They weren't really friends, at least not at first -- they were bloggers who got to know one another electronically. Then the group in Charlottetown started to wonder: Wouldn't it be great if they all worked in the same building?
That's when an actor-comedian, the head of a software development firm called SilverOrange, and a consultant decided to create a space called Queen Street Commons. Inside, it looks like a comfortable house, the walls painted in rich shades of blue, orange and green. Its purpose, however, is not to shelter a family. It's to establish a community for entrepreneurs and small businesses that can't afford office space in a downtown high-rise, but don't want to be working in isolation at home.
"They needed a community. We knew that, because we are those people," says Cynthia Dunsford, the actor-comedian in the founding trio.
"We worked out of our homes and met clients in coffee shops, primarily because they offer wireless to lure you in. You'd be sitting at Timothy's or Starbucks and holding court all day with all your meetings. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not completely professional."
The alternative is what some are calling a "third working space," which attempts to create the atmosphere of a coffee shop along with the privacy and amenities of a regular office.
Queen Street Commons, for example, does not lease out its space. Instead, it charges a monthly membership fee for use of the facilities, which offer wireless Internet, high-speed Ethernet, printers, and other standard pieces of office-IT equipment. There are also a few cutting-edge services, including a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone system that turns messages into MP3 files that can be e-mailed to the recipient's in-box.
Queen Street Commons has signed up about 35 members since it launched last year. Ms. Dunsford says it tends to attract professionals who have had enough of the stuffy cubicle culture.
"Those who drop out are the ones who take the initiative to start something like this," she says.
This unusual workplace development model has already replicated itself. In Vancouver, Bill MacEwan is putting the finishing touches on a converted Gastown loft that will be known as WorkSpace. Mr. MacEwan likens the idea to a gym membership -- professionals may use the boardroom, kitchen or IT-equipped workrooms on an as-needed basis.
"We'd been working off a laptop in cafés and always struggling to find a better Internet connection and a better latté," he says. "I figured if people were willing to put up with those microscopic tables and intermittent Wi-Fi, and noise from babies and coffee machines and so on in a café, they'd love an environment like this."
Efforts are under way to set up a third working space in Toronto, a project that has been called the Innovation Commons. Among its leaders are David Crow, a software developer who has been involved in organizing what he calls "un-conferences," where everyone is expected to be an active participant rather than a spectator. Like Queen Street Commons and Workspace, Mr. Crow hopes the Innovation Commons will have the hum of a bar, where people talk in ways they avoid once they step into a skyscraper.
"The idea was that, as society became more social and urban, third spaces are the spot that doesn't put a lot of pressure on individuals," he says. "How do you capture that [idea of the] workplace, knowing that not all of us can afford a thousand square feet on a subway line in a metropolitan area?"
In fact, the best way to understand a third working space might be to imagine an artist's colony. These were places where painters, musicians or novelists would be invited to hole up for an unspecified period to work on their masterpieces. In between, they would share meals, discussions and an environment conducive to original thinking.
