I was meeting one of our agency strategic partner principals at Starbucks for an impromptu collaboration and update meeting. As I finished ordering my overpriced iced green tea lemonade (no sweetener), I looked around and said to him,
“So this is what it’s come to. Starbucks is the quintessential mobile office for the unemployed.”
He agreed. The usually socially charged environment felt more like a college library, only much more serious was the tone. Dozens upon dozens of laptops wide open, mouths wide shut. Eyes glued to screens. Serious looking people. Small groups brainstorming. Duos engaged in serious chats. Not the pick up scene it use to be only a year ago. The focus? Not the coffee. (Frankly, they are probably saving by making that purchase at McDonalds.) I didn’t see much coffee drinking, actually. Interviewing? Social networking, were they? If so, it’s the most serious I’ve ever seen Facebook look. Resume writing? Monster.com and Ladders.com surfing? GoToMeeting?
So the thought to actually blog about it occurred to me as I was exiting Panera Bread Company, and I noticed the same trend—“Free WiFi equals safe hav
en for people hell bent on beating this dismal economy.” Even if the motivation was simply to opt out of paying the monthly fees to their local DSL or Cable Modem provider and go where the Internet flows freely…this was more than a trend. It was a state of being.
This is the “new normal” as CNN coined it. This is the new reality, the real economy.
Whether its the unemployed looking for the next job, or an entrepreneur trying to get that next deal, or a outside salesperson attempting to close a deal—fast casual dining or quick service coffee can mean a refuge for our ultra wired and unwired world—thanks to the Internet and all of its trappings.
If you’re a GenXer like me and blessed to still have living grandparents, ask them what it was like for them or their parents when the Depression happened and they were out of work. They weren’t aware of how disconnected they were. They couldn’t read a blog on trends in social media for job hunting. There was no Internet. Forget Tweeting on your iPhone or updating your LinkedIn, Yammer and Facebook simultaneously with Ping. No cell phones and not even a fax.
It begs the question: Could the Internet help save this recession from plummeting to a depression? Because it certainly seems to be stimulating commerce of all kinds.
I’m no economist, but I can definitely make this conclusion: If you’re going to endure a recession like ours—now’s the time.
A silver lining for you…
LMS
