Jelly's on a roll!

Yesterday I spent my day in Jelly. No, not that kind of jelly, although since I was wondering I did some research to find out exactly what distinguishes jelly from jam from marmalade and what have you.

Okay, so if it isn't something that goes well on a sandwich with peanut butter, what is it? Jelly is casual coworking -- a group of people who normally work from home who get together twice a month to do work in a group setting -- someone's house, a coffeshop or another suitable location. It was started in 2006 in New York by two roommates who worked from home but "missed the creative brainstorming, sharing, and camaraderie of a traditional office." So they got the idea to invite some other people they knew who also worked from home to come to their place occasionally to do their work in a group atmosphere. They found that working around other people every so often resulted in an exchange of new ideas and opinions.

Somehow, the idea spread, and Jellies started popping up in other cities -- Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and even Sydney, Australia. Austin's Jelly had its first meeting in November 2007. Organized by Dusty Reagan, Jelly Austin is now meeting on the 1st Friday and 3rd Thursday of every month at different coffeeshops around town, like Cafe Caffeine and Genuine Joe.

Yesterday's Jelly was the fifth meeting, and the turnout was great. I got to the cafe at about 10:00, scoped out the room and found a few people at a table setting up laptops. "Are you guys here with Jelly?" I asked, wondering how that would sound to someone who wasn't familiar with the concept ("No, I'm not here with jelly, nor marshmallow fluff for that matter.") Lucky for me, they were, so I joined the table. Within an hour, our group had grown to six or seven, and by noon we were up over a dozen.

So, what did we do? Well, since I'm still hunting for a "real job," I spent my time working on a website I've been fooling around with and a screenplay I started a few months ago, although to be honest I spent most of the day socializing. Everyone I met was smart, interesting, friendly, and full of good ideas. While most of the other folks got considerably more work done than I did, we did manage to have a few good group conversations, my favorite being about what distinguishes a "nerd" from a "geek" from a "dork" and which one each of us would qualify as (for the record, I'm probably straddling the line between geekdom and nerdhood). I did manage to find out about what some of the other Jelly people were working on:

• Dusty is the founder of Floating Head Studios, where he designs and builds websites and software. He also wins the Coolest Looking Business Card award.


• David Walker, a self-described "idealistic entrepreneur and optimistic dreamer," has his own business, 302 Designs, "a clothing label whose poetic, artistic & unique t-shirts inspire, define, and push the limits of the t-shirt fashion status quo."


• John Metcalf works at radar, software that allows people to instantly share and comment on each other's cellphone photographs. John's a good person to get to know, because apparently he knows everone (or at least all the right people).


• Sumina Bhatti is a residential real estate agent. Her company is Ms. Organization.


• Karen Kreps is the author of the recently published Intimacies: Secrets of Love, Sex and Romance -- the mission is "to share stories about love, sex and romance that inspire adults to think in new ways and communicate openly so as to enjoy more fulfilling personal relationships."

That's just a sample. It was fun and refreshing to finally get out of the house and meet some people. I plan on making it to the next Jelly gathering, although I promised Dusty that next time I'd actually do some work!

Want to start a Jelly group in your town? Click here. Oh, and why is it called "Jelly?" Apparently the creators chose the name Jelly because they conceived the idea while eating jellybeans. Works for me!

The early Jelly crowd (from L to R; hope I got all the names right): Jane Anne, David, Dusty, John and Mike

Sumina and Saurabh (unidentified Jellyists also in rear)