On the back of the success of the first co-working venue review that I did alongside my friend Liz – and inspired others to do the same, we thought we’d chance a second.  We ended up picking another venue quite close to the other one, more out of ease for us, but at some point we will venture further a’field.

Kitchen Garden Cafe, York Road, Kings Heath

The KGC can pretty much be summed up as a hidden oasis off a busy High St.  Part garden shop, party cafe it’s really got this quaint, magical quality to it.  Artwork for sale adorning the walls, a programme of live folk and craft in the evenings, a play area for children and an environment of quirky it’s really very cute and a bit of a hidden gem – though thankfully fairly well known amongst locals.

I met Liz there around 11am, who bumped into a friend who was already working there.  The cafe has a reasonable number of tables, but does get very busy.  We sat in the back of the cafe, in order to find a plug for charging the laptops (note to anyone thinking about co-working anywhere, generally it’s wise to charge up before you go) and there were plenty.  Unfortunately this is also the area with the toys for children.

Internet

Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath

Kinda hard to judge this one as I’ve been a few times and so my computer picked up the net no problem.  Then again, even if you’ve not been before they usually have little slips of paper with the internet password freely available.  And it’s your standard way of finding the network, enter the password and away you go.  No complaints from me.

Food and drink
Food wise, the KGC is a little pricer than your usual cafe, but then again this is because the food is freshly made on site (from the counter you can just about see into the kitchen) and where possible they use seasonal, fairly-traded, local and/or organic food.  And there’s a notable level of quality to the food because of it.

A while ago they removed sausage sandwiches from the all day menu and I never really forgave them for it (though they are on the breakfast menu served to midday), so I couldn’t tell you what breakfast or dinner at the KGC is like, but lunch wise its pretty good.  This time I had the Home-made Haddock Fish Finger Sandwich which at £5.95 is pretty pricey for a sandwich, but the fresh battered fish is delicious and in all fairness I rarely feel it needs another side – although I have ordered a side of chips with it before.  It’s the kind of sandwich which is just so delightful that I never really mind the fact that its £6, it kinda feels worth it.

General atmosphere
The KGC really is a delightful place.  Unfortunately it isn’t great for co-working.  Why?  Easy answer is children.  It’s an incredibly child-friendly place, which is fine if you’re there for food and a catch up, but if you’re planning on working there it can be problematic (particularly when kids are crying for periods of time, but cafe etiquette is another blogpost).  Generally I can work through most noise, but if you plan on taking any calls it just won’t work.  I had to go outside to call anyone and whilst I could leave my laptop with Liz, it was a pain and whilst there’s a very safe, comfortably atmosphere to the KGC its not exactly recommend behaviour leaving your stuff.  The music is a little louder than it needs to be too.

I love the KGC for lazy lunches, tea and cake, folk on a Sunday and somewhere to show off when friends come to visit the city.  But for co-working, it just doesn’t really feel like its really up to it.

Check out what Liz thought here.

One of the perks of my job is that I can work wherever there is internet.  Whilst this generally means I work from home or work, it does mean that some times I park up in a coffee shop for a change of scenery – and occasionally some co-working (which is just the snazzy way of saying sitting with other people who are also working from the same place).  Far from being a bit of a doss, co-working gives you the opportunity to bounce ideas off people – and have them look after your computer when you go to the loo.

My friend Liz (who runs a proof reading business) and I are going to test out some of them and so some reviews and such, to weed out which ones are good to work in and which ones aren’t.  Here goes…

Loco Lounge, High Street, Kings Heath

Loco Lounge, Kings Heath High St.

A fairly new addition to Kings Heath High St, this relaxed cafe bar is one of a number which has sprung up around the country over the last year.  It’s going for that shabby-chic look, but does appear to be a little out of the box (the “rips” in the wallpaper are deliberate).  Overall though there is a good floor space with plenty of seating – from comfy sofas and padded benches to wooden table & chairs.

I met Liz around 10.30am when it was a little quiet, but then quite a few coffee shops are during weekdays, excluding lunchtime (it picked up around then).  Did mean we got the pick of seats, although if you needed one with a plug it looked like you might be restricted to one table – charge up before you go.

Internet
Connecting to the internet was a little difficult.  The server didn’t seem sure about it and asked the manager.  Rather than the usual connect via a password, this required you to set up your own username and password via U2com.  Fair dos.  Problem with this is that it takes an age to load the page to sign-up.  I signed up fairly easily, but it failed to tell me I had 15mins to validate it and after the allotted time tried to kick me off.  This resulted in some jiggery-pokery with my computer and logging into my emails via my phone, but got there in the end.  It tried to get Liz to sign up twice, only to tell her the username was in use and then never required use of the validation page.  Also the connection did drop off a few times and was slow.  Not quite the days of dial-up, but not great.

