Re: [Coworking] Open vs Semi-closed space
Hey Marc-Alain, Just to clarify, are you someone who is considering joining a space with one of the two options, or someone who is opening a space? Reading your email it seems like you're a member scoping things out but I just want to be sure before answer! -Alex On Wednesday, March 18, 2015, Marc-Alain Guilbert marcala...@gmail.com wrote: I currently trying to decide between a fully open coworking space where there is no separations between desk versus one that has some seperation. What's your experience with this? 1. Completely open space *Why I hesitate:* People might be disturbing me. Having people talking or moving a lot in front of me might be distracting 2. Semi-open space with seperations between spaces *Why I hesitate: *Not ideal for communication. Everyone is doing his own thing. Have you ever had problems with one of these two? -- 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 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','coworking%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com'); . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Insurance
Thanks for saying that, Gretchen :) On Thursday, March 12, 2015, Gretchen Bilbro cultivatecowork...@gmail.com wrote: Great article Alex! You are so helpful and please know that you and your work is very much appreciated. :) G On Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 9:12:16 PM UTC-5, Gretchen Bilbro wrote: Hello everyone! We just opened recently and I am having a difficult time getting liability insurance. Coworking is new to my area and they seem to be having a difficult time figuring out exactly how I fit in their groupings. Can anyone give me leads on insurance companies that work with Coworking spaces? Also how has alcohol affected your insurance policy? Thanks! Gretchen -- 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 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','coworking%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com'); . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Insurance
Awesome :) I hope it works out for you! And thanks to this thread, I finally got around to writing a post answering this question about insurance. The magic, of course, isn't that Diane actually has access to anything special it's that she puts in the work to *really* understand coworking so she can explain it to her underwriters in a way that makes sense to them. If Diane can figure out explain coworking to her insurance underwriters, maybe we can all learn something from her about how we figure out explaining coworking to our potential members :) http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2015/03/how-to-get-the-best-insurance-for-your-coworking-space/ -Alex -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Gretchen Bilbro cultivatecowork...@gmail.com wrote: Many thanks to you! I have sent her an email. On Tuesday, March 10, 2015 at 9:12:16 PM UTC-5, Gretchen Bilbro wrote: Hello everyone! We just opened recently and I am having a difficult time getting liability insurance. Coworking is new to my area and they seem to be having a difficult time figuring out exactly how I fit in their groupings. Can anyone give me leads on insurance companies that work with Coworking spaces? Also how has alcohol affected your insurance policy? Thanks! Gretchen -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Know anyone in Fayetteville, North Carolina? New coworking community here!
This is so awesome, Alicia! :D -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 12:29 PM, Alicia Hurst aliciainbrook...@gmail.com wrote: Hello hello! It has been eight months since I gave an update on my humble Fayetteville Coworking group, and I wanted to share an exciting update: I'm helping a church open Fayetteville's first coworking space. The one person I reliably jelly with is now my close friend, the associate pastor of a progressive Methodist-affiliated church that is located in the building of the coffee shop where we jelly. To make the story short, the church is opening a second campus on the other side of town, and the property, which they were given and now own outright (so no rent) has two buildings, one of which has a 1,300 sq ft space that was often rented out for meetings. Coworking will be a great way for them to build community, a la St. Lydia's in Brooklyn, and there is almost no risk for them since the overhead is low, they are a nonprofit, and they are a-ok with failure! I'm volunteering to help since I want to bring coworking to Fayetteville while I still live here. It's been great fun so far. We're hosting an organizational meeting next month (on April 13th) and are trying to get everyone interested to come. After that, we're thinking of launching a Kickstarter (a la New Work City back in the day) to expand our fundraising initiative nationally, and the church has done the math – they only need the equivalent of ten full-time members in order to open in August. Here's our website with all the details: fayettevillecoworking.com I'm looking forward to keeping everyone up to date, especially Alex, whose words and thoughts I've really been channeling throughout this process! On Friday, July 11, 2014 at 12:49:01 PM UTC-4, Alex Hillman wrote: Stoked to see you next month, too :) We'll try to meet there every week at the same time, and perhaps the regularity will encourage new people to drop in. That's how Indy Hall, New Work City, and many others have gotten their start. Without that regularity, it's hard to jump start ANYTHING new. Check out this story here about how hard it was for us (with the help of some very motivated members) to get our Night Owls program off the ground. http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/10/the-importance-of- rhythm-rituals-for-coworking-communities/ -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Insurance
After dozens of agents who didn't have a clue, I lucked out and found an AMAZING agent who has consistently helped us get the coverage we need. That includes alcohol (on site and off-site) and other special events insurance. And she's helped tons of US based coworking spaces get very affordable policies when other agents were quoting insanely high premiums. According to Diane (my agent): The problem that other agents have with quoting coworking spaces is that most insurance companies do not have an actual “cookie cutter” insurance classification available that fits a coworking operation and most agents don’t have a grasp on the understanding of the coworking operation which in turn, results in underwriters not having a clear understanding of the operation. When the underwriters are not forced to “think outside the box” to see that a coworking operation will qualify for a different class code than a lessor’s risk class code, they nor their quoting system will allow it, resulting in preposterous premiums that do not accurately reflect the risk. Thanks to working with you I have an understanding of how the coworking spaces operate and what it entails. In turn, I have taught some of my specific underwriters to have the same understanding, and to see things my way. You can reach out to her directly: Diane Cheezum di...@preston-patterson.com Good luck! -Alex -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Gretchen Bilbro gretchen.bil...@gmail.com wrote: Hello everyone! We just opened recently and I am having a difficult time getting liability insurance. Coworking is new to my area and they seem to be having a difficult time figuring out exactly how I fit in their groupings. Can anyone give me leads on insurance companies that work with Coworking spaces? Also how has alcohol affected your insurance policy? Thanks! Gretchen -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Member Growth first months - 1 Year
Ah, I missed that part of your question, saw the 1 year in the subject and that's what stuck :) From what I've seen, most spaces have one of two experiences in their initial months: 1 - Lots of fanfare and excitement, often fueled by membership pre-sales and the opening itself...but the initial excitement dies down quickly. This isn't unique to coworking, this is a pretty common launch graph for all sorts of businesses. A spike, followed by a cliff. 2 - A lot of tire-kickers. Curious people, but very few *buyers*. This can be VERY demotivating. Why aren't these people coming back? What are we doing wrong? In both cases, *empty room syndrome* is a tough situation to overcome. Andy Soell gave some great advice about how to overcome this challenge here: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/06/how-i-turned-an-empty-coworking-space-into-a-coworking-community/ *Also*there's no amount of advertising or promotion that works as well as getting outside of your space and meeting people where they are. At this stage, think of it less like promotion and more like dating :) This was one of the very first topics I talked about on The Coworking Weekly Show, episode #2 here: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/episodes/5491-ep2-sooo-how-do-you-get-members-for-your-coworking-community-askcoworkingweekly -Alex -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 3:00 PM, Cynthia Dailey scribble...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Alex - I actually posted this after reading that thread as it seemed to mostly talk about growth after the first year. We are 1 month old. Also doesn't talk about advertising and promotion experiences to get the word out. I appreciate the link though!!! Cynthia -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Are Restaurants Becoming Coworking Spaces?
True story: in many ways, Indy Hall was born in a restaurant. We were doing our touring Jelly community bootstrap process and looking for new places to hang out. A new restaurant had opened and I reached out to them: hey, we're a community of freelancers and entrepreneurs who work together once a week-ish. I know you're technically closed during the day, but if anyone's around doing biz tasks and we wouldn't be in the way during your setup...I can promise you a captive audience for happy hour. They said yes, admitting me me later that other orgs had approached them but were too focused on wanting special deals and stuff. We wanted to help fill their barstools and they liked that. That was the beginning of a long relationship with them, their staff, and their connection to the creative community that has made them a go-to hangout for so many people. -Alex On Friday, March 6, 2015, Steve King sk...@emergentresearch.com wrote: The article In First, American Spent More in Restaurants Than Grocery Stores https://www.yahoo.com/food/for-the-first-time-ever-americans-spent-more-in-112803758886.html is interesting on several levels. But this quote really caught my eye: Weinberg also noted that nearby companies have begun using her restaurants as meeting places, which she believes is part of a larger trend. “We never used to open our restaurants between lunch and dinner, because it didn’t seem worthwhile,” she explained. “But we do now because people use them for business meetings. They’d rather do it at our communal table, drinking a cocktail, than their offices.” Interesting trend - anyone else seeing this? Steve -- 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 javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','coworking%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com'); . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast -- 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.
Re: Re: [Coworking] Re: Anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen?
FOOD COURT COMPACTORS that's brilliant. Requested info, I'll share pricing back here when I have it. :) thanks Jeannine. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Legality of having alcohol on site
Oh yes, Tom’s totally right. We have a specific provision in our insurance for alcohol on site AND offsite. -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast On Feb 25, 2015, 10:30:16 AM, Tom Brandt twbra...@gmail.com wrote: It depends on your local jurisdiction as to whether that is legal or not. Your insurance carrier will no doubt have something to say as well. On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 10:24 AM, Jensen Yancey jensen.yan...@gmail.com(mailto:jensen.yan...@gmail.com) wrote: Hey Everyone, Quick question for those of you with a little more experience with the law. I know lots of coworking offices will stock the fridge with beer or have a keg on site, but I'm trying to figure out if this is something that's actually legal to do or if it's just a law that isn't really enforced. My understanding is that it's legal as long as anyone who's over 21 could walk in off the street and ask for a beer. Is that correct? -- 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(mailto:coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com). For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- twb member, Workantile(http://workantile.com/) @twbrandt -- 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(mailto: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.
Re: [Coworking] Legality of having alcohol on site
Exact laws vary based on where you are but generally (at least in the US and true most other places): 1- you absolutely cannot SELL alcohol without a license 2 - serving alcohol to minors is generally illegal as well There’s obviously edge cases, like when a coworking space is connected to a university or other public/semi-public institution. More than anything, though, check your local laws and/or consult a local attorney :) -Alex -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast On Feb 25, 2015, 10:24:50 AM, Jensen Yancey jensen.yan...@gmail.com wrote: Hey Everyone, Quick question for those of you with a little more experience with the law. I know lots of coworking offices will stock the fridge with beer or have a keg on site, but I'm trying to figure out if this is something that's actually legal to do or if it's just a law that isn't really enforced. My understanding is that it's legal as long as anyone who's over 21 could walk in off the street and ask for a beer. Is that correct? -- 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(mailto: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.
Re: [Coworking] Anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen?
We don’t really host outside events, Chad. This is just stuff coming from members. -- 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 Feb 24, 2015, 10:19:10 AM, Chad Ballantyne c...@thecreativespace.ca wrote: We don’t do this, but some venues ask that you take your trash with you. They provide the containers and good bags but any food or garbage waste leaves when they do. Chad Ballantyne 705.812.0689 c...@thecreativespace.ca(mailto:c...@thecreativespace.ca) Barrie's Coworking Community Perfect for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. 12 Dunlop St E, Barrie Ontario, L4M 1A3 Memberships start at $25/mth www.thecreativespace.ca(http://www.thecreativespace.ca/) 705-812-0689(tel:705-812-0689) On Feb 24, 2015, at 10:14 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com(mailto:dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com) wrote: Yeah, all good options. We already use a fully-stocked kitchen of real dishes and glassware, and already have a dishwasher that runs…I don’t even know how many times a day :) And we don’t host a lot of outside meetings. We’ve done quite a bit to reduce trash and improve our recycling in general. Dumpster service isn’t a very good option for us (mostly an issue with building configuration vs. the service itself). I’m still very open to other options, but it wasn’t until I started pursuing compactors how little information I could find! -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 Feb 24, 2015, 10:03:15 AM, Glen Ferguson g...@coworkfrederick.com(mailto:g...@coworkfrederick.com) wrote: Hi Alex, Knowing you, I'm sure you've explored this option, but have you looked at reducing the source of the trash? You mentioned a lot of food-related events as contributing to the situation. Any possibility of using plates/cups you can run through a dishwasher instead of using disposables? Granted, if you have 100+ attendees, it may not be feasible to have that many conventional plates on hand, let alone running 3-4 dishwasher loads to get them all clean. We picked up used Corelle plates at Goodwill; light, nonbreakable, consistent sizes. I'm always amazed at the amount of food-related trash generated by an all-day 12 person meeting. Places like Panera that provide catering via individually boxed lunches and include cups, plates and plasticware, then the organizers that bring a case of bottled water on top of this. We've had a few events where it finally registered with the organizers that we'll provide cups, plates, silverware and filtered water as well as coffee tea and it really cut down on the trash. --- Glen Ferguson Cowork Frederick 122 E Patrick St Frederick, MD 21701-5630 +1 (301) 732-5165 www.coworkfrederick.com(http://www.coworkfrederick.com/) @CoworkFrederick(http://twitter.com/CoworkFrederick) On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 7:07 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com(mailto:dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com) wrote: Oh yeah we already have a composting service! They haul away a few buckets per week but we’re dealing with a LOT more non compostable trash than that :) -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com(http://coworkingweekly.com/) Listen to the podcast: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com(http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/) On Feb 23, 2015, 7:03:50 PM, Joel Bennett joelb.a...@gmail.com(mailto:joelb.a...@gmail.com) wrote: No trash compactor, but we did implement some composting measures for food waste coffee grounds. Can be pretty simple and effective when coupled with solid recycling program, but we have the luxury of being in a small town with a compost pile (and vermicomposting capabilities) a few minutes away. May not be as feasible in urban Philly. Joel On Feb 23, 2015 1:52 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com(mailto:dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com) wrote: We've been looking for ways to improve the trash situation that's generated at Indy Hall - general waste is exacerbated by an active kitchen and lots of food events. Great for the community, but the new challenge is getting rid of the trash :) Does anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen/space? Pros/cons? Make/model that works well for you? Recommendations welcome :) -Alex -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com(http://coworkingweekly.com/) Listen to the podcast: http
Re: [Coworking] Re: Anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen?
