Hello, This time last year Chelsea, Jessie, and I were putting together the plan for the Coworking Wiki Project in preparation for our launch at GCUC. There have been a few twists and turns along the way, but a year later we have an amazing team in place and I wanted to give everyone a status update.
The fundraiser fell well short of the $64K goal with the final total coming in at around $5500. That covered Chelsea's trip to Austin for the launch, marketing materials, a few paid consultants to help us with fundraising and communications, and the legal fees to start Open Coworking. Susan and I donated our time to the project and coworking spaces donated time of their paid staff to make up the team that we built. I traveled quite a bit talking with spaces about the project although I covered those costs personally. We had to shift from the original idea of this being a paid (although non-commercial) project, and this forced us to tightly focus our priorities. We shelved the fancy maps everyone wanted and we haven't been doing a great job of keeping everyone informed, but don't let that fool you. *We have been working hard on the most important part of this project: establishing the team*. This is the hardest part and it's difficult to show progress definitively, but we can all be very proud of what we have accomplished No longer is the wiki managed by a few volunteers out of the goodness of our hearts. Our team now consists of five Coordinators as part of their job descriptions at their various coworking spaces. This gives us the structure needed to operate successfully and insulates the project from disruptions as volunteers come and go. *Our main objective is to make it easy for anyone and everyone to participate* and at the same time continue to function when everyone is busy and not paying attention. We are, after all, very busy people due to our deep passion for coworking, and any system needs to take this into account. The real test will be in the coming year as we change up the Coordinators for the first time. I've asked for one year commitments and that means we'll be recruiting new Coordinators as their anniversaries come up throughout the year. Also, as you may have seen/heard, *I'm looking for a new Project Director* to replace myself since it's been a year for me now. This individual will be tasked with overseeing these transitions and keeping the project rooted in the shared values that bring us together. Please let me know if you are interested in discussing this more, or if there is someone you think I should reach out to. I've been working very hard to bring this team together and I'm excited to hand it off to the next person and see where it goes from here. I have a lot of energy and I'm good at getting things started, and I also know that I'm not the best day-to-day manager of ongoing projects like this. New blood, not just this year, but year after year, will keep this project vibrant and energized and build a tighter connection between all the spaces participating. As always I am open to feedback and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone down in Austin next month. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500 -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
