The Next L.A. / Reinventing Our Future : THE ECONOMY : A Glimpse at the Corner Store of the Future

The economy of tomorrow may include Jetsons-like offices and factories. Or it may look something like the scene today at a nearby Kinko’s Copy Center.

That’s right, the future may be jammed between the nail salon and the taqueria with the ka-whump, ka-whump of hard-working copy machines in the background.

Once known primarily for an ability to turn out a quick, clean photocopy, the more than 650 Kinko’s outlets are steadily metamorphosing into something futurists say we’ll see a lot more of in Southern California in the years ahead: one-stop shops for telecommuters, videocommuters and small businesses with limited resources.

Betting that the future may be a growth industry, Kinko’s recently launched an advertising campaign touting itself as “Your Branch Office 24 Hours a Day.”

“Kinko’s is in a tremendous position to help telecommuters because we do offer everything you’re used to having in your office, but at a neighborhood site,” said Tammy Gentry, spokeswoman for the Ventura-based privately held company.

You can still walk into a Kinko’s and make a single copy of your resume 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

But Kinko’s also rents out desks and computers in its desktop publishing area, rents out private conference rooms, offers free local phone calls, and provides a variety of reproduction and mailing services. Many of the outlets will store a company’s blueprints and spec books so that subcontractors can get their own copies. You don’t even have to supply your own coffee.

Customers can arrange to be billed monthly for the services they use, Gentry said.

Kinko’s currently stops short of being a full-time teleconferencing center where workers from various companies camp out at desks for weeks or months at a time. But Gentry did not rule out that possibility in the future.

The latest wrinkle is videoconferencing, which Kinko’s recently began rolling out nationwide in conjunction with Sprint and PictureTel Corp. Kinko’s initially will feature PictureTel room video systems for multi-person conferences and next year plans to add PCs that allow computer users to see each other and work on shared files.

It’s not cheap: The videoconferencing service costs $150 per hour after the $20-per-hour introductory price wears off. Kinko’s also envisions other data communications services, Gentry said.