I love all of these creative and community oriented solutions to reduce trash - and we’ve done them! Hopefully this thread proves useful for future folks searching for this issue. Even up until this point, we’ve had members contributing to the research on trash compactors. :) The issue - and why I’m asking here instead of our members - is that so far we haven't find any reviews or reports on how the compactors we’ve found hold up to higher volume usage. We’re at the point where we have a completely reasonable amount of trash being generated for 100+ people in the space daily. I’m just looking to reduce the amount of space it takes up until it’s removed. -Alex Alex, This issue is RIPE for your community to Indyhallify it! If you can name a goddamn street and start a farmer's market then the community can most certainly figure out how to reduce its trash. It'll likely take some work in mind-shifting around what's okay to bring into the space. First, what composes the bulk of your non recyclable, non compostable waste? Is it throw-away coffee cups that members are bringing in from their morning commutes? Is it plastic wrap or ziploc bags or what?? Find the source of the trash, then reorient as a community :) Hell, I might even go so far as to collect a week's worth of trash and put it in the lobby. I believe in you all. Angel On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:52:22 PM UTC-7, Alex Hillman wrote: We've been looking for ways to improve the trash situation that's generated at Indy Hall - general waste is exacerbated by an active kitchen and lots of food events. Great for the community, but the new challenge is getting rid of the trash :) Does anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen/space? Pros/cons? Make/model that works well for you? Recommendations welcome :) -Alex -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://coworkingweekly.com/show -- 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(mailto: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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen?
Duh. My girlfriend works in the restaurant industry. I should’ve thought to ask her sooner. Thank you Robert, for saving my relationship! ;) -- 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 Feb 24, 2015, 5:47:30 PM, Robert Petrusz rob...@bullcitycoworking.com wrote: Two thoughts: 1 Searsoutlet.com We just upgraded our dishwasher from the local searsoutlet store. I found a new-ish model for something in between a new model price and a craigslist find price, and they delivered and installed. There was a local outlet store where I could pick out the exact item I wanted. http://www.searsoutlet.com/ Your post made me curious and I did a search and they have a few for sale. They have one called The Gladiator that sounds like it might also be a culture-fit for IndyHall ;-) 2. Restaurant supply stores/food industry folks in general Ask a few restaurant owners in your neighborhood. They might have some suggestions. Robert Bull City Coworking Durham On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 11:15:00 AM UTC-5, Alex Hillman wrote: I love all of these creative and community oriented solutions to reduce trash - and we’ve done them! Hopefully this thread proves useful for future folks searching for this issue. Even up until this point, we’ve had members contributing to the research on trash compactors. :) The issue - and why I’m asking here instead of our members - is that so far we haven't find any reviews or reports on how the compactors we’ve found hold up to higher volume usage. We’re at the point where we have a completely reasonable amount of trash being generated for 100+ people in the space daily. I’m just looking to reduce the amount of space it takes up until it’s removed. -Alex Alex, This issue is RIPE for your community to Indyhallify it! If you can name a goddamn street and start a farmer's market then the community can most certainly figure out how to reduce its trash. It'll likely take some work in mind-shifting around what's okay to bring into the space. First, what composes the bulk of your non recyclable, non compostable waste? Is it throw-away coffee cups that members are bringing in from their morning commutes? Is it plastic wrap or ziploc bags or what?? Find the source of the trash, then reorient as a community :) Hell, I might even go so far as to collect a week's worth of trash and put it in the lobby. I believe in you all. Angel On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:52:22 PM UTC-7, Alex Hillman wrote: We've been looking for ways to improve the trash situation that's generated at Indy Hall - general waste is exacerbated by an active kitchen and lots of food events. Great for the community, but the new challenge is getting rid of the trash :) Does anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen/space? Pros/cons? Make/model that works well for you? Recommendations welcome :) -Alex -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://coworkingweekly.com/show -- 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+...@googlegroups.com(javascript:). 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(mailto: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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen?
BTW as I hit send on that last email I realized the tone might’ve seemed cheeky - it was 100% genuine. I truly, completely forgot to ask her for advice on commercial kitchen trash compactors, kitchen equipment in general. -- 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 Feb 24, 2015, 6:23:19 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Duh. My girlfriend works in the restaurant industry. I should’ve thought to ask her sooner. Thank you Robert, for saving my relationship! ;) -- 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 Feb 24, 2015, 5:47:30 PM, Robert Petrusz rob...@bullcitycoworking.com wrote: Two thoughts: 1 Searsoutlet.com We just upgraded our dishwasher from the local searsoutlet store. I found a new-ish model for something in between a new model price and a craigslist find price, and they delivered and installed. There was a local outlet store where I could pick out the exact item I wanted. http://www.searsoutlet.com/ Your post made me curious and I did a search and they have a few for sale. They have one called The Gladiator that sounds like it might also be a culture-fit for IndyHall ;-) 2. Restaurant supply stores/food industry folks in general Ask a few restaurant owners in your neighborhood. They might have some suggestions. Robert Bull City Coworking Durham On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 11:15:00 AM UTC-5, Alex Hillman wrote: I love all of these creative and community oriented solutions to reduce trash - and we’ve done them! Hopefully this thread proves useful for future folks searching for this issue. Even up until this point, we’ve had members contributing to the research on trash compactors. :) The issue - and why I’m asking here instead of our members - is that so far we haven't find any reviews or reports on how the compactors we’ve found hold up to higher volume usage. We’re at the point where we have a completely reasonable amount of trash being generated for 100+ people in the space daily. I’m just looking to reduce the amount of space it takes up until it’s removed. -Alex Alex, This issue is RIPE for your community to Indyhallify it! If you can name a goddamn street and start a farmer's market then the community can most certainly figure out how to reduce its trash. It'll likely take some work in mind-shifting around what's okay to bring into the space. First, what composes the bulk of your non recyclable, non compostable waste? Is it throw-away coffee cups that members are bringing in from their morning commutes? Is it plastic wrap or ziploc bags or what?? Find the source of the trash, then reorient as a community :) Hell, I might even go so far as to collect a week's worth of trash and put it in the lobby. I believe in you all. Angel On Monday, February 23, 2015 at 12:52:22 PM UTC-7, Alex Hillman wrote: We've been looking for ways to improve the trash situation that's generated at Indy Hall - general waste is exacerbated by an active kitchen and lots of food events. Great for the community, but the new challenge is getting rid of the trash :) Does anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen/space? Pros/cons? Make/model that works well for you? Recommendations welcome :) -Alex -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://coworkingweekly.com/show -- 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+...@googlegroups.com(javascript:). 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(mailto: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.
[Coworking] Anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen?
We've been looking for ways to improve the trash situation that's generated at Indy Hall - general waste is exacerbated by an active kitchen and lots of food events. Great for the community, but the new challenge is getting rid of the trash :) Does anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen/space? Pros/cons? Make/model that works well for you? Recommendations welcome :) -Alex -- *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://coworkingweekly.com/show -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen?
Oh yeah we already have a composting service! They haul away a few buckets per week but we’re dealing with a LOT more non compostable trash than that :) -- 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 Feb 23, 2015, 7:03:50 PM, Joel Bennett joelb.a...@gmail.com wrote: No trash compactor, but we did implement some composting measures for food waste coffee grounds. Can be pretty simple and effective when coupled with solid recycling program, but we have the luxury of being in a small town with a compost pile (and vermicomposting capabilities) a few minutes away. May not be as feasible in urban Philly. Joel On Feb 23, 2015 1:52 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com(mailto:dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com) wrote: We've been looking for ways to improve the trash situation that's generated at Indy Hall - general waste is exacerbated by an active kitchen and lots of food events. Great for the community, but the new challenge is getting rid of the trash :) Does anybody have a trash compactor in their kitchen/space? Pros/cons? Make/model that works well for you? Recommendations welcome :) -Alex -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com Listen to the podcast: http://coworkingweekly.com/show -- 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(mailto: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(mailto: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.
Re: Re: [Coworking] Re: Coworking Chart of Accounts?
Well crap, that formatting came out terrible :-/ Here's a version with line breaks: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/9efce6e1a11079966c45 -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com(http://coworkingweekly.com/) Listen to the podcast: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com(http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/) -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Coworking Chart of Accounts?
Here's ours at Indy Hall, below. But holy moly I do NOT recommend doing this on your own. My bookkeeper and accountant are two people I love to pay because they do this a million times better than I could. If you don't have a bookkeeper you love, I've been hearing really great things about the service provided by http://bench.co. But I'm not a customer so that's not my testimonial :) Paypal Petty Cash PNC Checking Accounts Receivable Accum Depreciation Computers and Network Furniture Leaseholder Improvements Security Deposit American Express Chase Card Loan Payable Member JA Loan Payable Member ML Loan Payable Member PA Loans From Shareholders:Alex Hillman Rent/UO Payable Partner One Equity - AH:Partner One Draws Partner One Equity - AH:Partner One Earnings Partner Two Equity - GD:Partner Two Draws Partner Two Equity - GD:Partner Two Earnings Retained Earnings Clothing Event Sponsorship Member Fees:6 Pack Member Fees:Basic Member Fees:Community Member Fees:Drop In Member Fees:Full Member Fees:Lite Month Security Workshop Workshop Expenses Automobile Expense Bank Service Charges Computer:Software Dues and Subscriptions Insurance:Health Insurance Insurance:Liability Insurance Interest Expense:Finance Charge Kitchen Supplies Laundry /bath Supplies Marketing Office Supplies Postage and Delivery Professional Development Professional Fees:Accounting Rent Repairs Repairs:Building Repairs Repairs:Equipment Repairs Repairs:Janitorial Exp Sub Contractor Taxes:Local Telephone Travel Ent:Meals Travel Ent:Travel Utilities:Gas and Electric Utilities:Internet Other Income -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com(http://coworkingweekly.com/) Listen to the podcast: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com(http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/) On Feb 18, 2015, 1:07:30 PM, Tabari Brannon tkbran...@gmail.com wrote: I would be interested in this as well! On Thursday, February 12, 2015 at 4:22:09 AM UTC-8, Cynthia Dailey wrote: Anyone willing to take a screengrab of their Chart of Accounts for their coworking space business and post for reference? :) We just opened ScribbleSpace.CO near Disney World in Florida and are getting our bookkeeping in order. -- 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(mailto: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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Anyone been through a move?
