Five weeks ago my wife Sylvie and I sold all our furniture (and some clothes, appliances, and other stuff) put the majority of our remaining belongings into storage and moved out of our flat in southeast London. On each of our backs (and fronts) were a duffle and carry-on. Our only confirmed reservation was an Airbnb in eastern France for 5 weeks but our tentative plans called for being on the road much, much longer. As a result, our bags contained a mix of clothes for a trip to unknown destinations with an unknown timeline. The carry-ons contained the more important gear - 2 MacBooks, 2 iPads, 2 mobiles and a kit of chargers, cables, wifi router, hotspot device, and other gadgets. One of the only
travel
A -post collectionCoworking Office Tour: RocketSpace
This past week I had the chance to tour the soon-to-open RocketSpace campus in London. The Islington location builds on the success of their San Francisco campus and will be followed by new campuses in Australia and others in Europe. RocketSpace's campuses are more than just coworking offices (though the London campus does have hot-desks available), the building is designed for small, growing start-ups. Our tour guide explained they typically look for start-ups who have received at least one round of post-F&F funding. The London campus is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland building and built in a figure-eight shape - two connected circular buildings with courtyards in the middle. This floorplan maximizes the number of offices with windows and is a feature
Coworking Office Tour: Porto i/o
Last week my wife and I had the chance to hop down to Porto, Portugal for a few days - flying in early Friday morning and departing the following Wednesday. As I'm not a fan of working from (most) hotel rooms I scoped out the coworking office options and booked a desk at Porto i/o. Porto i/o has two locations, Downtown and Riverside, both within the central historic area. The Downtown location is a bright, 3-story building with communal desks, coffee/snacks and meeting rooms which can be booked for a single day to several months. On the day I was there most desks were booked and the other coworkers were super helpful, giving me a tour of the office and making sure I
Nomadic Coding Tools
Coding on the road (read: traveling) has historically been a difficult endeavor. Twenty years ago it would have been nearly impossible and even 10 years ago it was difficult at best. The lack of connectivity was a major hurdle, and the (large) size of laptops and short battery life made it an extremely inefficient choice. Technology has thankfully caught-up and many coders now hold down a full-time career while traveling the world. There's even a nomadic code school. Now, I'm far from being nomadic but I am making strides toward it - reducing my physical possessions, working remotely and investing in the right tools. I plan to share more about each aspect over the coming months, starting now with my go-to tools. The right gear can
Tech for Transplants
Over the past year the following question has come up several times: I'm thinking of moving to Bozeman, which tech companies/start-ups do you recommend? More often than not the question comes from someone involved in tech. Bozeman Tech Startups Over the past 2 years I've developed a shortlist of companies and startups I recommend most frequently. This list is by no means exhaustive, Bozeman is an active start-up community with new ventures continually coming and (sadly) going. The relatively recent acquisition of RightNow Technologies by Oracle created an influx of dollars and talent to the local start-up scene as well. Large/Established Oracle - If the corporate lifestyle is your gig, look no further. Zoot - Zoot provides solutions for 'loan origination and credit decisioning'.