The Nomad Cafe had the good fortune of appearing on the front page of the Datebook section in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. (The story can be found here.)
I think the article is actually serves as a great snap shot of the Nomad at this point in time. John King, the article’s author, provides a surprisingly astute assessment of the current state of the cafe, particularly in observing tension between “community gathering place” and “wireless internet hot spot.” From a manager’s perspective, this tension has been one of the most difficult lines to walk as we attempt to locate this cafe at the center of our community.
At first glance, it seems that the laptop army is incommensurable with face-to-face interactions. One desires library-like silence, while the other wants a space to argue or commiserate or laugh. On any given day, I’m likely to walk into the cafe to find every table full, a sea of laptops staring back at me. Other days (such as today), I find strangers sharing tables and striking up a conversations or engaging in a heated debates with their table-mates. It seems that many days, the laptops win out over the communitarians, further perpetuating the belief that, when it comes to cafe ambiance, we can’t have it both ways.
And yet it’s not always an either/or propsition. Folks with laptops have been known to converse with strangers (gasp!), and a boisterous table can often happily coexist with surrounding laptop laden ones.
This one issue, however, seems to capture the duality of our modern technology-oriented society (can you tell I’m a sociologist at heart?). It’s a debate that has been regurgitated time and time again: are we losing something as we begin to rely more heavily on technology? Is there something of value in person-to-person meetings that can’t be recreated on a computer screen?
It’s all too easy to fall on one side or the other of this debate. There are fanatics on both sides of the so-called battle. The anti-technology folks want to say that community consists of the type of interpersonal relationships that can’t be built through a computer. The technophiles can be equally vehement by pointing to a wide array of social networking technologies (MySpace, instant messaging, Twitter, etc.) to argue that the locus of community has simply shifted.
And here I sit in the middle, listening and trying my best to appease everyone. I’d be out of touch if I didn’t acknowledge the validity of both sides. At the same time, I do believe that this cafe can meet the needs of the diverse cross-section of people who are part of the Nomad community. Case in point: As today’s Chronicle story points out, we’ve decided to turn the wireless off at opportune moments when we want to get rowdy and have a little fun. The wireless is an important part of our business, but at the same time we do value other modes of community building. Upon reexamination, the tension that at first seem inevitable may simply be an opportunity change perspectives.
That’s a battle this cafe has never shied away from. The Nomad Cafe has always seen itself as a moral arbiter. We’ve pushed issues long before they’ve been popular and hip. So, maybe it’s time for us to take the lead in promoting a technologically savvy community who still recognizes the value of face-to-face interactions. Maybe we should feel empowered to establish a new standard for respectable laptop use. Maybe it’s not that out of line for us to be a little more assertive in promoting wireless usage that is compatible with building interpersonal relationships rather than counter to it.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter in the comment section…
Very well reasoned post. As a frequent laptop user who also understands that laptops can be a shield from interaction, I like your thoughtful examinations of both sides of this argument. And I really appreciate your willingness to acknowledge that there are more than two sides. I think the Nomad’s current plan is the right one. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with your customers and encouraging feedback. This is just the sort of dialog that can’t happen with the chains.