As most readers of my blog know, I don't like working from home. Although I love my clients and the projects I do with them, there's a downside to being a solo practitioner. I yearn for an office to go to, a nonprofit environment, a sense of continuity with a team.
Fortunately, the good folks of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War have some spare office space and a need for an online strategy adviser, so they have very good-naturedly offered me a barter.
I have set up my professional lares and penates at IPPNW's world headquarters in Central Square, Cambridge, and am already basking in their remarkably pleasant working environment.
So now I have an office, with access to a conference room and other amenities, surrounded by nice people, just steps away from public transportation. (Not to mention the proximity to a favorite used bookshop and some superlative Asian cuisine) This will undoubtedly help - if anything can - stave off some of the madness that working at home alone can induce.
It also gives me ideas about how I can organize some of my pro bono work more effectively. When an interesting nonprofit asks me for advice, I routinely offer to visit the staff on site, and give them an hour or two of consultation, with any charge or commitment to retain me for billable hours. It now occurs to me that I could establish clearly defined office hours at my new Central Square venue, in which any nonprofit professional would be welcome to drop in for free advice. I would be very interested in hearing from nonprofits about whether this would suit them, and from other nonprofit technology assistance providers about whether they have ever tried this.
* When I mentioned this to my friend Hyman Chatterjee, a psychologist, he responded by asking "what's wrong with a little psychosis?" and added that mine appears to be ego-syntonic, which he glossed as "being pleasantly nuts and not bothering anyone very much." Apparently he was speaking both as a friend and a clinician. Thanks a lot, old buddy.
