[Coworking] Blogpost on Coworking in Antwerp/Belgium
Hi all, Although I'm not sure if there's any Dutch-speaking people on the list, I thought it would be a good idea to let everybody know that I took my first step in testing the waters for starting a coworking space in Antwerp in Belgium. It basically quickly describes what coworking is, describes some alternatives and then communicates the process that I'm following in this exciting journey. If we get enough buzz and really interested people, I'll probably go forward with the plan. The Dutch article is here: http://www.coworker.be/index.php/coworking-een-innovatief-werk-concept-in-antwerpen The article also links to a survey. Regards, Frederik Denkens Before printing this e-mail, please consider the impact on the environment. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Re: Nice Marketing Interview
Congrats, Jacob! Love the tag line. Felicity CubesCrayons On Jan 27, 10:39 am, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Hey there, We recently did an interview with Erica Mills of the Mills Communication Group who has the great tag line Do Good. Get Noticed. The interview did a great job of capturing our style of business and how we are getting the word out about Office Nomads and the whole coworking movement. There are many shout-outs to this group and the discussions we have here. It was a fun interview and I'm touched Erica chose us to profile. http://www.millscommgroup.com/blog/2010/01/office-nomads-seattle-succ... Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolationhttp://www.officenomads.com- (206) 323-6500 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Re: Coworking spaces in norway
On Jan 26, 5:12 pm, Stewie stuartp...@gmail.com wrote: Hi All, I've only recently discovered coworking and on first glance, it appears to be what I am desperately looking for. Does anyone know of any spaces that are operating in Oslo, Norway? Hi Stewie. We're setting a 150m2 coworking space in Oslo downtown at the moment. Will open in early february, once we have internet connectivity in place. Contact me at mar...@nordaaker.com if you want more info. Marcus -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Interview for Joberu
I am a blogger for Joberu and I am looking for some individuals to interview for a blog piece about co-working. I would prefer someone who has experience founding a coworking group who would be willing to answer a few questions via email. I am considering turning these into regular features of the blog. My goal is to inspire co-working environments and telecommuting in general in places with smaller local economies that can really benefit from this movement. Thanks in advance! Please email me at eyeore...@gmail.com or hit me up at joberu.com if you are willing to help! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
Re: [Coworking] Electronic Door Locks
Jacob, We're finishing up a custom fab system that ties directly into out user authentication system. We've gone through several revisions (arduino based initially, now we're Make Controller derived, with other off the shelf components and some custom PCBs) that is powered via PoE (makes wiring for installation a relative ease) and very nicely allows us to programmatically enforce limited access memberships, grant access to meeting rooms based on reservations, really just do what ever kind of access restriction you want to program. The doors hardware itself we're getting ready to open source. The authentication calls are all JSON based using AES encryption, so the hardware is pretty easy to interface with whatever you want to use on the auth server side. We opted to keep our authentication on an external website because we have a nice little load balanced firewall with auto fail over (A nice little atom based system running pfSense. Lots of functionality on the cheap). If the internet is down, the space isn't terribly usable from a work stand point, so losing access isn't much of a concern. That, and with the auto-failover, we're pretty fault tolerant as it is. We're looking at setting up a small internal caching server that can do authentication internally, but there hasn't really been a need as of yet. And price per door has wound up being about $150 or so, not too bad. James Workantile Exchange http://workantile.com On 27 Jan 2010, at 12:15, Jacob Sayles wrote: Hello, This got brought up a few days ago and it got me thinking. How many places have electronic door lock systems? We installed an ISONAS system and are pretty happy with it. It's cheaper then a traditional closed circuit system but it still ran about $4-5K. I'm wondering what other folks have. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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 cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Tools for building the community first
Many of the discussions here focus on building a community before building a space. I was wondering what folks have done to build the community in their area. Meetups and mobile work days seem logical. Has anyone tried a virtual watercooler idea with products such as 37 Signals' Campfire (http://campfirenow.com/)? For example, inviting potential coworkers to hang out in a Campfire Chat room on days when the group isn't meeting anywhere. (Or even on days when they are, heh.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Re: Electronic Door Locks
Jacob, We're finishing up a custom fab system that ties directly into out user management / billing system. We've gone through several revisions (arduino based initially, now we're Make Controller derived, with other off the shelf components and some custom PCBs) powered via PoE (makes wiring for installation a relative ease) and very nicely allows us to programmatically enforce limited access memberships, grant access to meeting rooms based on reservations, really just do what ever kind of access restriction you want to program. The doors hardware itself we're getting ready to open source. The authentication calls are all JSON based using AES encryption, so the hardware is pretty easy to interface with whatever you want to use on the auth server side. We opted to keep our authentication on an external website because we have a nice little load balanced firewall with auto fail over (A nice little atom based system running pfSense. Lots of functionality on the cheap). If the internet is down, the space isn't terribly usable from a work stand point, so losing access isn't much of a concern. That, and with the auto-failover, we're pretty fault tolerant as it is. We're looking at setting up a small internal caching server that can do authentication internally, but there hasn't really been a need as of yet. And price per door has wound up being about $150 or so, not too bad. James Workantile Exchange http://workantile.com On Jan 27, 12:15 pm, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Hello, This got brought up a few days ago and it got me thinking. How many places have electronic door lock systems? We installed an ISONAS system and are pretty happy with it. It's cheaper then a traditional closed circuit system but it still ran about $4-5K. I'm wondering what other folks have. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolationhttp://www.officenomads.com- (206) 323-6500 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Introducing myself.