you want the members to be excited about the move and feel like it was their move and not your move. The end result being that they're going to be the ones excited about the new space, and that energy and excitement is going to shine through when you get people coming through the door interested in joining.” 100x this. There’s nothing worse than stressing yourself to the limit during a move AND feeling like everybody hates you. :) -- 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 Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Andy Soell aso...@gmail.com wrote: We went through a move in October of 2013 from our initial 450 square foot space (!!) to a whopping 1500 square feet. Everything Angel said was right on the money—make sure your utilities (most importantly Internet) are overlapping in service so you have no downtime, and schedule the move over the weekend. If you get your members on board to help out, the only expenses you should incur are the pizza and beer, and possibly the moving truck. A few of our members had pickup trucks, so we didn't even have to worry about that part. If I could have changed one thing, it would have been thinking through the layout a little better. We didn't put *any* planning into that, and just set up desks wherever. It happened to work out ok, but we could have definitely laid the space out better with a little initial planning. The big takeaway from those two points is this: get the members involved in the move. Let them take ownership of it. This is for philosophical reasons even more than the practical ones: you want the members to be excited about the move and feel like it was *their* move and not *your *move. The end result being that they're going to be the ones excited about the new space, and that energy and excitement is going to shine through when you get people coming through the door interested in joining. On Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 5:18:48 PM UTC-5, Jensen Yancey wrote: Hi Everyone, I'm curious to know if anyone on here has ever dealt with moving locations and wouldn't mind talking a bit about it. If so, shoot me an email at jensen...@gmail.com javascript: Thanks! Jensen -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Member Growth
Some figures from our first few years of growth in this presentation from Indy Hall's 2012 expansion: https://speakerdeck.com/alexknowshtml/indy-hall-expansion-town-hall-2012 Note that in May 2009 we expanded from our original location (1800 sq ft) to one just a bit larger than the one you’re in now. Also of note in that deck were some financial estimates for team rooms which we ended up deciding against after that Town Hall meeting. -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 Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 2:55 PM, Kelly Fitzgerald ke...@societyofwork.com wrote: Hi Everyone- I realize every market is different and that no space is alike. However, I'm trying to gauge our growth here in Chattanooga to someone in a comparable market- potentially Asheville, Boulder, Fort Collins or something along those lines. Our space is located in downtown Chattanooga. We have 4000 sq ft are currently at 35 members (we opened in Sept 2013). I'm wondering what the growth process has looked like for people in other markets? Again, I know it's not a science, but I am trying to get a general idea. Thoughts? -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
Looking at our own membership levels (we have full time, 3 days/week, 1 day/week, 1 day/month), far and away the highest churn rates are in that 1 day/week level. 40% of all cancelations we’ve had are from that level. 1 day a week churns more than 1 day a month. That’s a pretty HUGE clue about what the problem is. -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 Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 4:29 PM, Andy Soell aso...@gmail.com wrote: I think there's a great deal of truth here, and I'm really curious about other space's approaches to different membership levels (we're getting way off topic here, but whatever). I think Jerome is absolutely right that it's much harder to keep a part timer on board, probably due to their lack of commitment and the fact that they just by nature of their membership aren't around very much. At the same time, I also completely believe that a good community is a diverse community, and that includes an even distribution of people across different membership levels. Looking at our own membership levels (we have full time, 3 days/week, 1 day/week, 1 day/month), far and away the highest churn rates are in that 1 day/week level. 40% of all cancelations we've had are from that level. I'm not sure what—if anything—is to be done about it, but I'm curious what people have found useful in keeping people coming back who aren't coming every day. I like offering once-a-week memberships, because I really think everyone needs to get out of the house at least once a week, but it seems like that's the level at which people eventually forget about the coworking space and just drop off the face of the earth. On Friday, January 30, 2015 at 11:18:22 AM UTC-5, Jerome wrote: I think the below typically applies to smaller coworking spaces. Well, let me rephrase: the below is required for smaller spaces larger spaces does not need to follow the below rule; BUT, should they, yes, I agree that the below would be ideal. That said, from my experience of being in the trenches for now, 7 years, I can comfortably say that recruiting full-timers is MUCH easier than part-timers. Part-timers have to me, seem only part-ly motivated to join, whether due to (1) they don’t want to spend $; (2) they’re so attached with their status quo of their home office; (3) their interest is so 50/50 fickle, any little thing can wane their interest. Also, if you were to spend, say, 1 hour per new part-timer member, between the tour, follow-up(s), onboarding…to yield $100, and your goal is 10 members, then you’ll spend 10 hours for those “sales”. If you were to spend, say, the same 1 hour per new full-timer to yield $300, then you’d only need to spend a little over 3 hours for those “sales”. The spread worsens if you seek $10k, or $20k. The very same many DIY/automated billing and other admin procedures you’ve focused to minimize, is being offset by exponentially more labor time to sell, or “cost of sales”. Is that the reason why exec suites probably only ‘rent’ full-time office spaces? Yes. Same efforts that yield way more $ revenue. Is there a better mix between the below strategy and exec suites? Yes. And that will depend upon how you operate, your demographics, your size space, etc. *JEROME CHANG* *WEST: Santa Monica* 1450 2nd Street (@Broadway) | Santa Monica CA 90401 ph: (310) 526-2255 *CENTRAL: Mid-Wilshire* 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) | Los Angeles CA 90036 ph: (323) 330-9505 *EAST: Downtown* 529 S. Broadway, Suite 4000 (@Pershing Square) | Los Angeles CA 90013 ph: (213) 550-2235 http://www.yelp.com/biz/blankspaces-los-angeles https://twitter.com/BLANKSPACES https://www.facebook.com/pages/BLANKSPACES/132257631339 https://www.facebook.com/pages/BLANKSPACES/132257631339 http://www.linkedin.com/company/blankspaces?trk=top_nav_home http://vimeo.com/blankspaces http://vimeo.com/blankspaces On Jan 30, 2015, at 6:11 AM, rachel young rac...@camaraderie.ca javascript: wrote: I'll add another item to Jonathan\s list: 4 - Less diversity. 100 members with a flex or part time membership is 3x as many different occupations, passions, life experiences, and hobbies than 35 members with a full time membership, so the mix of people that members interact with will be much less with full time people packed in, but you can cap the number of full time members and ensure there are more part time or flex to make that diversity even more apparent and effective. We have three membership levels: lite, part time, and full time. I always aim for a mix of approximately 30%, 50%, 20%, respectively, with no cap on daypass users or non-space usage memberships (virtual/non-space usage network membership only). r. *rachel
Re: [Coworking] My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
. We’re also putting a lot of work into our more nuanced churn patterns. I finally have the data to back an intuition that people who join in “peak new member” months like January and August tend to churn out 2x faster than people who join in normal months. That’s helped us do some more digging, find out why they leave. It’s because those busy months are the hardest to get to know people, because so many new faces are overwhelming. We could have been like a gym or a landlord, happily taking their money in January knowing that we wouldn’t see them again by March. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But instead, we focused on increasing the value of the community to them so it’s not reduced to the value of a desk. And now we’re able to predictably improve our retention for people who join in those seasonal bursts. As someone who’s added more square footage to Indy Hall 4x in 8 years to make room for our waiting lists, I’ve paid very close attention to the growth patterns. The biggest one is that when adding more square footage for the sake of adding more people, the returns are diminishing. That’s not how this kind of business scales, or protects itself for the future. Adding more square footage to accommodate for more people is MOST valuable when each of those people are contributing to the value that every other member is able to get as a member. Because that’s the biggest value of a coworking membership: the other people in the community, not the desk. -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 Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 6:41 PM, Andy Soell aso...@gmail.com wrote: Our membership breakdown is pretty symmetrical: Full Time: 30% 3 day/week: 20% 1 day/week: 20% 1 day/month: 30% The skew comes in when you look at cancellations. Of our history of cancellations, they’ve come from: Full Time: 15% 3 day/week: 5% 1 day/week: 40% 1 day/month: 40% It’s worth noting that our overall churn rate is actually decent: 5% month-over-month average last year. But the pattern is still there: Weekly members stop coming around and either a) cancel or b) downgrade to monthly memberships, stick around for a while, then cancel. I’m curious if anybody else has seen this and what they’ve done to curtail it. -Original Message- From: Glen Ferguson g...@coworkfrederick.com Reply: coworking@googlegroups.com coworking@googlegroups.com Date: February 6, 2015 at 6:23:09 PM To: coworking@googlegroups.com coworking@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [Coworking] My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings * Looking at our own membership levels (we have full time, 3 days/week, 1 day/week, 1 day/month), far and away the highest churn rates are in that 1 day/week level. 40% of all cancelations we’ve had are from that level. * 1 day a week churns *more* than 1 day a month. That’s a pretty HUGE clue about what the problem is. I'm curious what percentage of your membership is on that 1 day/week plan. When we opened, we didn't have that level, but people wanted to join at that level, so we created it. We've consistently had between 40-50% of members on our 5 days/month level (it's easier to bill as days per month, and more flexible for the member). I'd expect the percentage of churn to reflect the percentage of membership, but now you're giving me homework to do this weekend and further break down my churn stats by membership tier to see if that holds true. --- Glen Ferguson Cowork Frederick 122 E Patrick St Frederick, MD 21701-5630 +1 (301) 732-5165 www.coworkfrederick.com @CoworkFrederick On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Alex Hillman wrote: * Looking at our own membership levels (we have full time, 3 days/week, 1 day/week, 1 day/month), far and away the highest churn rates are in that 1 day/week level. 40% of all cancelations we’ve had are from that level. * 1 day a week churns *more* than 1 day a month. That’s a pretty HUGE clue about what the problem is. -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 Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 4:29 PM, Andy Soell wrote: I think there's a great deal of truth here, and I'm really curious about other space's approaches to different membership levels (we're getting way off topic here, but whatever). I think Jerome is absolutely right that it's much harder to keep a part timer on board, probably due to their lack of commitment and the fact that they just by nature of their membership aren't around very much. At the same time, I also completely believe that a good community is a diverse community, and that includes an even distribution of people across different
Re: [Coworking] My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
Oh, by the way, the next episode of my podcast (http://dangerouslyawesome.com/on/coworking-weekly-podcast/ ) is going to have some really awesome SCIENCE to back all of this up. I had an amazing talk with the authors of this article: http://time.com/money/3586004/coworking-why-it-works/ They’re the first independent academic researchers to do a qualitative study specifically on what goes into the creating a sense of community, and why renting desks is a mirage. -- 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 Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 7:50 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: About 2-3 years ago, we started noticing an entirely new cancellation reason showing up when people left Indy Hall. For 5+ years, the majority of the people who left did so because they were moving away, or because they took a job. Of course people left because it wasn’t the right fit for them, too, but the vast majority of the people who found us stayed. Then, people started saying something we hadn’t heard before: “I’m not using it enough”. Which sounds pretty similar to what I’m hearing from you guys. So….what changed so suddenly from the first 5 years to the most recent few? I had to talk to a lot of members, with a lot of focus on relatively new members as well as the folks who joined and left, but two VERY consistent patterns showed up: 1 - Prior to this new cancellation reason showing up, most people who joined found out about Indy Hall first – usually through our existing community members who told them “you’ve gotta join, this has helped me in so many ways... – and then once they got here they discovered that it was this thing called coworking. After the shift, we had more people first seeking this thing called “coworking, then finding us as an option, and choosing us. They’d heard about coworking in the newspapers, etc, and heard it was a cheap and flexible way to rent a desk. Those two categories of people had very different expectations of what the value of Indy Hall was. The problem is that while it might be easier to recruit this kind of person as a full time member: a) more full time members means that the culture starts to feel a LOT like a regular old office, which people who join are actively avoiding. (see this comment for just one example: http://www.reddit.com/r/CoWorking/comments/2udb90/why_did_you_leave_reasons_you_stopped_going_to_a/co7rv3k) b) from a purely financial perspective, a full time desk can only generate so much membership revenue. On average, a flex desk represents at LEAST 4x the revenue potential as a single full time desk ...in some coworking spaces I’ve worked with, that ratio is even higher. c) This kind of full time member (the one who comes in specifically to rent their own desk among other desks) tend to be more territorial than flex members. They contribute far less, and are inconvenienced by the smallest things. They’re just generally bad citizens. Once I realized that, we were able to tailor our tours and communication to the desk rental folks to help them see that yeah, there’s a place to work but the desk is barely scratching the surface of what they can get from their membership. We didn’t “correct” them, so much as showed them how to be better citizens, reminding them that yeah…this place was big but the way it ran most smoothly is when they were an active part of the community. Which actually led me to realize something a bit more subtle: 2 - Indy Hall had gotten BIG. When we were just a couple thousand square feet, it was easy to tell people that our community was the primary “feature”, not the workspace. But 5 years later, with multiple floors and a physically massive presence, I think that people had a harder time believing us when we said the same thing. And I don’t blame them! So we made some focused changes: We focused on new member education, especially during our tours and new member onboarding, to really helping people make smarter decisions about choosing a membership with us. (note: we’re still working on this today. we never stop working on this) We put more effort into developing our Tummling practice. We rebalanced our full time membership, which had grown to nearly 40% of our total membership, back to ~20%. We got even more intentional with our events, making sure that they weren’t simply “activities” but things that helped members build relationships. We did a lot of work with our online community, turning it into an equally vibrant gathering place as our workspace so that the members who weren’t physically in the room could still get value. Cuz here’s the mistake you make by letting yourself turn into a lazy landlord: you bind your business to your square footage and the number
Re: [Coworking] Re: Infuriating article on the high premiums charged by coworking spaces in Bloomberg
If the writer knew what he was talking about, he wouldn’t have hyphenated the word “coworking”. Duh! I wish that were true. Editors, again, religiously follow the AP Stylebook and since coworking as a term is neither in the dictionary nor in the Stylebook, even the BEST writers who bring a convincing argument to their editors get their words hacked. For example, I spoke to the author of the recent Times article about coworking and vacations. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/business/co-working-on-vacation-a-desk-in-paradise.html?_r=0 She’s a really great journalist, and that article showed for it. But it had the hyphen. Here’s an excerpt from an email I had with her about a completely different article: Frustrating, but true. -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 Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 1:03 PM, M.E. Ralph sdg.mont...@gmail.com wrote: If the writer knew what he was talking about, he wouldn't have hyphenated the word coworking. Duh! On Wednesday, February 4, 2015 at 2:31:48 AM UTC-7, Will Bennis, Locus Workspace wrote: I have never been so pissed by an article on coworking: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-02/co-working-spaces-an-expensive-cure-for-loneliness Can't believe Bloomberg would publish this kind of financial analysis (treating the only cost of business as the lease cost). My ongoing struggle with running a coworking space has been with the fact that margins on memberships for the most part need to be lower than they should be to compete with spaces funded by grants, accelerators treating the space as a business cost for the hopeful investment payoff, big businesses using coworking spaces as mascots/advertising/sources of inspiration, or other spaces that are just operating at a loss because they underestimated the expenses involved in operating a space. Anyway, just putting this out there to promote some good old group resentment at the media. :) Anyone disagree and think Bloomberg got it right? Will -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Infuriating article on the high premiums charged by coworking spaces in Bloomberg
Yep, to add to what Steve said: I can usually tell when a reporter has had their story assigned to them from an editor during the interview and I can ALWAYS tell from the final product. This is one of those stories. I’d bet $100 that the editor was like, “oh, all of these happy articles about coworking? Let’s play the other side to stand out. The coworking biz owners will get up in a huff, talk about us, and drive pageviews.” I always make it my job to make a journalist look great - so telling them “your editor’s story is shit” won’t go far. Instead, I try to get a better sense of what story they think they need to tell and offer a better one…it usually helps when I have a story that nobody else has covered. Every editor loves a new or “exclusive” angle, or they wouldn’t be stirring up this shit in the firs place. -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 Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 2:44 PM, Steve King sk...@emergentresearch.com wrote: The reality of business press coverage is sometimes you lose - and this was one of those times. It was clear while I was being interviewed the reporter had a negative point of view about coworking and considered it very expensive. I tried to move him off of this and suggested to talk to others (he did talk to Liz Elam) to get a more balanced view, but he stayed with his point of view. I didn't like this story either and feel he left out important context from some my quotes. But in the reporter's defense, I'm familiar with his work and he's usually good at his job. Also, part of his job at Bloomberg is to have a point of view, and he expressed his. By coincidence I was also interviewed by a reporter from The Week the same day. Her article - The Booming Future of Collaborative Work Environments http://theweek.com/articles/535709/booming-future-collaborative-work-environments - is much better. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Abridged summary of coworking@googlegroups.com - 10 updates in 5 topics
I just re-read to see if I could connect the dots, and saw the note about chemo. Oh no. :( Sending you good vibes! -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 Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:43 PM, Becky H Smith, Ed.D. bsmith...@gmail.com wrote: We have a coworking space in beautiful Bozeman, MT, great air service, and lots of independent professionals, a large tech community because of Oracle who bought out RightNow Technologies...Greg, the former CEO is my neighbor. We have 12 pods, a large great room with tables, a private office, a consult room or office, a nice conference room, couch area, kitchen... I skied 3 times this last week at Bridger and Big Sky. Today, I am doing my every 2 week chemo maintenance. Let us give you a tour (as Alex mentioned in his audio on Trello and Zapier) or visit blueoceaninnovationcenter.com - we are working on the tips Alex gave on helping people know what action to take next...Becky On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 1:13 AM, coworking@googlegroups.com wrote: coworking@googlegroups.com https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email#!forum/coworking/topics Google Groups https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email/#!overview https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email/#!overview Today's topic summary View all topics https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email#!forum/coworking/topics - My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings #14b4e806eabaa518_group_thread_0 - 1 Update - NBC TV Pilot Sharing About Coworking #14b4e806eabaa518_group_thread_1 - 1 Update - Poker Night and other events. How to monetize this? #14b4e806eabaa518_group_thread_2 - 3 Updates - Are you the Founder of a rural or tiny coworking space? #14b4e806eabaa518_group_thread_3 - 4 Updates - Google Location Verification #14b4e806eabaa518_group_thread_4 - 1 Update My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/t/d0396507f0965f2c?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Melissa Mesku em...@melissamesku.com: Feb 02 09:01PM -0800 Alex, Is there such a thing as a coworking Pulitzer? Let me know if New Worker Magazine -- or lil' ol' me -- can be of help on this particular topic. Melissa Melissa Mesku ...more http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/msg/8384d86ae897d9d?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Back to top #14b4e806eabaa518_digest_top NBC TV Pilot Sharing About Coworking http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/t/ab0504fe17ee4105?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Melissa Mesku em...@melissamesku.com: Feb 02 08:53PM -0800 We just wrote about this at New Worker Magazine. I had the producers of the first coworking show, the reality show CoWORK (based out of HuB Sarasota) comment on the upcoming NBC show. ...more http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/msg/e559347c70ad2f63?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Back to top #14b4e806eabaa518_digest_top Poker Night and other events. How to monetize this? http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/t/2dae841c2960083f?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email NODO Cowork tam...@nodocowork.com: Feb 02 07:08PM -0800 Hello people, so we are starting to host a lot of different events that come from our community. Some are proposed from people inside our coworking space but most of them proposed by people ...more http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/msg/d8166206e32e41af?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Jerome Chang jer...@blankspaces.com: Feb 02 07:10PM -0800 Start with a basic event fee and explain you need to pay for cleaning and staffing. Perhaps $50-75? Feel that out and then go from there. JEROME CHANG WEST: Santa Monica 1450 2nd Street ...more http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/msg/f5630f309c361a01?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com: Feb 02 07:13PM -0800 Do you know why the people who want to use your space haven’t joined your community yet? -Alex -- The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself. ...more http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/msg/90e0ffdd6673edbd?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Back to top #14b4e806eabaa518_digest_top Are you the Founder of a rural or tiny coworking space? http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/t/cb421716bd0f96fb?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Fabrizio Tarará fabriziotar...@gmail.com: Feb 02 05:47AM -0800 If you're still looking Frontal Lobe fits this bill, let me know. Fabrizio Tarara Frontal Lobe Coworking www.WorkFrontalLobe.com On Tuesday, January 27, 2015 at 11:23:33 AM UTC-5, Angel ...more http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/msg/fcc7517fa969fe50?utm_source=digestutm_medium=email Linda Mitchell
Re: [Coworking] Poker Night and other events. How to monetize this?
