My Panera Office

Posts Tagged ‘Mobile Office’

The large number, almost every five minutes, of tweets coming from people using Panera Bread’s Wifi while enjoying a hot cup or a sandwich are increasing.  Many are using their cell phones.  Look at the Twitter search result for Panera Bread and you will see that you and I are not alone in our appreciation and use of the eatery’s internet connection.

To set up an office for a few hours on the road or just going down the block to work, Panera Bread and Starbucks seem to be favorite options for many of us who like to work around food and a nice ambiance, yet away from the pad where we sleep.

There have been a lot of comparisons of these two ‘restaurants.’   See look at their stocks from all angles so decide on buy, sell, or hold.  Seeking Alpha did that a couple of years back, check it out.  Barron’s discussed both of their excellent earnings results in January.  Read the article, then call your broker.

An owner of several franchises of each lined them up from an owners perspective.  If you have a lot of cash and are interested in becoming an owner, look this over.

But readers of this blog are interested in the customer service and their wifi.  Hands down, Panera wins out.  The bakery chain has a much more suitable seating area, with actual tables and booths.  Much better than Starbuck’s lounge chairs for setting up a temporary office.  More importantly, we want to save money.  Panera’s wifi is free and most of the time it is more reliable and faster.

What about this as a Panera bonus.  According to an article in the Chicago Tribune last year, Panera Bread’s coffee is as good as Starbucks, but cheaper.

I am a loyal Panera Bread cutomer, and proud to count it as my office away from home.

How do you compare Starbucks and Panera Bread?

Not all of you are familiar with Skype .  I know those of you who are and are using Skype as your phone service, or at least your long distance phone service, are more than satisfied.  According to the Skype ’s published demographics, only one million baby boomers Skype anyone.  Let me introduce the rest of you to the greatest phone service bargain in the world.

Almost all of us use the Internet to buy airline tickets, books, and connect with family and friends through on-line communities like Classmates and Facebook.  The Internet is a phone service and a darn good one at that.  Not only that you can save money each time you use it.

Let’s get real, how many products, on or off the Internet, save you money, and save you money on something that you use every day.  Just like electricity and water, usually tv provider bills, phone bills are a major portion of our expenses.  I have done the research, and I seriously doubt that Skype ’s two cents per minute can be beat. That is twenty bucks for one thousand minutes (more than sixteen and a half hours). Far more than most of us use. That is the charge from your computer to a mobile or home phone. If you call someone else’s computer, anywhere in the world it is absolutely free.

I use it all the time for international calls. To Benin West Africa 24 cents per minutes…Sao Paulo less than 3 cents per minutes….all cell phones in the UK, Germany, France, Holland and most of the rest of Western Europe for just over 2 cents per minute.

If you are using it for business or just very talkative, you may save more money by subscribing for Unlimited calls to landlines with Skype to USA numbers for $5.95 per month, or get an Unlimited World calling subscription from Skype from $9.95/month.

You pay as you use it. There is no monthly bill nor any minutes that disappear or roll over. One less thing to concern you. Your balance is always visible in the upper right hand corner of the Skype interface.  Your initial deposit can be as little as $10.  We you do use it, you will be leaving money in the bank, I promise.

Besides the savings, there are some great extra features that you cannot get through your cell phone or landline phone. Skype’s conference application allows you to add many people a common discussion.  If everyone has a webcam you can see and hear each other, and since you are using the webcam over the Internet, your call is computer to computer and thus, all of that, ABSOLUTELY FREE.  Phone conferences are the cheapest on the market, because each conferencee pays his or her Skype fee.  But, remember you can – for free – arrange computer to computer conferences wit

How do you get it. Click here:
You will be led through the process. Basically, you fill out a form, download the software, pay a deposit if you wish, and begin using it.

If you want Skype to be your only phone, you can purchase a phone number for $60 per year, $5 per month. So, you can have your own phone number, accessible anywhere in the world and be able to make unlimited calls to landlines anywhere in the world for $17.95.

What more do you want.

Text messaging to your contacts anyone one your Skpe contact list is free and in real time.

Don’t want to use a headset?  You can buy a phone, or even equip your mobile to use all the features of Skype at the same rates.  We the cell phone option, in some cases, you might have to also pay the minutes on you cell plan.

Well, Skype is a great service and great value. Is Skpye a noun or a verb? It depends on how you use it, and I use it extensively. I works for me, so I see Skype as a verb. Without reservation, I recommend you download Skype .

Panera Bread Restaurants is reporting that same-store sales rose 2.8% in the first 27 days of the third quarter.  That is truly an anomaly in business, especially in the food services realm.  Some are saying that it has a lot to do with the growing number of work from home (work from anywhere but the office) folks, like us, who appreciate the free Wifi in the Panera Bread eateries.

In fact, Panera Bread Restaurants Wifi and comfortable surroundings is making it the place for more and more people to meet with clients and even have office meetings there.  Many bloggers, like Computer Daddy, are saying “Panera’s open Wi-Fi availability not only makes it my first choice for working coffee, lunch and dinner breaks while I am on the road, but it is also my first choice for off-site meetings with both vendors and staff.”

I found a very interesting discussion on Facebook entitled “Your Panera Wifi Experience.“   Most are very pleased.  As one says, “the only problem is there are not enough outlets.”  Check it out.

“Yep, it’s free. Just sit down, open up your laptop and you’re ready to go.”  So Panera Bread Restaurants promotes their new policy of open access.   To many of us that has been an invitation fo

r us, in these difficult economic times, to setup our ‘Away from Home’ office among the aromas of breads, pastries, and lattes.  A dream come true.