Hi. Just a quick note to introduce myself. I'm Marcus Ramberg, and I run the Oslo, Norway based startup Nordaaker ltd. Among other things, we make the software site http://iusethis.com/. You can read more about the company at http://nordaaker.com/. We have just taken over a 150m2 space in Oslo where we're setting up a coworking environment. I've put up a bit of information at nordaaker.no/wiki/Coworking, more to come soon. I've also added us to the coworking wiki. Be well! Marcus -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Re: Tools for building the community first
I'm not sure how well a chat room can virtually mimic the experience of coworking; although connecting with local folks through Twitter might be a better example, and one that may have better potential of building a community. Twitter folks can answer a question that's been tweeted out, or retweet it to someone in their network that might be able to help; that access to other people through the people you've gotten to know around you is one of the benefits of coworking. As I posted in another thread, what has worked for us are events and meetups (unfortunately Twitter was still in its infancy when we opened our doors in 2006). However, I am curious what other online tools people may have found successful in building their community. I stumbled upon this page earlier today, http://cooltown.ning.com/, which is trying to use crowdsourcing to build communities. If anyone has been successful in using such online tools to build their coworking spaces, I'm sure everyone would love to hear about your experience. Jay The Network Hub thenetworkhub.ca twitter.com/jaycatalan John Uhri wrote: Many of the discussions here focus on building a community before building a space. I was wondering what folks have done to build the community in their area. Meetups and mobile work days seem logical. Has anyone tried a virtual watercooler idea with products such as 37 Signals' Campfire (http://campfirenow.com/)? For example, inviting potential coworkers to hang out in a Campfire Chat room on days when the group isn't meeting anywhere. (Or even on days when they are, heh. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
[Coworking] Member survey - posted to group
Hi all, I just uploaded the basic list of questions that Office Nomads recently asked our members to the Coworking Google Group's files section. Check it out. I have recently spoken with several other coworking space owners, all of which who have been dabbling with the idea of member surveys and I'd like to highly recommend it! Not only have we enabled our members to give us solid feedback (beyond what they casually give us at events, happy hours, etc.), but we kicked off an entire new level of engagement with our members to ensure that we were serving their needs properly and that they were getting what they wanted out of membership. After running this survey, we were inspired by our members to: * Create another survey that we will send out to folks who have tried out Office Nomads but have *not* become members to see what we can learn from these folks about how we're doing. * Host regular gatherings of particularly interested members to brainstorm how we can make our business better and to ensure that we are addressing the needs of our members as best as possible. (which we decided to host, and then they asked us to host again in 6 months to check in on our progress - how awesome is that??) * Follow up on a variety of suggestions given to us by members via the survey. All in all, a huge win for us. Yes, it means more work for us. Yes, it exposes us to feedback both positive and constructive. But in the end this step has definitely enabled us to strengthen our business, spark us to reinvigorate a few aspects of our business that have slowed a little bit, and get our new members into the conversation a bit. All are welcome to use and adapt the survey for their own uses! I utilized the Google Form program (wow, a HUGE step up after the disaster which is Survey Monkey), and allowed all of our members access to the survey results so they could see what we could see. Transparency. It's not just for Obama anymore. :) Enjoy, and feel free to contact me with questions! As soon as I complete our non-member survey I'll be sure to post it to the group's files and let y'all know. Word, coworkers. Susan __ Office Nomads www.officenomads.com 206-323-6500 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Coworking group. To post to this group, send email to cowork...@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.
