Freelance with Friends at Jelly Chicago

There are plenty of ben­e­fits to work­ing remotely or as a freelancer—flexible hours, short com­mute time, “casual” dress code and no micro­manag­ing bosses. How­ever, that all comes at the expense of social inter­ac­tion and the “water cooler talk” of today’s cor­po­rate work­places. Since I moved to Chicago about six months ago I’ve been work­ing from home and have come to miss hav­ing co-​​workers around the office to talk to and bounce ideas off of.

About a month ago I was intro­duced to Jelly—casual cowork­ing for design­ers, free­lancers, entre­pre­neurs and any­one else who finds them­selves sans-​​office. Jelly is in over 20 cities around the world and (luck­ily for me) has a meet-​​up in Chicagoland at the cozy Noble Tree Cof­fee. I’ve only been once, but after meet­ing the local founders Sean and Brad I’ve decided to make it part of my weekly rou­tine. Jelly not only gives me an excuse to get out of my apart­ment, but also allows me to con­verse and social­ize with like-​​minded peo­ple that do the same thing I do every day. With telecom­mut­ing and home offices becom­ing more pop­u­lar, groups like Jelly stand to fill the social inter­ac­tion vac­uum that’s left when peo­ple leave the office to work in a solo envi­ron­ment. So, if you’re in Chicago come check us out and if you’re some­where else, find a local Jelly and see what it’s all about—you won’t be dis­ap­pointed.

tagged: chicago, freelancing, jelly