Do you know why the people who want to use your space haven’t joined your community yet? -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 Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 10:08 PM, NODO Cowork tam...@nodocowork.com wrote: Hello people, so we are starting to host a lot of different events that come from our community. Some are proposed from people inside our coworking space but most of them proposed by people outside the CW. We are hosting events like illustration night, online business meet up and the last one that has come up is Enterpreneur Poker night. (Take a look at the rules are really cool http://www.strongbeard.se/entrepreneur-poker/ ) But My question is, how do you owners of a space charge for this? Do you rent the space? Charge an entrance? Only sell the bears? Personally I have a problem dealing with charging. This is something I need to change but as i make strong bonds with everyone in the CW is hard for me to charge them. I know i have to change this. But any advice on dealing with this is will appreciate it. =) Have a good day you all, Tam Tam -- 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.
[Coworking] How I'm using workflows and automation to improve our member onboarding
We’ve been working on a lot of workflows and streamlining at Indy Hall recently…and today had a bit of a breakthrough that I wanted to share because I’m already stoked about what it’s going to let us do and hope that more people use these tools. Anybody here use Trello? How about Zapier? Sidetone: aren’t those ridiculously silly names for anything, let alone business products? Trello is…a project management too? A task management tool? A workflow management tool? Honestly it could be any of those things…it’s super flexible and adaptable. Zapier sort of turns the world of your favorite internet tools into legos that you can snap together and combine in fun and useful ways. It’s a way for you to have actions in one piece of software trigger a result in another piece of software. I use both Trello and Zapier quite a bit but not as much for Indy Hall until recently. Today I started using BOTH of them, together, to create some automated workflows for my team. The 6 workflows that we automated are: Adding new tour sign-ups to a Trello board for better post-tour follow ups Adding new drop-ins to a Trello board for better post drop-in follow ups Adding new interested members to a Trello board to better prepare them for sign up Connecting Trello to Trello (TRELLOCEPTION), creating a seamless connection between the 3 previous workflows into our Member Onboarding workflow Adding cancelled members to a Trello board to make sure we remove people from GroupBuzz, Slack, etc. Adding failed credit card charges (via Stripe) to a Trello board so we don’t lose track of reminding people to update their cards I got so psyched about it that I recorded a video so others might be inspired to try it, and even create their own workflows and share them back. Check it! http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2015/01/6-automated-workflows-that-make-our-coworking-space-better-every-day/ -Alex p.s. I have a podcast episode (http://bit.ly/coworkingweekly-itunes) coming out on Monday that’s all about onboarding of a different kind, less about members and more about adding new people to your team (community managers, etc) :) -- 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 -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Conference room presentation equipment.
Wireless presentation tools seem like they'd be easier but in practice they're still pretty clumsy and unreliable. Wired is much more reliable, and there’s no question about how it works. :) Just get yourself a couple of the different kinds of adapters for Apple laptops (most PCs use standard VGA, no adapter needed). The only real pain in the ass with wired connections is that those adapters get lost or walk away (even by accident). -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 Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 2:46 PM, Gretchen Bilbro cultivatecowork...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, we just opened last week and have an event coming up this Friday. I wondered what you use for presentations in conference/classrooms? I have some large Dell monitors but am just curious if you use wire access only for presentations or what equipment you use to wirelessly throw to the screens? Thanks Gretchen -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Conference room presentation equipment.
Amen - good way to make friends at a conference is to be the person with video adapters and power strips in your backpack :) -- 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 Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 3:04 PM, Randall Arnold randall.arn...@texrat.net wrote: Good advice Alex. When I used to present a lot, I got in the habit of keeping every typical video adapter in my backpack. I can't tell you how many times that saved me or a fellow presenter. Randy On January 28, 2015 at 1:57 PM Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Wireless presentation tools seem like they'd be easier but in practice they're still pretty clumsy and unreliable. Wired is much more reliable, and there’s no question about how it works. :) Just get yourself a couple of the different kinds of adapters for Apple laptops (most PCs use standard VGA, no adapter needed). The only real pain in the ass with wired connections is that those adapters get lost or walk away (even by accident). -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 Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 2:46 PM, Gretchen Bilbro cultivatecowork...@gmail.com mailto:cultivatecowork...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, we just opened last week and have an event coming up this Friday. I wondered what you use for presentations in conference/classrooms? I have some large Dell monitors but am just curious if you use wire access only for presentations or what equipment you use to wirelessly throw to the screens? Thanks Gretchen -- 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 mailto: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 mailto: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.
Re: [Coworking] Cohere finally got venture capital and it's almost on par with WeWork
Gives me warm, fuzzy rememberies of this important event in startup history: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-valuation-tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment -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 Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 10:37 AM, Angel Kwiatkowski fccowork...@gmail.com wrote: I've been keeping this a secret for 2 years and it's finally real!! http://coherecommunity.com/blog/believe-it-or-not-cohere-coworking-is-now-valued-at -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Who's looking for a virtual co-working group?
Hey J.C., I’m honestly not sure why people are getting all fussy about this, it seems to me like your goals are totally reasonable to accomplish. I don’t get the sense that you’re trying to avoid a coworking space…maybe you’ve even tried it but because you’re often on the phone it didn’t work out. The #1 problem that coworking solves is loneliness (which it sounds like you’re dealing with), and there’s more than one way to skin that cat. :) Two anecdotes of encouragement for you, JC: 1) completely separate from the coworking space that I founded, I run what could easily be considered a virtual coworking community. In fact, here’s an excerpt from the page that people see when they sign up: The members of this particular community pay more than most of the members of the coworking space - quite happily. :) 2) Indy Hall’s “virtual” coworking community might look like an add-on to the coworking space, but we treat our discussion list chat room as full fledged places to gather in the same ways you’ve described. There’s banter and motivation and support. We do Photoshop Fridays (you don’t need to be good at photoshop, trust me) and swap music videos on Youtube, help each other with problems ranging from technical to business to DIY home improvement projects, planning lunch trips Are these interactions a complete replacement for the coworking space? No! Of course not. But for: * the people who like you, JC, have a constraint that keeps them from working in the coworking space... * the people who have jobs that require them to be at another office, full of coworkers that they DON’T enjoy talking with... * and the people who have a whole host of other reasons that physically relocating themselves just isn’t practical, but WANT to be a part of a community of likeminded people who they’re happy to call their coworkers... we’re really proud of what we’re able to offer, and the members really love having a way to contribute to the energy of the community from wherever they are. I wrote a bit on this list (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/coworking/CFsjTAEPP2g/oRegOZbfIPYJ) last year about how we launched an online community membership to focus even more on opening the “door to people want a community of coworkers but can’t use the space often or ever. -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 Friday, Jan 16, 2015 at 6:08 PM, J.C. Amaya jcafromn...@gmail.com, wrote: Hey all! My name is JC and I do phone sales out of my apartment but am finding it kind of difficult to stay focused. I'm usually pretty disciplined in the office but at home by myself it's way too easy to get distracted and goof around, especially since my job is commission only so there's no one to get on my case when I slack off. What I'd like to do is get together with a few other professionals and create a regular google hang out for people who work from home but want to sort of recreate the office environment. A little banter, a little motivation and support. This would probably work best with others who cold call from home but I'm open to working with anyone who's interested. If anyone is interested in trying it out, shoot me an email. jcafromn...@gmail.com -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] backup internet?
Internet downtime sucks and we’re in a similar situation, having only one ISP option. We tried an LTE backup and it was actually worse than not having internet when it goes down. At least when it’s down you know it’s down vs. when the LTE backup kicks in and it’s frustratingly slow but people try to use it anyway. People are upset either way, but we learned that they’re actually less upset when they know it’s down and they can just find other work to do vs. wondering “maybe the internet is just slow right now” and getting frustrated with that. -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 Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:27 AM, Elliott Williams ellio...@gmail.com wrote: We've had 5-20 minute outages several times on our area over the last few months (pittsburgh). I'm pretty sure it's not our internal network as I live 5 blocks away and my home internet has been spotty as well. I'm wondering what people do for backup internet. We only have one ISP piped into our building, so I was thinking of a LTE router. Anyone have experience with this? -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] backup internet?
