"Eventually you could have local campuses becoming places where MITx students seek tutoring, network, & socialize—reclaiming some of the college experience they’d otherwise have lost.

Phil thought this sounded like college as a giant coffee shop. I agree. Every education would be ad hoc. It would be student-directed toward the job market she’s aiming for.

This trend toward…coffeeshopification…is changing more than just colleges:

Book Stores Will Shrink to Coffee Shops…

The Coffee Shop Will Displace Most Retail Shops…

Offices Become Coffee Shops…Again…

What Doesn’t Become a Coffee Shop?…

…houses of worship…

What will remain other than coffee shops? Upscale retail will remain…[for] experience…Restaurants remain. Grocery stores remain.

Brick and mortar retail stores will be converted to public spaces. Multi-use space will be in increasing demand as connectivity tools allow easy coordination of impromptu events…"

"THE Ueshima coffee shops that dot Tokyo seem like any other chain. But look more closely: the aisles are wider, the chairs sturdier and the tables lower. The food is mostly mushy rather than crunchy: sandwiches, salads, bananas—nothing too hard to chew. Helpful staff carry items to customers’ tables. The name and menu are written in Japanese kanji rather than Western letters, in a large, easy-to-read font. It is no coincidence that Ueshima’s stores are filled with old people.<br />
<br />
Ueshima never explicitly describes itself as a coffee shop for the elderly. But it targets them relentlessly—and stealthily. Stealthily, because the last thing septuagenarians want to hear is that their favourite coffee shop is a nursing home in disguise."

Another photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/studies_and_observations/5116315813/

"I thought this was just an exemplary platform for conviviality.<br />
<br />
Coffeesmith's multiple zones readily support:<br />
- prospect and refuge;<br />
- solitary drinking/reading/studying/people-watching;<br />
- socialization at a variety of scales, from couples to mid-sized groups;<br />
- a range of options for lighting and ventilation."

"People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web."

"Where Good Ideas Come From…pairs insight of Everything Bad Is Good for You & dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map & The Invention of Air to address an urgent & universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides complete, exciting, & encouraging story of how we generate ideas that push our careers, lives, society, & culture forward.<br />
<br />
Beginning w/ Darwin's first encounter w/ teeming ecosystem of coral reef & drawing connections to intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities & to instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, & inspiring…identifies 7 key principles to genesis of such ideas, & traces them across time & disciplines."

"I’ve lived in San Francisco for 15 years, which is 15 years more than anyone connected to this ad [in support of Proposition 8]. San Francisco changed my life. I found a career here. I was married here. I bought property here. I’m never, ever leaving. So I think I can speak to what San Francisco Values really are. Here are a few of them. [Bulleted list here]…

I believe San Franciscans embody the best American values: bravery, liberty, tolerance, and opportunity. I look around San Francisco and I see people who risked everything to move to a place where they could be free. People who decided, out a mix of idealism and insanity, that they could make a more perfect union that values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

San Francisco values and American values are one and the same."

"So what about that coffee shop that won’t let me read a book on a screen? Even though I don’t agree with the shop’s logic and its distinctions between pixels and paper, I can appreciate a place hoping to offer an escape from computers and the Web. But as e-books continue to thrive and grow and more people, including students, replace their paper products with digital versions, these coffee and sandwich shops might not have much of a choice but to accept that some people now read books on screens — even if they do look like computers."

"Johnson has been thinking about coffeehouses because he’s interested in question, Where Do Good Ideas Come From? (more or less...his new book.) He tells us that we have shortcomings in our language in discussing ideas. Our language – flash of insight, stroke of genius, epiphany – focus on ideas as atomic & disconnected. But an idea is a network – it’s a new configuation w/in your brain. How do you get your brain into new places where ideas can form?...