Linda M Hartley

I’ve just been tuttle-ing – translation= I’ve been to the London Tuttle Club today.
Tuttle has had various homes and until recently was based in the ICA. Today it was in Leon (Spittalfields) so very handy for me.

I’m not a huge fan of networking clubs (ironic as I’ve been to 2 this week!) and I kind of wish Tuttle was a format where digital nomads could just take work out with them and work in a friendly hubbub, (which I suppose it is, sort of, but it doesn’t feel that way!)

That’s not really what Tuttle is like, as it seems to be quite a social occasion.
It’s easy to feel sidelined and hard for someone like me to force myself to find new people to interact with.

Like any other social gathering people form huddles and I’m just not comfortable pushing myself on anyone so I don’t.
Today was better than the last Tuttle I went to as Tim and Andy were there and we met Jerimiah,  (a games developer with an interest in iPhone aps.)
Lloyd was asking people to think about what they like and dislike about Leon as a venue and what they want from Tuttle.

Leon as a Venue for Tuttle -What did I like and dislike

Like:

• Position – very handy for Liverpool St
• Lighting – feels natural, good for using laptop
• Coffee – good, hot, black and the first one was free!

Dislike:

• Noise – there’s a huge air conditioning fan at the end of Leon that we were given. Unfortunately I sat right under it (my own fault!) but it was loud and intrusive making conversations in that area harder. There’s no noise at the other end of the cafe but the high open ceiling makes for poor acoustics.
• Seating – people say they liked the small tables at the ICA and these were mostly small too. I think you need more of a mix of large and small as some large groups come, borrow all the spare chairs and leave lots of small tables with no seating. If you do sit at a larger table then unless you are ruthless and refuse to let people ‘borrow’ the unused chairs you can end up on your own. Tricky.
  The horseshoe shaped seating area at the other end of Leon might have been better if conversation was the aim.
• Coffee and food – the coffee, though good and free, came in disposable cups (YUCK!) and there were only sweet biscuits, no croissants or toast.

Tuttle – What would I want ?

Ideally -

• A reasonably convenient location
• A social space and a workspace – maybe even slightly separated or at least demarcated.
• Coffee and croissants or maybe toast. Free is nice but I’m happy to pay.
• I’d like the sociability of knowing that other people who work from home online would be in a predictable space, once a week.
• I’d like it to be more laid back and less frenetic, but then I suppose that’s just part of it being in London.
• I’m quite taken with Andy’s idea of local London offshoots. These would have a more situated feel perhaps. The big meeting sometimes attracts people from all over the UK. (Jerimiah was from Middlesbrough!)

Still I’ve decided to commit to going fairly regularly and seeing if it does make this online business slightly less isolating. You can read more about what people want from Tuttle and see if it might be for you via Lloyd’s blog

Photo Credit cc Andy Roberts