Heh, another thing I’ve learned in 8 years of coworking is that most people don’t read signs, even when they’re right in front of them ;) -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 Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:39 AM, Elliott Williams ellio...@gmail.com wrote: Ahhh, thanks for this. Sounds like maybe what I could do in that direction is have some sort of internet connected sign that shows the internet status. At least then no one would think it's just them. On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:35 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Internet downtime sucks and we’re in a similar situation, having only one ISP option. We tried an LTE backup and it was actually *worse* than not having internet when it goes down. At least when it’s down you know it’s down vs. when the LTE backup kicks in and it’s frustratingly slow but people try to use it anyway. People are upset either way, but we learned that they’re actually less upset when they know it’s down and they can just find other work to do vs. wondering “maybe the internet is just slow right now” and getting frustrated with that. -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 Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 11:27 AM, Elliott Williams ellio...@gmail.com wrote: We've had 5-20 minute outages several times on our area over the last few months (pittsburgh). I'm pretty sure it's not our internal network as I live 5 blocks away and my home internet has been spotty as well. I'm wondering what people do for backup internet. We only have one ISP piped into our building, so I was thinking of a LTE router. Anyone have experience with this? -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Member board/photos
I’m also a big fan of offline, low-tech solutions…especially within the space itself. Photos of members’ experiences - things that show off life in and outside of the coworking space - sound awesome. But we also ran into the problem with analog photos (using the Instax camera) getting dreadfully out of date…or running out of film… And really, it wasn't as useful as we’d hoped. The goal of having photos is to help people learn (or remember) names along with faces since that’s easily one of the hardest parts about joining. And for a long time, I was really really resistant to an online directory/bios, especially ones that focus on their skills. The big reason for THAT is because we want people to connect and have conversations about things other than what they do (see: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/08/conversation-therapy/) But our community doesn’t just “happen inside the coworking space. In fact, some of you have heard me say this year that 70% of our members use a desk less than once a month…but they’re still active in our online discussion community spaces between coworking days and events. Those members don’t get to see the analog photo wall when realistically they’re the ones who would benefit from it the most. So one of our members started this project, which has been picked up as a collaborative effort led by one of our team members: http://hello.indyhall.org/member-wall/ It’s NOT online bios…just photos and names, and really nice photos! We currently only have around 20% of our community on here and it’s a slow process to add people, but it’s been worth it because these photos can live in lots of places. Most recently, we brought the online photo wall back offline by connecting it to our Lounge TV via a Chromecast. It rotates through member photos with their names, and current events/announcements/reminders. Looks like this: http://instagram.com/p/xzg-1DOGLW/ http://instagram.com/p/xzX4OsuGN_/ Still a work in progress, but it’s been working :) -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 Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:52 AM, Alex Linsker alexlins...@gmail.com wrote: I was inspired by bulletin boards at an office I used to work at, with photos of employees doing what they're passionate about: fishing trip, silly faces on a plane, hugging their kids, etc. At Collective Agency we have hallways with white walls, and as people come in, the photos are on the walls. Most photos have a series of questions and answers below that most members fill out the answers to when they join -- a mini-interview. I use double-sided tape on the pages, which makes it easy to move them around, and add new members, and provide a sense of continuity and anyone-can-do-this relaxed feel. We tried online bios years ago, but that quickly did not work -- it wasn't supporting the reasons why we exist (in the minds of the people who are willing to value us by paying), and actually detracted value. Alex Linsker, Collective Agency, Portland Oregon http://collectiveagency.co/ On Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 7:53:37 AM UTC-8, Gretchen Bilbro wrote: Hi all, What have you used to create your member boards? I have a giant old metal sign that I want to use for the board itself and place photos with brief write ups on with magnets for our member board. For those that have done something similar did you print photos on your printer or buy an instant camera for this purpose? I seem to recall hearing at GCUC last year that the instant camera idea was not the best option but can't remember why or who said that. Any suggestions? Thanks! Gretchen -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
Elliot - Both of those scenarios – while they sound troubling in lots of ways – don’t strike me as the actual reason for the closure of a space. Symptoms, but not causes, ya know? -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 Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Elliott Williams ellio...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry for being late in this conversation. I just wanted to add a few types/subtypes: 2.1 unsustainable but with unlimited funds (usually connected with some sort of govt initiative). 5 - coworking spaces as feeders for real estate. These are spaces that will never be sustainable, but the owner of the building doesn't care because the owner is just trying to get these companies to grow to get an actual office. On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Turns out that surveys are terrible for collecting this kind of information :) I’ve had to do a lot of more hands on work to find real, valuable information. I’ve used some of my findings to help fuel other articles, like this one in the Philadelphia Biz Journal (I pubilished the full interview to suppliment the piece): *http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/07/behind-the-scenes-of-a-front-page-interview-coworking-any-old-space-wont-do/ http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/07/behind-the-scenes-of-a-front-page-interview-coworking-any-old-space-wont-do/* The issue is that *demand for space* is a red herring for success in coworking, and worse, it’s a magnet for opportunism. Take a look at every corner of the “sharing economy”…and you’ll find the same thing. Utopian sharing quickly devolves into mass exodus. There’s a bigger problem in doing the research, though…and that’s collecting information from founders/leaders. Founders and leaders of failed spaces (generally) won’t talk, and when they do, it’s platitudes or outright lies. Because let’s be honest, nobody likes facing their failures. There are, of course, a couple of exceptions and they’ve written about their experiences here on the Google Group. The *best* sources of insight have been former members and former staff. The problem is that THEY generally don’t respond well to being approached out of the blue (I’ve learned first hand). We see that coworking spaces are opening at accelerating rates, but what’s not as obvious is that the vast majority of them are dealing with high turnover and/or burn rates that make their business model completely unsustainable. Because of the nature of these businesses, it’s very hard to see the effects of these problems until “reality” sets in about 2 years after the start. There’s clues before then (a mix of highly visible ones, and others that are much more subtle), but any coworking space younger than 2 years old really should be focusing on getting GREAT at one thing: knowing their members. We’re going to see a lot more closings in the near future. I’d say that most coworking spaces open today fall into one of four categories: 1- they’re generally unsustainable, and will die within 2 years. 2 - they’re generally unsustainable, but somebody is pumping cash into them to extend the 2 year life expectancy. Some will right the ship, but many will not before the cash dries up. 3 - they’re growing sustainably 4 - they’re growing unsustainably I’d say that 80%+ of coworking spaces I encounter fall into unsustainable categories 1 and 2. ~18% (maybe a bit less) are safely in category 3, and less than 2% in category 4. -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 Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:32 AM, Farhan Abbasi findfar...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Alex, Glad you did this survey in 2012. Any chance you still have the results? Farhan On Wednesday, 19 September 2012 09:19:57 UTC-4, Alex Hillman wrote: Excellent suggestion on location data, and the little formatting fix. On their way. I've got a dozen or so submissions overnight. Keep 'em coming people. -- /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia On Wednesday, September 19, 2012 at 8:45 AM, rachel young wrote: Hi, Thanks for starting this, Alex. I'm curious about the results too. I suggest adding mandatory fields for City, Province/State, and Country so that you can easily search and sort by region. The two entries I just sent were from Toronto, ON Canada. Also you copied the notes (It doesn't have to be a eulogy...) from the second last question to the last question. Just a formatting thing. r. * rachel young*rac...@camaraderie.ca *Find us in person:* Camaraderie 102 Adelaide St E 2nd Floor Toronto, ON M5C 1K9 (647) 861-4350 *Find us online:* Website/blog http
Re: [Coworking] Re: My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
Too many full time members, not enough flex (or some variation on flex). -- 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 Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Tom Brandt twbra...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Alex, This all makes sense. But I am not quite sure what is meant by Top-heavy membership. Can you elaborate? On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 1:54 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Here’s an incomplete and in-no-particular order of things that I’ve seen kill coworking spaces. Many of them aren’t unique to coworking, but often take unique or different “forms” in the context of coworking. - Membership turnover - Hiring mistakes - Leadership burnout - Top-heavy membership - Losing a large ‘anchor’ member company - Overspending - Investor pressure - Poor partnerships - Over-reliance on sponsors - Identity crisis - Mismatched audience - Landlord disputes - Rent increases I know for a fact there are others that I’m not thinking of off the top of my head! -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 Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 11:31 PM, Shailesh Deshpande shailes...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Alex, Stacy Others, Stumbled upon this discussion thread while researching coworking. I recently started a coworking space called 'Indieloft' in Nagpur (India) and looking to promote it locally and build a strong community. It'd be really interesting to understand why some of the other coworking spaces before us failed while we think we can make a go of it. I can already see how a coworking space might struggle if it doesn't have a core group of startups/entrepreneurs/freelancers who are engaging and collaborating on a regular basis. What were some of the other reasons? Really appreciate what you guys are doing to make this phenomenon successful globally. Cheers, Shailesh /shailes...@gmail.com//@indieloft//www.facebook.com/indieloft// On Tuesday, 6 January 2015 10:18:29 UTC+5:30, Alex Hillman wrote: Hey Stacey, welcome to the discussion! :) Hit me up off list, I'll catch you up on what I've found so far and some leads that might be worth following. I agree that there's a ton of value in better understanding the patterns in the mistakes made and problems encountered. -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 Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Stacy Kessler st...@platform53.com wrote: Hey Alex and Others, Long time lurker, first time poster :) I started Platform 53 http://www.platform53.com/, a coworking space in Cincinnati, OH/Northern Kentucky this past September, so still really fresh, but have been doing research and pop-up coworking events around the region since 2012, hence the long-time lurking... I just ran across this conversation thread and found it fascinating. I know most of the collection was done a few years ago and it didn't sound like it was as helpful as hoped, but sounds like there's still a lot of interest around it. I think understanding this topic is extremely important. I'm a market researcher by trade (both qual and quant), so if there's a passion for picking back up the effort or digging into other coworking questions, let me know--I'd be happy to help and ready to start being more active in the broader coworking community. Best, Stacy Kessler Co-Founder Chief Visionary Officer Platform 53 PS. Thanks for all you do for the coworking community, Alex. Love your dedication to having open conversations about coworking through this Google Group and elsewhere. Really refreshing to be a part of a collaborative industry after coming from the cut-throat corporate world. -- 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+...@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. -- 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
Re: [Coworking] Re: My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
Here’s an incomplete and in-no-particular order of things that I’ve seen kill coworking spaces. Many of them aren’t unique to coworking, but often take unique or different “forms” in the context of coworking. - Membership turnover - Hiring mistakes - Leadership burnout - Top-heavy membership - Losing a large ‘anchor’ member company - Overspending - Investor pressure - Poor partnerships - Over-reliance on sponsors - Identity crisis - Mismatched audience - Landlord disputes - Rent increases I know for a fact there are others that I’m not thinking of off the top of my head! -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 Sat, Jan 10, 2015 at 11:31 PM, Shailesh Deshpande shailes...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Alex, Stacy Others, Stumbled upon this discussion thread while researching coworking. I recently started a coworking space called 'Indieloft' in Nagpur (India) and looking to promote it locally and build a strong community. It'd be really interesting to understand why some of the other coworking spaces before us failed while we think we can make a go of it. I can already see how a coworking space might struggle if it doesn't have a core group of startups/entrepreneurs/freelancers who are engaging and collaborating on a regular basis. What were some of the other reasons? Really appreciate what you guys are doing to make this phenomenon successful globally. Cheers, Shailesh /shailes...@gmail.com//@indieloft//www.facebook.com/indieloft// On Tuesday, 6 January 2015 10:18:29 UTC+5:30, Alex Hillman wrote: Hey Stacey, welcome to the discussion! :) Hit me up off list, I'll catch you up on what I've found so far and some leads that might be worth following. I agree that there's a ton of value in better understanding the patterns in the mistakes made and problems encountered. -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 Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Stacy Kessler st...@platform53.com javascript: wrote: Hey Alex and Others, Long time lurker, first time poster :) I started Platform 53 http://www.platform53.com/, a coworking space in Cincinnati, OH/Northern Kentucky this past September, so still really fresh, but have been doing research and pop-up coworking events around the region since 2012, hence the long-time lurking... I just ran across this conversation thread and found it fascinating. I know most of the collection was done a few years ago and it didn't sound like it was as helpful as hoped, but sounds like there's still a lot of interest around it. I think understanding this topic is extremely important. I'm a market researcher by trade (both qual and quant), so if there's a passion for picking back up the effort or digging into other coworking questions, let me know--I'd be happy to help and ready to start being more active in the broader coworking community. Best, Stacy Kessler Co-Founder Chief Visionary Officer Platform 53 PS. Thanks for all you do for the coworking community, Alex. Love your dedication to having open conversations about coworking through this Google Group and elsewhere. Really refreshing to be a part of a collaborative industry after coming from the cut-throat corporate world. -- 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+...@googlegroups.com javascript:. 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Wired vs Wireless?? Does anyone use wired anymore?
Ouch. ADSL. *Shudders*. :) Bandwidth and coffee beans - the two things that coworking spaces should pay for the best you can afford to provide. -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 Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 2:02 PM, Aaron Cruikshank aa...@cruikshank.me wrote: At the HiVE, we have a 100/100 Fibre connection. We upgraded to that from ADSL and the main reason why was the poor upload speed we were getting before (5 mb/s up max). When we'd get 2-3 people trying to make Skype or Google Hangout video calls, the whole network would brown out due to the upload bandwidth getting loaded down. Once we moved to a 100/100 account, we had no more problems but the up speed over wired was easily double that of the wireless connection. - Aaron ___ Aaron Cruikshank Principal, CRUIKSHANK Phone: 778.908.4560 email: aa...@cruikshank.me web: cruikshank.me twitter: @cruikshank book a meeting: doodle.com/cruikshank linkedin: linkedin.com/in/cruikshank On Jan 8, 2015 10:42 AM, Jerome Chang jer...@blankspaces.com wrote: I do want to make people aware of asynchronous bandwidth like 50 download / 10 upload. Connectivity can be much less reliable in the days of dropbox and other vid/file uploads. This is the reason why 50/50 is much more $$ than 50/10. *JEROME CHANG* *WEST: Santa Monica* 1450 2nd Street (@Broadway) | Santa Monica CA 90401 ph: (310) 526-2255 *CENTRAL: Mid-Wilshire* 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) | Los Angeles CA 90036 ph: (323) 330-9505 *EAST: Downtown* 529 S. Broadway, Suite 4000 (@Pershing Square) | Los Angeles CA 90013 ph: (213) 550-2235 http://www.yelp.com/biz/blankspaces-los-angeles https://twitter.com/BLANKSPACES https://www.facebook.com/pages/BLANKSPACES/132257631339 https://www.facebook.com/pages/BLANKSPACES/132257631339 http://www.linkedin.com/company/blankspaces?trk=top_nav_home http://vimeo.com/blankspaces http://vimeo.com/blankspaces On Jan 8, 2015, at 8:42 AM, Mike Pihlman altamontcow...@gmail.com wrote: I did a quick test of wired vs wireless speeds at AltamontCowork. Interesting results... http://techymike.com/2014/07/18/internet-speed-testing/ Mike On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 1:59 AM, Alex Linsker alexlins...@gmail.com wrote: I agree with all of the above. Having a backup network is good for your brand, too, even if your main provider goes down for 1 minute per every 6 months, it's a relief to know there is a backup. And if one network blocks someone, the backup often has different settings that work for them. For wired, I have jacks along the wall, and hubs on some desks. Keeping the cords orderly can be solved by keeping the cords extended towards each seat. To get the ethernet to the hubs from the wall, you can use gaff tape or buy a cover. I keep an ethernet cord accessible in each conference room to give people the option. Power cords are very similar in terms of accessibility with floor routing and hubs. I love the 'hub-and-spoke' model for many things. Alex Linsker, Collective Agency, Portland Oregon (sent from my phone) -- 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. -- 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. -- 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
Re: [Coworking] Wired vs Wireless?? Does anyone use wired anymore?
