMING A MORE OPEN PLACE. From Google’s Android phone software (see p.21) to Mozilla’s hugely successful Firefox browser, open source software is seeping into every corner of our technological lives. A forward-thinking and innovative way of working, open source can trace its roots back to the 1960s and the early days of the internet, when groups of programmers worked together formally and informally to piece together the foundations of the worldwide web. Since then, paid and unpaid programmers have come together with the aim of creating more accessible, more advanced products for the greater good.
It’s a method that rewards people with personal satisfaction and community kudos as well as financial gain, and today it’s not just the experts who are getting involved. Wikipedia, for example, relies on millions of unpaid users from around the world, all contributing their knowledge for free with the aim of creating and updating the ultimate online encyclopaedia. But Wikipedia is just the tip of the iceberg, and millions of smaller blogs, wikis and social networks are helping to draw the original ethos of open source out of its technological heartland and into ‘real world’ applications.
One example of this shift is Flaming Desks, a new business that is being created in the open, inviting bloggers to help shape everything from logos to functionality. Its approach runs against the grain of conventional business, which usually dictates that companies are created in private, their ideas guarded until they are ready for a public launch. And yet Flaming Desks’ founders say their openness has brought huge benefits. “The beauty of working in public is that we get instant feedback,” says Rob Mosley, managing director of digital marketing agency Nonsense and co-founder of Flaming Desks. “The community will tell us what they think of our ideas, and a load of other stuff we wouldn’t have thought of. And if we do something wrong they’ll tell us about it bloody quickly!”
A desk sharing service, Flaming Desks will allow freelancers and travelling professionals to locate desks in a city by logging on, finding spare desks on a map of their area, then contacting the people the desk belongs to. The idea came about after Mosley had been to a networking event and offered web developer Dave Fletcher free desk space in the Nonsense offices. The pair realised that they knew lots of talented people who could use space and who would be a useful addition to a workplace. So Nonsense and White October (Fletcher’s web development company) pooled resources and began working on Flaming Desks.
At time of going to press the site was in its beta testing phase, with users beginning to offer and seek desks, creating valuable networking opportunities as well as solving the immediate problem of where they’re going to sit that day. “It’s good to have talented people in the office,” says Mosley, “and that’s as good a reason as any to offer up desk space. It won’t work for all companies, but the benefits on both sides are clear to see.”
The best bit is that if you disagree with them you can tell them. Visit www.flamingdesks.com and help shape this latest open source venture.
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2 Responses to “HOT DESKING”
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November 10th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
DEFINITELY pop along to Flaming Desks and check it out. You won’t regret it!
(Currently looking for Beta testers and expert blog commenters.)
Cheers,
Rob
November 11th, 2008 at 8:02 am
[...] It’s VLM’s in-flight magazine, and BOY have those guys got their fingers on the pulse of the desk-sharing/networking world!! That’s right, they’ve only gone and given us a write up complete with incredibly insightful quotes from one of our illustrious founders. [...]