Kaffeeklatsch.

As a small child I spent many a Saturday afternoon listening to my Mother and her friends exchanging ideas, discussing the economics of the block we lived in, strategising how their husbands could get to the next level and sharing the odd piece of gossip. This was all done over a coffee in a social network that knew how to pass information quickly, when it was needed and how to use information effectively to gain advantage in the game of life. Kaffeeklatsch or coffee gossip as most translations construe, was the social networking group of any coffee drinkers in lounge rooms and cafes across Germany. For many others, especially anyone engaged in business, this scene, this networking over a coffee was considered unproductive and not necessary.

Not much difference today and history tells us, not much difference to the late 1600s when England first discovered coffee houses, considered by the establishment as places where production went to die. "The Grand Concern of England,” a pamphlet published in 1673, goes onto say that coffee houses and the tempting elixir were responsible for “the ruin of many serious and hopeful young gentlemen and tradesmen,” providing further apprehension that coffee and the social aspect of sharing the drink, would be the downfall of productivity.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth, when the first coffee house opened in Oxford, it gave rise to a place where innovation, ideas, politics, science and literature were discussed openly and candidly. As coffee houses spread, some even became popular for specialised subjects on science or shipping and as customers moved from cafe to cafe, information was passed, assessed for its usefulness, refined via discussion and passed on to become productive information. The coffee houses were the egalitarian equivalent of the today's social networking sites, where everyone could offer an opinion without backlash but never without a coffee. With an entry fee of one penny, the cost of a cup of coffee, some coffee houses went onto be called "penny universities" because so many of England's Royal Society spent hours debating the scientific topics of the day.

So it's with interest I read dire warnings from industry experts, who point at today's social networking, online and offline, as areas of unproductive time wasting, time wasting usually spent in a cafe. I'm not ashamed to say I do my best work over a coffee and it's often in the social confines of a cafe, because not much has changed from the coffee houses of Oxford or even the Kaffeeklatsch of my Mother. Ideas are exchanged, relationships built, the odd piece of gossip conveyed and all articulated in an open and honest environment built around the aroma of coffee beans. IbisWorld research, tells us there are 6,500 plus cafes in Australia, growing year on year, indicating the social affinity of the cafe as "the third place" of relevance after home and work is not diminishing but increasing.

Increasing because coffee, cafes and social networks, are not the great impediment of productivity as many see it, but more the gateway to social advancement via an espresso skillfully produced. I'm up for a coffee, who's with me?