We have a mix of ethernet and wireless, though it’s a fairly small % (probably 10 or 15 out of 100+ active people each day) who actually use the hard lines. The cases where a hard line makes the most sense are: - people who do work that requires low-latency, like a lot of screensharing or remote access to computers - places where people are meeting with others virtually. Conference rooms hard lines get used often, and our phone booths have hard lines run to them to keep Skype calls strong. - Some computers just have shitty wifi hardware/software in them. Statistically, if we have an issue with someone connecting to our wifi, it’s a PC. Or in some rare cases, old computers that have NO wifi hardware. Yeah, blew me away too. - As we got bigger, we started having more complex issues with wifi and some of our full time members started strategically moving to be closer to hard lines. Since upgrading to the Unifi access points in the thread I posted to yesterday, those problems appear to be all gone (knock on wood) but I was glad to have some hardline options. - And as you said, specialized hardware. VOIP, Networked Backup devices, etc. We generally suggest that people keep that hardware in our rack, rather than plugging into a “local drop. Keeps things tidier and easier to diagnose issues. One thing that’s always difficult is that, like our power, our ethernet ports are along walls. This can be a bit of a restriction when it comes to creating optimal layouts for the workspace itself (something I think I need to write about soon). I haven’t been to many coworking spaces that have really done a great job of solving the “spaghetti of power and cables between the wall and the desks” problem. There’s covers and other clever ways of hiding it, but I haven’t found a solution that works really well for us yet. If I were to do it all again, I’d be far more strategic about WHERE we run ethernet to, and overall, run less direct runs back to the rack. Instead, I’d take more of a node-based approach, adding new switches to areas where connectivity is needed and makes sense…but can also be moved. That flexibility/modularity pays off far more than having X more drops! -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 Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 11:24 AM, CoWork Factory - New Braunfels, TX coworkfactor...@gmail.com wrote: Does anyone use wired anymore? I'm opening a new space and installing the IT infrastructure now, but am thinking I may be overdoing the CAT5e ports. Planning on about 30-35 ports for a 3,200 sq ft building. I'll have a couple of business class APs and am thinking I should have wired ports as an option for IP phones and other heavy users of data. Thoughts? Thanks! Bob www.coworkfactorynb.com -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Starting a new coworking space while employed fulltime
Ah, that's great Jason. I somehow missed that you were already remote in the previous email, but that obvs makes sense since you're already a member of a space. :) Have you started in on gathering some early community members for your own yet? -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 Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 9:11 AM, Jason Phelps jpphe...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the feedback, Alex. I'm currently a sales engineer for an Internet Security company and I use coworking since I work remotely. My background is IT (~13 years in network/sys admin roles and 4 years in a CIO role), so that's one aspect of the coworking space that won't be a challenge for me in terms of management and acquisition. While I don't think my day job would necessarily benefit from the coworking idea, I think I could certainly grow my IT consulting business I have on the side from the coworking space, and maybe even incorporate the two. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
Hey Stacey, welcome to the discussion! :) Hit me up off list, I'll catch you up on what I've found so far and some leads that might be worth following. I agree that there's a ton of value in better understanding the patterns in the mistakes made and problems encountered. -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 Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Stacy Kessler st...@platform53.com wrote: Hey Alex and Others, Long time lurker, first time poster :) I started Platform 53 http://www.platform53.com/, a coworking space in Cincinnati, OH/Northern Kentucky this past September, so still really fresh, but have been doing research and pop-up coworking events around the region since 2012, hence the long-time lurking... I just ran across this conversation thread and found it fascinating. I know most of the collection was done a few years ago and it didn't sound like it was as helpful as hoped, but sounds like there's still a lot of interest around it. I think understanding this topic is extremely important. I'm a market researcher by trade (both qual and quant), so if there's a passion for picking back up the effort or digging into other coworking questions, let me know--I'd be happy to help and ready to start being more active in the broader coworking community. Best, Stacy Kessler Co-Founder Chief Visionary Officer Platform 53 PS. Thanks for all you do for the coworking community, Alex. Love your dedication to having open conversations about coworking through this Google Group and elsewhere. Really refreshing to be a part of a collaborative industry after coming from the cut-throat corporate world. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: What has been trend at your coworking space?
The natural trends definitely seems pretty consistent - mid-week seems to be the highest use, which I’ve been able to connect to the feeling of either 1 - “Well shit, my week is halfway over and I still have a full week’s worth of work to do. better get somewhere more productive” or 2 - “Hmmm…what day is it. wednesday? Crap, I haven’t left the house in 4 days. I need a change of scenery!” The other factor is what else is happening. Days where we have our lunchtime Show Tell tend to be busier because it’s something that people enjoy and look forward to. Same with our weekly Night Owls…even though it’s an evening event, a good number of people come in during the day and stay late because of night owls. Also, when external events are happening in the city that have a bigger draw, our suburban members tend to come into the city for a day of coworking before hand (sort of a social, urban “treat” if you will). The key, though, is to notice these patterns and experiment a bit. Rather than just notice a certain day is busy, ask why? Is that an effect that you can recreate on other days of the week? For instance, if you know that a certain kind of activity tends to attract more members for that day, put that activity on days that are naturally less busy. Our goal is never to overstuff our days - in fact, these days we’ve been having to put more concerted effort into spreading things out. Night Owls became sort of a “got to” event for piggybacking other activities, and without careful planning, those days started getting very crowded and complicated. My mindset is that there’s a balance to being comfortably busy. Enough activity to peak excitement and serendipity, but not too much that members and staff are overwhelmed. That means playing to strengths, and understanding your strengths so that you can use them to fill in the natural weaknesses. -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 Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 5:23 AM, Jeannine flexkantoorkame...@gmail.com wrote: For hotdesking, Mondays and Friday afternoons are D-E-A-D; Wednesdays are also slow. Buut this last is I think local to the Netherlands, it is traditionally the day that kids are out of school early. But we do not really encourage dropins, if what you mean is people who are not regular members. We are above 90% regular members, but that's the point around here so it is not surprising. Amsterdam gets the most, obviously, I think hotdesking is much more common in larger urban settings. On Wednesday, December 24, 2014 7:27:18 PM UTC+1, Saurabh Gupta wrote: I spoke to some owners in my area and they suggested few trends that got me curious if that is consistent at other coworking spaces as well. One owner said that mid of the week is the peak when their hot seats are full and Monday and Friday being the least utilized. Is this trend consistent at your coworking space as well? What is your ratio of daily dropins vs monthly members? -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] My morbid curiosity with Coworking Space Closings
Turns out that surveys are terrible for collecting this kind of information :) I’ve had to do a lot of more hands on work to find real, valuable information. I’ve used some of my findings to help fuel other articles, like this one in the Philadelphia Biz Journal (I pubilished the full interview to suppliment the piece): http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/07/behind-the-scenes-of-a-front-page-interview-coworking-any-old-space-wont-do/ The issue is that demand for space is a red herring for success in coworking, and worse, it’s a magnet for opportunism. Take a look at every corner of the “sharing economy”…and you’ll find the same thing. Utopian sharing quickly devolves into mass exodus. There’s a bigger problem in doing the research, though…and that’s collecting information from founders/leaders. Founders and leaders of failed spaces (generally) won’t talk, and when they do, it’s platitudes or outright lies. Because let’s be honest, nobody likes facing their failures. There are, of course, a couple of exceptions and they’ve written about their experiences here on the Google Group. The best sources of insight have been former members and former staff. The problem is that THEY generally don’t respond well to being approached out of the blue (I’ve learned first hand). We see that coworking spaces are opening at accelerating rates, but what’s not as obvious is that the vast majority of them are dealing with high turnover and/or burn rates that make their business model completely unsustainable. Because of the nature of these businesses, it’s very hard to see the effects of these problems until “reality” sets in about 2 years after the start. There’s clues before then (a mix of highly visible ones, and others that are much more subtle), but any coworking space younger than 2 years old really should be focusing on getting GREAT at one thing: knowing their members. We’re going to see a lot more closings in the near future. I’d say that most coworking spaces open today fall into one of four categories: 1- they’re generally unsustainable, and will die within 2 years. 2 - they’re generally unsustainable, but somebody is pumping cash into them to extend the 2 year life expectancy. Some will right the ship, but many will not before the cash dries up. 3 - they’re growing sustainably 4 - they’re growing unsustainably I’d say that 80%+ of coworking spaces I encounter fall into unsustainable categories 1 and 2. ~18% (maybe a bit less) are safely in category 3, and less than 2% in category 4. -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 Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:32 AM, Farhan Abbasi findfar...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Alex, Glad you did this survey in 2012. Any chance you still have the results? Farhan On Wednesday, 19 September 2012 09:19:57 UTC-4, Alex Hillman wrote: Excellent suggestion on location data, and the little formatting fix. On their way. I've got a dozen or so submissions overnight. Keep 'em coming people. -- /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia On Wednesday, September 19, 2012 at 8:45 AM, rachel young wrote: Hi, Thanks for starting this, Alex. I'm curious about the results too. I suggest adding mandatory fields for City, Province/State, and Country so that you can easily search and sort by region. The two entries I just sent were from Toronto, ON Canada. Also you copied the notes (It doesn't have to be a eulogy...) from the second last question to the last question. Just a formatting thing. r. * rachel young*rac...@camaraderie.ca javascript: *Find us in person:* Camaraderie 102 Adelaide St E 2nd Floor Toronto, ON M5C 1K9 (647) 861-4350 *Find us online:* Website/blog http://camaraderie.ca and Newsletter http://bit.ly/camaraderienewsletter Google+ http://bit.ly/CamaraderiePlus, Twitter http://twitter.com/camaraderie, Facebook http://bit.ly/9zv3Fx, and LinkedIn http://bit.ly/CamaraderieGroup *Be in business for yourself, not by yourself! * *Continue the conversations you started on May 27* *at FLCTO2 by joining the LinkedIn group http://linkd.in/FLCTO.* *Are you a coworking commitmentphobe? * *Try the Coworking Toronto Passport Program http://bit.ly/CTOPassport2012* *for a day pass to seven spaces for one price.* On 18 September 2012 22:46, Alex Hillman dangerous...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: Thanks Chris. Great idea on opening up the closure dates to the future. I don't expect to close the form so we can continue to collect data over time. I've removed the required part of the date fields to allow for more flexible entry and updated the intro. More suggestions and sharing welcome :) -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia build amazing
Re: [Coworking] Re: Starting a new coworking space while employed fulltime
One other question regarding the startup - any thoughts on investors vs sponsors vs no outside capital? http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/09/how-to-fund-your-coworking-space/ probably my most popular article is on this topic. With that said…. I’m pretty sure I can count the number of people who have gone directly from full time employment to earning a living from their coworking space on one hand. That’s not to say that people aren’t making a living from coworking, but that starting a coworking space almost never their first self-employing business straight out of having a j-o-b. There are, however, MANY people who I know have been successful in growing a coworking space alongside another otherwise profitable business (consulting/service, product, etc). In most of those cases, the coworking space actually served as a factor in growing their business…which is awesome, because they get to experience first hand the benefits of coworking to THEIR business, just like the other people who join their coworking space. The good news is that soo many more jobs today can be translated into a freelance or consultant role. What kind of work do you currently do, Jason? -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 Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 2:08 PM, Jason Phelps jpphe...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the feedback guys! I'm also not at the point where I can quit my day job to do this fulltime, but I'm interested in that possibility in the future. For those that went from double-duty to fulltime in coworking, what was your turning point to know that it was time to quit your day job because things were able to make the income you needed to support your family/lifestyle/whatever. Any insights into making that transition? One other question regarding the startup - any thoughts on investors vs sponsors vs no outside capital? -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Coworking and Unemployment
I know this has come up on the group before a couple of times, this thread seems to have the most action! https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/coworking/unemploy/coworking/A2kIhgI2Od0/RHiYVv2Mt1gJ In general I love the idea that coworking spaces can be economic engines - in fact I believe that when they’re done well, coworking delivers on many of the things that economic development folks have been promising for years but never have accomplished. However, one thing that I think coworking suffers from is a public perception as being for “high tech, millennials, and startups”. Not only is this statistically untrue (but hey, since when did the press need to be accurate?), but it can be alienating to people who are on the outside of those groups. Programming is a good start - job skills + exposure to entrepreneurs - but I think that in order for coworking spaces to put a serious dent in a problem the size of unemployment, we need to break down some of those false stigmas about who coworking is “for”, and help folks who are trying to figure out the next chapter in their life do so without the stigmas attached to being unemployed - ones of feeling desperate, needy, and alone. -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 Saturday, Dec 27, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Jessica Hill jessicarenee.h...@gmail.com, wrote: Hello All, I just opened up a Coworking space with my business partner. The city has been hit really hard with unemployment. Wondering if other spaces offer workshops or services for the unemployed or underemployed. Thanks Jessica -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Can we talk about bank fees?
Oh wow, your fees are way too high. Kill that contract! Standard fees are closer to 2.9% + 25-30 cents per transaction. Even when you factor in all of the tools to work with a decent processor like Stripe or Braintree, the max you're gonna pay is 5%ish. Even PayPal (which sucks for lots of other reasons and I would not recommend using) is 2.9%. The biggest additional benefit to using Stripe is that your account is portable. It also manages recurring subscriptions and, when you get a bit bigger, plug into awesome business analytics tools like Baremetrics.io and FirstOfficer.io that are built JUST for stripe. For actually managing memberships and subscriptions, do some googling around for stripe membership subscriptions and see which option fits your needs. You can get things that are out of the box like Memberful, or things that are super duper customizable like GravityForms for Wordpress + the 3rd party Gravity Forms stripe plugin (that's what we do. It's not perfect but it gives us the control we wanted). Do some homework before choosing again, but you're DEFINITELY overpaying now! -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, Dec 23, 2014 at 10:19 AM, Jensen Yancey jensen.yan...@gmail.com, wrote: I don't know about everyone else, but since I've opened a coworking office, one of the most mysterious and difficult-to-wrap-my-head-around concepts has been why the hell am I getting charged so much for accepting credit cards and where is it all going. In our scramble to get open in time, we signed on with First Data, Wells Fargo recommended them so what could go wrong? This month, we billed $1435 through first data, from that, we were charged a $48.55 bankcard discount fee, a $23.87 Bankcard interchange fee, and a 53.89 Bankcard Fee. First data is incredibly unhelpful, but I've managed to figure out that the discount fee is just what they charge us, the interchange fee is what the credit card charges us, but what the hell is the Bankcard fee? Also, most beguilingly of all, It's been slowly going down while our other two fees have been going up. I knew it would be a little pricy, but it seems absolutely insane that we're paying nearly 10% of our revenue out to these companies. It's going to cost us $500 to break the contract and I'm totally on board with doing it, but is there a much better solution? -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Inside The Phenomenal Rise Of WeWork
Funny enough, the article URL is more telling about what’s really going on here: /wework-now-a-5-billion-real-estate-sartup-1418690163 -- 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 Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Steve King sk...@emergentresearch.com wrote: Wall Street Journal reports http://www.wsj.com/articles/wework-now-a-5-billion-real-estate-sartup-1418690163WeWork just raised $355 million and is now valued at $5+ billion. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Inside The Phenomenal Rise Of WeWork
Yeah, definitely. They’re a real estate company. They’ve gotten better at their version of “community” than Regus has, for sure, but if you get closer to what they do instead of reading the press and their marketing material, you’ll find that it’s a high volume, high turnover real estate business (which is a big part of what makes their financials appear different from their more conservative cousins). Among the many things that are interesting to me is that early on, they actively rejected the coworking language along with the broader coworking community…until coworking really started to mainstream and it became advantageous for them to use the word. Now they’re rejecting the idea of being a real estate company because they don’t like being compared to it. I don’t think their model is bad, by the way. And they’re definitely smart. Overvalued? Definitely, but that’s what happens when you align yourself with an already overvalued startup market (which is the vast majority of their audience). But also like the startup market, this kind of growth isn’t sustainable…which is a whole lot more evident when you look beyond what the press tells you is true :) -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 Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 11:57 AM, Aaron Cruikshank aa...@cruikshank.me wrote: Alex, Do you consider WeWork to be coworking or something else - closer to Regus? - Aaron Aaron Cruikshank Principal, CRUIKSHANK phone: 778.908.4560 e-mail: aa...@cruikshank.me web: cruikshank.me http://www.cruikshank.me twitter: @cruikshank https://twitter.com/cruikshank book a meeting: doodle.com/cruikshank http://www.doodle.com/cruikshank linkedin: in/cruikshank http://www.linkedin.com/in/cruikshank On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 8:05 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Funny enough, the article URL is more telling about what’s *really* going on here: /wework-now-a-5-billion-real-estate-sartup-1418690163 -- *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 Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Steve King sk...@emergentresearch.com wrote: Wall Street Journal reports http://www.wsj.com/articles/wework-now-a-5-billion-real-estate-sartup-1418690163WeWork just raised $355 million and is now valued at $5+ billion. -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] community manager vs business owner, and sales?
