Sean, Very good post. I am commenting from my experience at Hat Factory.
"attracting drop-ins" is an answer, not a question. What problem are you trying solve by having more drop-ins? On 9/26/07, Sean O'Steen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This is a question for any of the coworking spaces who do not keep > regular hours and who want to attract drop-in community members. How > have you been letting your community know when you are open and when > you are closed? >From my year experience with Hat Factory, what you are asking for is not possible: you will need regular hours to encourage drop-ins. Think about a coffee shop that had irregular hours. Would you be inclined to drop by on a regular basis if you were never sure it would be open? Or might close soon after you arrived? Failing regular hours, you need someone who is there all the time, which is almost the same thing. > Here at Berkeley Coworking, we went around the room, and came up with > lots of ideas, most of which involved writing code or hacking some > electronics, none of which we're opposed to mind you. However, we > quickly realized we were trying to build the equivalent of a space pen > that can write in zero gravity, when a simple pencil might do the > trick. > > Currently we're posting our status on a twitter account and have that > display on our website www.berkeleycoworking,com. That way anyone > who's interested in coming by could conveivably follow us on twitter Yes, Hat Factory also has a twitter account. This could help if every single person was absolutely committed to keeping twitter up to date. > and get some form of a ping from us whenever we're in the house. It's > simple, and it has worked so far. However, we really can't use that > to show our availability in the future... you know for those who > actually plan their day in advance ;-) > We've also investigated using a Google GrandCentral account to setup a > central phone number that will ring one or more of our anchors (the > ones with the keys to the joint). At this time though, GrandCentral > doesn't let you register your real phone numbers to more than one > account. As a result, I can't receive calls for a coworking > information line, since I use GrandCentral for other purposes. > GrandCentral says that this feature is on their development roadmap, > but didn't give a time estimate. You are looking for technical solutions to a social problem. > > So, I thought I'd throw this out to the community for discussion. What > have you all tried and what seems to work? Based on my experience, attracting drop-ins without having standard hours is not effective. It's good money (your productive time) chasing bad money (low revenue from drop-ins). This is what was tried at Hat Factory, and it was always a *huge* effort to attract and retain good people to ground the community (recruiting was our motivation). A better idea is figuring out what your motivation for drop-ins. Recruitment? Larger community? More revenue? Boil it down to your real underlying motivation. "Seems like a good idea" ultimately won't work. Even if it *is* a good idea to accommodate drop-ins, knowing *why* you want this capability will let you really nail it. It's really a conundrum. The part I enjoy about coworking is the flexibility. But actually running a coworking space successfully apparently requires giving up a lot of that flexibility. Which makes sense in a certain kind of way. > Kindest Regards, > > Sean O'Steen > http://berkeleycoworking.com > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
