This is awesome. And Alex, I love the restaurant analogy. Reminds me of how I and many friends wrung our hands when Whole Foods moved into Minneapolis about 15 years ago, just a couple miles from our beloved Wedge <http://www.wedge.coop/> food coop. As it turned out, rather than taking business away from the food coops, Whole Foods mostly served as a gateway drug for suburbanites to try organics, bringing lots of newbies into a rapidly growing market. Today, the Wedge is one of the largest food coops in the country by both membership and sales.
On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 11:28 AM, Alex Hillman <dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com > wrote: > I wrote this in 2011, but my thoughts haven’t changed much: > > http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/11/sex-coworking-and-rock-n-roll/ > > WeWork is *tiny* compared to Regus (who *employs* nearly 1/4 of the > headcount that WeWork is aiming for as membership in 2015). And yet we > laugh at considering Regus a coworking competitor. > > Further, viewing communities as “competitive" only makes sense in a > vacuum. In reality, people choose what suits them. Using the analogy in > that post, music artists don’t “compete” directly with each other. And to > use the restaurant analogy from previous posts, a chinese food restaurant > doesn’t “compete" directly with a steakhouse, even though they technically > serve some of the same ingredients. > > Point being: catch yourselves when huge numbers and eye-popping statistics > become a distraction from what YOU need to do best, which is support and > lead YOUR communities. > > -Alex > > ------------------ > *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* > Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com > Listen to the podcast: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com > > > On Tuesday, Nov 18, 2014 at 2:11 PM, Steve King < > sk...@emergentresearch.com>, wrote: > >> Tim: >> >> I did a blog post on this today. Our view is overall this is very good >> news for the entire coworking industry. WeWork is showing coworking is >> rapidly becoming a mainstream workplace alternative for startups, >> independent workers and firms of all sizes. The more broadly this is >> recognized and reported on in the press, the better it is for the overall >> industry. >> >> We also think there's plenty of room for other players. Even with their >> aggressive growth plans, WeWork is "only" aiming for 46,000 members in >> 2015. This is a tiny share of the potential coworking market. There are >> many millions of potential coworking space members and most are looking for >> spaces offering something different than WeWork is. >> >> But - and this is a big but - just as big box retail fundamentally >> changed that sector, we think "Big Coworking" (spaces with many hundreds of >> members) will also have a major impact on coworking and broader >> office-as-a-service industry. Smaller spaces and firms will have to learn >> to adjust to Big Coworking competition. >> >> What do you think? >> >> -- >> 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/d/optout. > > -- > 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/d/optout. > -- -- Leif Utne VP of Business Development Warecorp <http://warecorp.com> / DrupalSquad <http://drupalsquad.com> +1.612.327.0123 linkedin: linkedin.com/in/leifutne/ <http://www.linkedin.com/in/leifutne/> twitter: @leifutne <http://twitter.com/leifutne> blog: leifutne.com skype: leifutne -- -- 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/d/optout.
