Barefoot Worker's Jelly

I love this: When workers arrive at Nancy Hoffmann’s New York office loft, they are asked to take off their shoes and put their business cards in a bowl on the table.

Hoffman is hosting a Jelly, a kind of casual co-working event, where a dozen or so laptop-toting people gather together to work. Unlike a typical co-working site, where people can go any day of the week, a Jelly takes place once or twice a month, often in someone’s home. The goal: network, socialize, get energized, do some work.

What’s a Jelly? Amit Gupta, a young Web entrepreneur started the first Jelly three years ago with his roommate Luke Crawford. In an interview with Josh Spear, Gupta says Luke came up with the name. Both worked from home and “missed the free-form brainstorming, idea sharing, and casual networking that goes on in an office (not so much the office politics.)” So they invited a friend to come over and work with them at their kitchen table. “We ended up having great conversations, came up with new ideas, and felt refreshed.” says Gupta. Soon they expanded it to invite other friends and even issued an open invitation via the Internet.

Why Jelly? It comes from jellybeans. Perhaps all the colors and flavors represent the mixture of people you might find at a Jelly.

Jellies have gotten quite a lots of press, including a piece in Workforce Management Online that described Hoffman’s Jelly, an article in Wired, and coverage on CNN and NPR.

Jellies are spreading around the world. If you want to find one in your neighborhood or start you own, there’s a wiki to answer all your questions.