Based on the way you asked these questions and your intro about decisions, I think it'd be helpful to get a bit more context so our advice can actually help you :) Otherwise, we're going to be answering questions based on some conclusions you've already drawn...but we aren't aware of. That's a great way to get crappy advice, in general. What's the reason for these questions being asked now? -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 12:42 AM, Alex Linsker alexlins...@gmail.com wrote: This past month I've had a lot of business choices to make. I'd be interested in hearing other people's perspective from similar businesses/communities. For coworking places that earn enough to pay salaries to all staff including the owners, I'd be interested to hear: - How do the community manager and the business owner roles overlap and how are they different? - Specifically I'm interested in the role of sales. Is the community manager expected to sign up members without members talking with the business owner? How do you hire a community manager who can do sales almost as well as, or better than, the business owner? - Do you have staff who are paid full-time (or half-time or more) who do not do sales? - For every 10 people who visit to tour, or for a trial day, what % do you expect to sign up that day, and what % do you expect to sign up later on? (I'm especially interested in people who sign up for memberships that are over $175 per month.) - Do any coworking places sign up more than half of members before the potential members visit? (I know that some places specifically want people to visit before signing up, but I don't have that as a requirement and sometimes people have signed up before visiting, which I always enjoy.) - Which business owners integrate their coworking places into their second businesses, where the two businesses support each other and share the same vision? What issues have you had with that, and what successes? Thanks, Alex -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: US Coworking Space Survey Results from Share Your Office
When I’m referring to hot-desks, I’m not actually talking about what the coworking space calls it…I’m actually talking about the “come in and use a desk” members compared to the “participate and get connected to the community” members. coworking in smaller areas can be very difficult to sustain I never said that. :) Correlation is not causation. “...where there is an incredibly high intersection between property value and density of workers.” People crave a sense of belonging everywhere. If people only join your coworking space when they need a desk to work, that’s a much bigger clue about your sustainability than the intersection of property value and density. -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 Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 1:59 PM, Connor Provines con...@bureauxapartager.com wrote: Actually, while I agree that mega-coworking spaces do obviously skew the results, we do have to take into consideration the fact that the majority (At least in the U.S) of coworking spaces are in fact located in cities. If you're to take the top 10 coworking cities, NYC, SF, Houston, Los Angeles, Denver, Boulder, Boston, Seattle, Phoenix, Portland you've accounted for roughly 50% of the coworking spaces in the United States, with another 20 cities or so accounting for another 30% of total U.S coworking spaces. We find that in smaller cities we have a spread of makers spaces, or small coworking spaces, but they account for a very, very small percentage of total spaces. I can't speak heavily to hot desks, but I can confirm that in these major cities hot desk coworking is rather uncommon, with most spaces only dedicating a few seats daily to hot desks. Generally these places switch to sub-memberships (1-3 days a week) instead of hot desks. I guess the take-away is that as Alex said, coworking in smaller areas can be very difficult to sustain, however I would argue that those mega-cities are in fact the norm, not the exception, and perhaps these are the areas best suited for coworking, where there is an incredibly high intersection between property value and density of workers. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: US Coworking Space Survey Results from Share Your Office
I’m a big fan of Jeannine’s theory here. Lots of data tends to skew to more urban coworking examples, and even worse, gets skewed further by outlier mega-cities (where density and demand for ANY space makes it very easy for a coworking space to appear more sustainable than it really is). There aren’t many cities in the world like New York, London, SF, and Sydney for example - so they’re VERY hard to draw conclusions from. New York and SF are especially insane. Whenever I visit or am working with someone in those cities, I’m constantly reminding myself that “this is not reality”. Keeping that skew in mind is really, really important when trying to draw understanding from these kinds of datasets. -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 Wed, Dec 3, 2014 at 4:44 AM, Jeannine flexkantoorkame...@gmail.com wrote: It may also have to do with the different coworking experience in urban versus rural coworking markets, or as you say in smaller spaces versus larger ones. In a large or urban coworking space, there is in my experience more hotdesking, My general impression is that hotdesking is what a lot of people think coworking is, at its core. But I almost never have hotdeskers at my space in Oosterhout (pop 50,000). Meetings, appointments, large groups. workshops, events, and regular solos with a dedicated desk I have a lot of. This means there is less hour-to-hour flux in capacity. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Coworking Europe Conference Recap and Takeaways (Part 1)
Part two is live now! I'm feeling really good about this one because it's a conversation that contains lots of important things that I've talked to some of you about individually, but I've never seen any larger public conversation about. Adam and I get honest...and it gets kind of intense. Listen and subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-coworking-weekly-show/id938871054?mt=2i=326579283 And check out the show notes here: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/episodes/5960-session-6-live-from-the-coworking-europe-conference-part-dos -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 Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 10:02 PM, LIU YAN liuyan.dat...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Alex, Thank you so much for putting these together! Liu Yan One of the people who really want to be there aren't able to make it” On Dec 2, 2014, at 6:09 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: It was SO great to see many of you last week in Lisbon! Catching up with the European coworking community is always a highlight of my year. And a HUGE thank you to Jean Yves and the team who work tirelessly every year to put these events together. The only bummer is when people who really want to be there aren't able to make it. :( So this year...Adam and I decided to record some of our observations, thoughts, and takeaways WHILE we were at the conference itself and share them as episodes of The Coworking Weekly show! Rather than just recap of the talks, though we did a little bit of that too, we wanted to share a bit more about the things that are changing year after year, which people who are newer to the community aren't able to notice as easily. There's also some things that seem to never change, which we talk about as well. :) So I'm confident that these episodes of TCWS will be useful for those of you who attended, too! The first part of the Live from Coworking Europe episode is here on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/coworking-weekly/id938871054 Or if you want to listen using another podcasting app, you can go here: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/episodes/5947-session-5-live-from-coworking-europe-part-uno BTW, your iTunes ratings reviews really brighten my day. HUGE thank you's to everyone who left a review when the show launched! -Alex -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Coworking focused on music
Talk to Angel about Cohere Bandwidth! (Search this group for her posts, too) -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 Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 10:38 AM, Matteo Zatti zattimatteo1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everybody! I’m a 21 italian guy. I’m writing a thesis project about how coworking ideas are applicable to the dynamics of music production. Do you know a coworking space where all the freelancers and startups are involved in the music business? Thanks a lot!! -- 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.
[Coworking] Coworking Europe Conference Recap and Takeaways (Part 1)
It was SO great to see many of you last week in Lisbon! Catching up with the European coworking community is always a highlight of my year. And a HUGE thank you to Jean Yves and the team who work tirelessly every year to put these events together. The only bummer is when people who really want to be there aren't able to make it. :( So this year...Adam and I decided to record some of our observations, thoughts, and takeaways WHILE we were at the conference itself and share them as episodes of The Coworking Weekly show! Rather than just recap of the talks, though we did a little bit of that too, we wanted to share a bit more about the things that are changing year after year, which people who are newer to the community aren't able to notice as easily. There's also some things that seem to *never* change, which we talk about as well. :) So I'm confident that these episodes of TCWS will be useful for those of you who attended, too! The first part of the Live from Coworking Europe episode is here on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/coworking-weekly/id938871054 Or if you want to listen using another podcasting app, you can go here: http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/episodes/5947-session-5-live-from-coworking-europe-part-uno BTW, your iTunes ratings reviews really brighten my day. HUGE thank you's to everyone who left a review when the show launched! -Alex -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Updating Pricing
We went 5 years without raising our rates and I consider it on the short list of our bigger mistakes. When we announced our rate change, many members said, “it’s about time!”. When we announced the change, I made it clear that if it put stress on anybody, to come talk to me. I was so, so, so worried that people would be resistant or upset. In the end, exactly one person approached me about her concerns…and a few months later ended up UPGRADING her membership. So it might’ve been more of a “money is tight this month” concern than an actual price change concern. A couple of “middle-ground” options you can offer that worked well for us: 1 - allow people to hold onto their old rates for X additional months where X = the number of months they can prepay at the old membership rate. We had several members prepay for 3, 6, and 12 months (one for 36 months) at the original rate. We made it clear that after the prepayment, their rate would go up to the new one. They were happy with that. 2 - make it so that if people upgrade/downgrade, it’s to one of your new rates. Depending on how much people change their membership rates, this can help equalize things. Costs go up. Your members will understand this. And maybe more importantly, if your members knew you were committing “financial suicide”, I bet they’d be pretty upset about it. -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 Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 6:46 PM, oren.salo...@gmail.com oren.salo...@gmail.com wrote: Does anyone have experience updating the pricing of memberships? Specifically, I'd like to know if anyone has a guiding philosophy on how pricing changes affect the rates of existing members. Do they keep their old rates or do you bump them up with the pricing change? Any guiding theories for why you would or would not? At Dallas Fort Work, we have a policy of not raising members' rates, so whatever rate they sign up at they keep forever. We just moved into a new facility and expect a rather large influx of members as we've grown in sq. footage and moved to a much denser part of town. My bookkeeper suggests that I can only continue this policy for existing members and that it'd be financial suicide to offer this on a go forward basis for everyone, especially because our introductory pricing at the new facility is dramatically reduced for the first 6 months. Any thoughts, feelings, or salutes would be much appreciated :) Oren -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: The best wireless routers for a 3500 sq. ft. space
Doing a little more research on these Unifi APs and found another HUGE selling point: they support Power Over Ethernet (PoE). This was one of the biggest selling points of the Ruckus APs for me, because it meant we didn’t need to ALSO run power to the ideal location; we just needed to run ethernet, and make sure that ethernet was plugged into a switch that provided Power over Ethernet (example: http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ProSAFE-FS116P-16-Port-Ethernet/dp/B000ANF8FE/ref=pd_sim_e_2?ie=UTF8refRID=1VGZPAQYX6710VX4BX2S). Killer. -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 Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 7:13 PM, Jonathan Markwell jonathan.markw...@gmail.com wrote: Craig, Unifi APs should work with any router. I don't know anything about Asus in particular. At the very least you'll want to disable any WiFi currently provided onboard the Asus router. On 2 December 2014 at 00:04, Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking baut...@gmail.com wrote: Can I easily add Unify AP to my Asus router? -- 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. -- Jonathan Markwell Follow my adventures in space, time and code: http://jot.is/sustainablyindy The Skiff: Brighton Coworking Community http://jot.is/sharing-space Coder Founders: Digital Product Consultancy http://jot.is/investing-time CoGrid: Meeting Room Booking Software http://jot.is/writing-code +44 (0)7766 021 485 skype: jlmarkwell | twitter: http://twitter.com/jot -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] How are we doing?
