Great thread start, Sean. This is a tough issue because creating the opportunity for drop-ins is both a desireable piece of a coworking space as well as a potentially undesirable drag on the time and energy of space owners.
We are planning to have regular office hours at Office Nomads in Seattle to facilitate drop-in coworkers. This was a decision that Jacob and I decided on with the understanding that it required one of us to be in the space at all times during those specific hours. We get to determine the hours themselves (nice to work with our personal schedules too!), but as we looked around we felt there wasn't a good technical answer to solve the drop-in question. We also tried to avoid putting the burden of managing drop-ins on our monthly members, as we want the space to feel like a place where they can come to work - not necessarily to do our work for us. We want to be able to meet drop-ins ourselves and to give them a good introduction to the space so they feel welcome, understood, and so we can figure out together whether the space is right for them. Having one of us there means that we can get a sense of a drop-in's needs, which is excellent. The bummer of the situation is that by splitting up the time to manage the space, Jacob and I might not see each other much, which means we are going to rely a bit more heavily on technology to manage our partnership! This post also begs the question - do you need drop-in hours? Office Nomads is preparing to have drop-ins, but if after a few months there does not appear to be any demand for drop-ins, we plan to change our structure a bit. It is clear that in the world of coworking, flexibility is key. Do you think that there are other ways you could go around introducing people to your space without having to make drop- ins an option? What other benefits do you see to having a drop-in option? Maybe just test out the drop-in option for a short amount of time, see how it goes, and if it seems to be working well (recruiting new members, allowing for greater flexibility, etc.) then keep it rolling. If not, then there's your answer. Thanks for starting up this thread - it is definitely pertinent for us at Office Nomads as we begin the coworking adventure out here in Seattle! All my best, Susan On Sep 26, 7:41 pm, 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? > > 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 websitewww.berkeleycoworking,com. That way anyone > who's interested in coming by could conveivably follow us on twitter > 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. > > So, I thought I'd throw this out to the community for discussion. What > have you all tried and what seems to work? > > Kindest Regards, > > Sean O'Steenhttp://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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
