Trek, that was *exactly* the kind of feedback I was looking for. I think we similarly see a "renters" and "coworkers" situation at our space. Thank you thank you thank you for your reply!
Susan __ Office Nomads officenomads.com 206-484-5859 On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 8:32 AM, Trek Glowacki <trek.glowa...@gmail.com>wrote: > I wouldn't presume I'm in a position to give advice to someone else running > a coworking community, but I would like to at least share our related story: > > I act as community manger of Workantile, a largeish coworking space in Ann > Arbor MI, and had a similar moment in January. We officially opened in June > 2009 from day one had an even mix of people looking for a cheap downtown > office rental (let's call them "Renters") and people seeking similarly > situated individuals to share their day with – "Coworkers." > > Renters, for us, always had a very high turnover rate. On average they > stick around 3-4 months before terminating their membership. Often they only > stay for a single month, which places an annoying management and social > burden on the group. > > In a perfect shitstorm of new jobs, babies, and relocations we lost 1/3 of > our members in the first two weeks of December 2010. All but one of these > people were Renters. It seemed very likely we'd be shutting up shop at the > end of the month and calling our coworking experiment a failure. > > In a Town Hall style meeting I laid out two routes: > 1) becoming a shared office for freelancers which would involve dedicating > specific desks, raising prices, and hiring staff > 2) becoming a community of coworkers which would involve adding a labor > requirement to membership to keep the space and community functioning and > internally raising funds to cover our temporary shortfall. > > Much to the chagrin of our remaining Renters, the overwhelming majority of > members wanted more, not less, of a community. Many members prepaid for 3-, > 6- or 12-month periods to give us funds to exist while we grew even though > there was a good chance we'd still fail before seeing the value from their > money. > > We, as a community, made explicit the three areas of contribution required > by all members: work to keep the organization and space operating, money to > pay our bills, and interactions to make it worth showing up. Coming in and > not saying hello or always keeping your headphones on is just as much > underpayment as a bounced check or declined credit card. > > This cost us some more existing and potential members, to be sure, but they > were the kind who breeze in on clicky heels, march into a conference room to > meet with clients for three hours, and march out without saying howdy-do to > anyone. Usually these members came to us from referrals from other past > Renter types or via one of bazillion Shared Office/Coworking we no longer > use. > > I've entirely changed the focus of our marketing copy and the content of > tours to heavily focus on the community aspect of coworking. I actively > curate trial members to weed out people just looking for a good deal on > offices (since we're about 25% the cost of a one-person space downtown, we > get a lot of these). > > We've slowly shed Renters while accumulating Coworkers and I suspect it's > led to longer-term viability. I know it's led to higher member satisfaction > because I'm daily told how awesome and special what we've created is. > > Our community functions so much better now that I'm almost embarrassed to > talk about the first year. We give a ton of latitude to members for what > counts as "work" and the variety of awesome things that happens is stunning. > I spend my time being social and making connections between members or for > members and people in the larger Ann Arbor community. Everything else from > coffee deliveries, to scheduling well-attended field trips, to getting local > art on our walls is handled by members. > > I'm a firm believer that each coworking community is a unique entity, so > YMMV, but people who joined for the wrong reasons represented our single > largest business risk. > > What worked for us: > * Getting member buy-in for making social and work contributions explicit > * Putting friendly pressure on Renters to interact more until they became > Coworkers or left to find more suitable space > * Likening the work contribution to Google's 20% time projects > * Encouraging people to think big and recruit other members to help with > work that goes beyond a single person's scope > * Having a single point person to guide member contributions towards > appropriate community goals > > The one thing we found nearly impossible to hand over to members was > marketing and branding. Our marketing-focused members were all Renter types > and kept trying to steer the community back towards attracting more Renters. > > > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/-/PJ9YJ-D92H4J. > > To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. > -- 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 coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
