The “third place” is the place between the home and the office - for many it is the coffeeshop. It is in the third place that we meet friends, hold business meetings, rest, work, get away from things, etc. Richard Florida has a great post on the status of the coffeeshop as the third place and its future. He suggests it is becoming less conducive as a third place and there is a growing need for more alternatives.I’d love to hear your thoughts. What is your ideal third place?
pilgrim in progress
jason kovacs | life, faith, adoption, church, culture, and other randomness
Comments 2
Hmmm … a third place. I wonder when a third place … and more … became a necessity? All these monster homes I see all around and people don’t spend any time in them. In the old days, people had small homes and yet homes were the center. People stopped in. People visited. Our society seems to loath anything too personal … hence the need for meeting on impersonal ground. Perhaps we should work more on making our homes a haven with an atmosphere conducive to healing … more of an open door policy. How much really, do we want our lives to be an open book? Just rambling …
Posted 05 May 2007 at 11:19 am ¶Eileen
Eileen - great point. I agree that we need make our homes more open places. Today instead of dropping in and stopping by someones home we just Instant Message them, leave a comment on their blog, send them and email, find out what they’re doing on Facebook.
The rise of social networking sites that allow us to open our lives up online is a very interesting phenomenom. Some might say we’re more open today than ever before (with our personal details published for the world to see online). But are we really? I wonder if part of the rapid growth is that opening up our lives online provide a buffer from actually having to really get personally involved in one another’s lives. It’s much safer and more comfortable to interact online that in someone’s living room.
On the third place, I wonder if the benefits for it are more for what it does for our work relationships than for our personal relationships. I have personally benefited from the third place as a pastor working from a coffeeshop and meeting people I wouldn’t otherwise meet if I had been in my office. In my current job I have a lot of meetings and have found the coffeeshop feels more personal than meeting in my office which is more formal. Relationship is key and the meeting place can help or hinder that.
Posted 05 May 2007 at 5:52 pm ¶Post a Comment