Cities Foster Serendipity. But Can They Do It When Workers Are at Home?

>But could it occur, say, two days a week? “That sounds like almost planned serendipity, and I don’t know how you achieve that. That’s an oxymoron,” he said. “Let’s do that serendipitous creation on Tuesdays and Wednesdays!”

Maybe it only works on Thursdays then:

>Now Imbue hosts regular “Thursday nights in A.I.,” events where people across the industry mix. Ms. Qiu recalled a recent one where another entrepreneur pulled out his phone to show her challenges with an app. “To have a Zoom meeting talking about that — I would just not take that Zoom call,” she said.

Make it feel worthwhile for people to come in like this and they may, in fact, willingly come in rather than needing to use threats or ridiculous bait and switch tactics like temporarily free lunches.

Anyone interested in this phenomenon should read about the collective "Situtationist International" and their concept of a "Derive". Psychogeography is a fascinating field.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9rive