Food and drink
I’d been to Loco Lounge a few weeks before and had a panini for £6.50, which was really tasty but a bit steep considering ‘served with house salad and fries’ means a pinch of both.  So this time I was a bit wiser and ordered a bacon butty (£3) and a bowl of fries (around £2 I think), which was a much more value-for-money serving.  Food was tasty and arrived in reasonable time, but I do find the menu a little uninspiring for lunchtime where the choices are a few sandwiches or brunch.  Plus it’s quite pricey considering there’s a raft of coffee shops and food establishments in Kings Heath with menus with more variety at better prices being equally if not tastier.  Drinks wise, pints of Diet Coke price wise were nothing out of the ordinary and I was having a stay away from dairy, so can’t comment on the tea or coffee.  Overall drinks seem reasonable.

General atmosphere
Overall Loco Lounge is nice enough.  The internet is a bit of a hassle, but then this is something which won’t be a surprise to those used to working from coffee shops.  No one hassled us to buy more drinks and the venue is nice, but I’m not sure I’d be comfortable wandering to the loo and leaving the staff to look after my laptop, as it’s a little vast.  Food wise I find it a bit disappointing; the menu looks like it’s trying to be concise and all-things-to-all-people and just doesn’t really achieve it, particularly as it just feels too pricey for the High St.

I’d go back for drinks with friends and a catch up (still need to try the cake) and at a push maybe to work, but it’s not a patch on my usual work-away-from-home.  And whilst the food is fine, I’d rather go to somewhere else on the High St for better value.   Drinks yes, food somewhere else.

Check out what Liz thought here.

In the last two days something special happened on Twitter. Again. Twitter users in their thousands have this time rushed to defend the NHS against American critics of Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms. The Guardian reported that ‘US critics have accused the service of putting an “Orwellian” financial cap on the value on human life, of allowing elderly people to die untreated and, in one case, for driving a despairing dental patient to mend his teeth with superglue’.

But literally thousands of people on the social networking site, Twitter, have come to the NHS’s defence. Using the hashtag #welovethenhs, which allows messages on a similar topic to be linked, people have been posting their experiences and amazing messages of support.

What the Hashtag, a site which tracks trends, counted 20,575 tweets (messages) using the #welovethenhs tag, with 10,909 contributors. And that’s just as of 9:30 today – the numbers are going up. I’ve posted five so you can get an idea, but if you get the chance or need some cheering up, take a look at the rest.

karmadillo I love the NHS because baby Enso (& possibly me) would not have survived labour without them http://bit.ly/zlEOz #welovethenhs
_garys #welovethenhs When my dad’s heart began to fail we were told he wouldn’t last a week. The NHS gave him an urgent bypass and saved his life.
benjamincohen: I have to use the NHS every week because of having Multiple Sclerosis. It has its faults but it’s still great #welovethenhs
deanzielinski: #welovethenhs Without the NHS my uncle would have paralysis to his right leg and be in a wheelchair. He now stands and is a paramedic.
deanzielinski: #welovethenhs -may not be perfect, but you can rely on it when you are in need, no matter what your financial status is. We are spoiled!

Social networking sites, like Twitter, get accused of being a pointless waste of time. But to me this highlights one of the great ways they can be used; they hold people to account, they allow ordinary people to speak their mind and counter lies. The stories people have told in 140 characters about the NHS have been genuine messages of support from regular people. It’s been amazing.

And yes, I work for the NHS, so I may be biased towards thinking it’s something that should be applauded. But it’s nice to see it regardless!

*This was originally posted on my old blog BeanHeartBatman*

It’s been well reported that the hospital I work at has been preparing for things just in case there should be an outbreak of swine flu. And between delivering leaflets to wards to let staff know just how this would pan out and researching online communications, I’ve seem how both things work – and don’t.

There’s always been the issue of whether staff on the ground get access to the computers to read the things we’ve put out online, so we do both to make sure – put it online and provide it in paper form. Something that even with all the advances in social technology will not alter any time soon. Frontline staff don’t sit in front of a computer all day like those of us office based and may not always be able to read the things online as soon as we put it on. I know when I worked on the frontline in another job I would scan through emails once a day if I was lucky.  Other people did it once a week and a select few monthly.  Social media is great for getting things out, but not if the people can’t get to it regularly.

Then, on the other hand, until the information about the Redditch woman infected with swine flu was confirmed we had numerous calls from journalists trying to find out if the Prime Minister’s announcement of someone infected in Birmingham was at our hospital (She wasn’t. Redditch isn’t even in Birmingham.  Most sites have now updated to show this). We fielded calls from all sorts of news outlets all asking the same question and we had the same answer for them. This information could’ve been released once on social media sites like a Trust blog (and/or Twitter) and prevented having to repeat the same thing. We could always alter the information as and when it changed – like we’ve been able to do with linking to the up to date Health Protect Agency’s algorithm when the World Health Organisation upped the pandemic level.

I think it’s pretty easy to see that both methods have their strengths and weaknesses. Online media allows rapid, regularly updated information to be disseminated to a large number of people, but only if they have access to it and you don’t always know who has read it (I know there are trackers, but still). Paper-based and/or one face-to-face conversation means you know people get the information but it’s stagnant and updating it can be time consuming. This is not exactly a groundbreaking analysis, – I know that. But seeing this in the space of two days has been really quite fascinating.

*This was originally posted on my old blog BeanHeartBatman*