Jensen, based on what I hear from a lot of new spaces, you're ahead of averages for spaces that start with zero members! At this point, the thing I would start noticing is how long people are staying members, not just how many new members you can add each month. Also, it would be great to hear how your first 6 months went in more detail. How and when did people start joining, how did they find out about you, etc etc? -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org Newsletter: coworkingweekly.com Podcast: listen.coworkingweekly.com On Tuesday, Nov 25, 2014 at 5:55 PM, Jensen Yancey jensen.yan...@gmail.com, wrote: Hi There! I'm a co-founder at Createscape coworking in Austin, TX and as we're about to enter our 6th month of being in business, I thought it would be a good time to ask some other coworking space operators what they think of our progress. One of the hardest things for me to find when we were forming the business is what the typical growth rate is of a coworking space, and so our business plan was made with a lot of guesswork which turned out to not be very accurate. We started in the summer with a 1500 sq. ft. office and no members, right now, we've got 17 paying members with a monthly revenue of $2500 and monthly expenses of about $3200. I'm really just curious to see how that stacks up with most other new coworking spaces that don't have an existing member base. Thanks! -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: The best wireless routers for a 3500 sq. ft. space
This post is awesome Jon! Mirrors a lot of my experience (and no I'm tempted to see if those Unifi APs are worth selling our Ruckus units second hand...). :) -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 8:58 PM, @jot jonathan.markw...@gmail.com wrote: I've expanded on this with the full story of how we solved our WiFi problems at The Skiff here: http://jonathanmarkwell.com/2014/11/22/best-coworking-wifi/ I've tried to make it easy to understand for non-technical people, with just enough information for technical people. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on it. On Friday, 21 November 2014 21:56:14 UTC, @jot wrote: Ruckus APs are worth every penny but there is a great alternative that's a little cheaper and much easier to setup. You still need a separate router as Alex described but the thing that makes the biggest difference to WiFi is more access points. They just need to be intelligent enough to regulate their signal strength and work together rather than against each other. We use 5 Unifi UAP Pro's for a similar size space to yours but depending on the layout 3 would probably be plenty. You can get a three pack of them for less than $1000. They work best with a computer permanently set up as a controller either on your local network or remotely but they're not dependent on it. The software is significantly easier to use than most domestic router software I've used. I was able to set them up within 15 minutes of unboxing them and they completely transformed the WiFi. It went from a running joke to one issue in six months. That one issue required nothing more than turning the APs off and on again. Your Internet connection and/or router will become the bottleneck with these APs. We'd already switched to a leased line and a high spec router by the time we got them so we knew it was the APs causing problems. Now we don't have to really think about the Internet connection, everything else gets more time. We see around 100 devices per day and I'm confident that we could go well above 200 with this set up. I'm feeling pretty lucky that they work as well as they do given the price difference. Has anyone had a contrasting experience with Unifi kit? Jon — Jonathan Markwell Follow my adventures in space, time and code: http://jot.is/sustainablyindy The Skiff: Brighton Coworking Community http://jot.is/sharing-space Coder Founders: Digital Product Consultancy http://jot.is/investing-time CoGrid: Meeting Room Booking Software http://jot.is/writing-code +44 (0)7766 021 485 skype: jlmarkwell | twitter: http://twitter.com/jot On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 9:05 PM, Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking baut...@gmail.com wrote: I am ready to make the dive off the deep end and go high grade with the routers that Alex is talking about. I don't need to fine tune control but I want it to be reliable for 100 devices. We often will have 30 people using the space at once and with tablets and cell phones that number spikes above 50. It's a one time fee that is probably worth the investment. -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: The best wireless routers for a 3500 sq. ft. space
The ruckus APs are worth every penny. -- /ah indyhall.org On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 4:05 PM, Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking baut...@gmail.com wrote: I am ready to make the dive off the deep end and go high grade with the routers that Alex is talking about. I don't need to fine tune control but I want it to be reliable for 100 devices. We often will have 30 people using the space at once and with tablets and cell phones that number spikes above 50. It's a one time fee that is probably worth the investment. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Optimal Desk Sizes / Dimensions
Yeah, Ikea changed the name of that product line in the last year. Confused the crap out of us when we needed to add 20 more desks :) Here’s what those desks look like in action, in a post about the visual color “cues” that we use to help members know where they can sit (we use different desk colors for full time and flex): http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/10/visual-cues-for-better-coworking/ Since this post, we’ve actually removed our “front desk” and our crew members desks are mixed in as well. Rather than buy new desks, we took ones we already had (that were a bit worn) and painted them bright red! That way, new members and guests can easily find a spot a crew member’s desk without the crew being out on an island by themselves. Mixing up the colors also makes things more visually interesting! I looked at the Open Desk stuff and it’s nice, but the #1 thing that I think people underestimate is the value of lightweight. The Ikea desks are strong, but hollow, making them EXTREMELY light and easy to move around, stack up, etc. Solid material is technically more durable, sure, but trust me when I say how thankful I am that our desks are crazy lightweight when we move them around. Also, don’t underestimate the value of community-desk-building party. Ikea assembly is something that anybody can participate in. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dangerouslyawesome/sets/72157617343441223/ Also, heh, these photos include a cameo of Jacob Sayles, who happened to be visiting the day we were building desks for our first major expansion :) -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 Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 3:45 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: I think this is it: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00251135/#/00251338 I have to say though, Open Desk has a similarly sized table and their organization is a heck of a lot more interesting then Ikea. If I had to do it again I'd probably standardize around these: https://www.opendesk.cc/lean/olivia-desk On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 11:54 AM, Glen Ferguson g...@coworkfrederick.com wrote: Jacob, Could you provide measurements for that desk? Searching the IKEA US site for Vika Amon doesn't return any matches. I've tried a few spelling variations too. Thanks, --- Glen Ferguson Cowork Frederick 122 E Patrick St Frederick, MD 21701-5630 +1 (301) 732-5165 www.coworkfrederick.com @CoworkFrederick http://twitter.com/CoworkFrederick On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Not the small ones. They are only big enough for one person. We situate them face to face in rows of 2-4 to make our pods of 4-8 desks. We then have 12 of these pods spread around the space. I wonder how many individual ikea legs we own... boggles the mind. On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 11:13 AM, Farhan Abbasi findfar...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Jacob! So would one Vika Amon desk fit 2 people across from each other, or possible 2 on each side? On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 2:04 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: We have the basic Vika Amon tables from Ikea arraigned in pods of 4-8 desks. In larger areas we have the larger ones arranged like one big table. Key is flexibility and the pods are spread out so that you are always around people, but you can change the noise/heat/activity level by switching pods. We've also made a few of these standing desks by extending the legs with black PVC pipe design requires a wall though as they are not very stable w/o it. We have 10K sqft and something like 125 desks. I'm happy with them although we had to create a piece in the center of the pod to keep them relatively straight. Keeping wires tidy is an ongoing battle. On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 3:03 AM, Will Bennis, Locus Workspace wmben...@locusworkspace.com wrote: Very cool! Thanks for sharing that. On Wednesday, November 19, 2014 5:11:07 AM UTC+1, NODO Cowork wrote: Do you know about open furniture? https://www.opendesk.cc/ El martes, 18 de noviembre de 2014 14:41:35 UTC-6, Farhan Abbasi escribió: Hi folks, I run a coworking space in Boston called Coalition and this community provided great info for me when launching. Thank you! I'm wondering if you folks have experience with an ideal desk dimension that optimizes seating (ie getting the most chairs out of the table setup)? I have a wide open floorplan (imagine 10,000+ SF) and able to connect many tables and chairs together, with people sitting on both sides of each table. Looking to get the most out of the space to meet my financial hurdles. I would love to hear: - The optimal desk size that allows for people to sit side by side and across from each other. (Multiple of these tables will be setup next to each other or
Re: [Coworking] The best wireless routers for a 3500 sq. ft. space
A) Separate your wireless access points from your router. You want a single router that provides network + internet to the entire network, and the wireless access points to be “dumb”, in that the wireless access points only provide a wireless connection to the network. B) Its time for you to leave consumer access points behind. We kept throwing Airport Extremes at the problem and still had issues, so we tested…well, basically everything we could afford. I would recommend Ruckus 7962 Access Points (probably 2 of them) to cover the space. They’re pricey, especially when you buy them through a dealer, so I recommend scouting eBay. I’ve had no problem finding them brand new sealed in box for $600-800 each, which is around half what they retail for. C) Router choice is more about how much control you want. We use a “Firebox” router running PFSense, but to be honest it can be complicated if you don’t have experience configuring that sort of thing. At your scale, once you decouple access points from your router, you could get away with something on the consumer end (like a Linksys DDWRT) and just turn off the wifi. It might be tempting to leave the wifi on “for another access point”, but don’t. :) -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 Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking baut...@gmail.com wrote: Creative Density is about 3500 sq. ft. in an old manson. We have two independent internet connections from Comcast and Centurylink each piping in 30+mbps each. However, people, mostly windows machines but many of them new within the last year, are having connection issues. They get on and it's working but it is fickle. Both of the connections. We have a an Asus RT-AC68U and an 2012 Apple Airport Extreme. They both should handle a lot more traffic that is passing through. What would you recommend? Settings? Routers? Other solutions.. I know this topic has been discussed before but I wanted to start a new thread since these situations change throughout time. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Inside The Phenomenal Rise Of WeWork
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.
Re: [Coworking] AltamontCowork Closing
Dude, your perseverance is epic. It sounds like you’re in good spirits about the whole thing, and as others have said, you’ve undoubtably left a mark on your local community, as well as this one here on the Coworking Google Group over the years. Thanks for being a member, and a leader, in both of those communities. -Alex On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 3:39 PM, Mike Pihlman altamontcow...@gmail.com wrote: I wrote this on my Facebook page. But, before I paste it here I would like to thank ALL of those among you who helped me TREMENDOUSLY over the years (you know who you are from private conversations). You are my inspirations, and, please keep up the fight for collaborative, open, work! I became too old (at 63) to continue the fight from this direction, but, I will continue from another (you will have to read my pasted posting to the end!). To all the new people here (by new those who came after May 2009)...good luck and do not ever give up, or change the values that you believe in COWORKING (without a hyphen) ROCKS!!! AFTER 67 months of trying (65 of those at a loss), we will closing AltamontCowork on Dec 31, 2014. COWORKING in Tracy, CA WILL happen sometime in the future; when the CULTURE changes sufficiently to understand the beauty of, and embrace: Open, Collaborative, Work. When will that happen I suspect 5 to 20 years. Why that long??? Here is the clue: Those accepting, and fully embracing, this kind of work environment are just NOW 25 years old or YOUNGER. It will take 5 to 20 years for the oldest of them to grow sufficiently (and for us old farts to die off so they have the road ahead free of us) to have a major impact in the world. THEN the world of collaborative work will change, but, only then. The circle of life. The youngsters of today will embrace collaborative work in the futurehail to them! Tracy, CA Residents: When you see that next COWORKING location open up hereall I ask is that you have a fleeting memory of AltamontCoworkas we will ALWAYS be the first! We have met many wonderful people and made some wonderful, lifelong, friends. There have been fun times and hard times. But, I appreciate each and every one who supported AltamontCowork (or Tracy Virtual Office...who remembers?) over the years. The very very special people among you know who you are. (Yes, Tom Gardner knew) BUTLike in Harry Potter: The Phoenix rises. On Jan 1, 2015, YeOldeTechy (does anyone remember?) will rise again as: TechyMike http://TechyMike.com/ http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2FTechyMike.com%2Fh=AAQGcO282s=1 Cue the music from Jaws.haha -- -- Buy From *Amazon* and help ForCarol.com. Click on this link: http://smile.amazon.com/ch/45-1499304 -- Mike Pihlman AltamontCowork / ForCarol.com (501c3) 95 W. 11th Street, Suite 205 Tracy, CA 95376 Phone: 209-608-4340 Web: http://AltamontCowork.com http://altamontcowork.com/ -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Music or not?
If you search the archives of this group you'll find a bunch of good threads on this topic! Here's one: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!searchin/coworking/Music/coworking/k7-t8U4LkMA One thing that I notice in Coworking spaces with no music is FAR less interaction between people because they're concerned about breaking the silence. It's one of the very first things I notice when I visit a new space: the silence is often deafening. Having something - almost anything - softly playing is generally better than nothing at all. People tend to get MOST annoyed by music when it's the same stuff over and over and over, so plan to switch it up. -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 5:49 AM, Teresa Jackson teresajackson...@gmail.com wrote: I'm sure this question has been asked before but interested to know everyone's views. Do you (or not) have music playing in your coworking space? if so what type of stuff do you play? There's a definite difference of opinion among our members and we can't please all the people all the time but we would like to please most of the people most of the time :-) Thanks! Teresa -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: I have a quick favor to ask this community
Thanks for subscribing Kyo! Very cool to hear about the magazine launching to help educate people who are stuck focusing on the workspace :) 400 coworking spaces (even McCoworking spaces) in Tokyo doesn't sound crazy when you consider the scale of the population: 13MM+ people, 50%+ more people than New York City. I recently visited Seoul (population ~10MM+) to do a coworking community building workshop, and it sounded like a similar situation where there is a LOT of coworking springing up throughout Korea but in many of the visits, people complained about a lack of interaction and very high turnover. The good news was that my workshop was the very first time that South Korean coworking spaces met with and interacted with each other! I saw a lot of promise in a few particular groups. Like you, they seem dedicated to helping more local successes. Finally - a quick update on the launch of The Coworking Weekly Show https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/coworking-weekly/id938871054. Last night the show hit #9 on the Business chart, and has been bouncing around in the teens and twenties all day today. I just shipped a THIRD episode, too! I love how this segment turned out and it's *definitely* going to be a recurring one. It features one of our members (who has also been a member of New Work City) who is also a community builder, but in a different realm: *learning communities. *It's live in iTunes and here for easy streaming http://listen.coworkingweekly.com/3. :) Thanks, everyone, for all of your support this week! -Alex -- 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.
[Coworking] I have a quick favor to ask this community
Some of you are on my Coworking Weekly newsletter http://coworkingweekly.com, but I know that many aren't. That's okay, no hard feelings. ;) A lot of the articles and essays that I share one that list are topics that stem from conversations and questions that start here. *This week...*I started an experiment that I called The Coworking Weekly Show https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/coworking-weekly/id938871054, a podcast in iTunes (and Stitcher, if that's your jam, you can search for it the by the same name). There's two episodes live already: the first is a 30 minute interview with one of my team members, who many of you know, Adam Teterus. We talked more about the topic of how do you describe coworking from his point of view, of a staff member, and how being a hired staff member comes with a different point of view than most of us owner/founders. The second episode is much shorter, about 10 minutes, and is just me doing a segment I'm calling Ask Coworking Weekly where I answer single, specific questions that are a bit harder to answer in writing. The first question is something that has been asked on this list MANY times... But I'm not here to just tell you about it, and hope that you listen and find it valuable. *I'm here to ask for a favor, which I really don't do very often* I LOVE sharing with this community. And I love connecting with people who are doing things like us around the world. A big part of this podcast is me wanting to extend that reach a little bit more, and introduce more people to coworking and our communities and how it works. I want to make their jobs easier when they struggle to get local people to understand coworking. I want to help coworking continue to evolve, and grow, in ways that we haven't even imagined yet. Which is why iTunes rankings are important. The #1 way that people find out about podcasts is the iTunes directory, and as of a few minutes ago, The Coworking Weekly Show is ranking in the top 10 New and Noteworthy podcasts in the Business category and in the top 5 for the New and Noteworthy podcasts in Society and Culture. I'm also in the top 50 New and Noteworthy across ALL categories. And it's climbing! iTunes rankings are a bit of a black box, but the things that make a difference are: * iTunes listens * iTunes reviews * iTunes ratings *If you have a few minutes today or tomorrow, would you consider listening on iTunes?* *And then, if and only if I've EVER shared something valuable with you* - on the podcast, here on the Google Group, in a workshop, on my blog, at a conference leave a review AND a rating on the iTunes listing? iTunes is confusing, so if you've never left a review before, here's how http://dangerouslyawesome.com/snaps/itunes-review.gif. You'd help the podcast climb the rankings, and as a result, help me help more people understand how what *we all do* fits into their lives :) -Alex -- 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.
[Coworking] Re: I have a quick favor to ask this community
Whatever y'all are doing is working, but don't stop now! At this moment, The Coworking Weekly Show is: - #17 overall in the Business category, - #6 in the Management Marketing category, - New Noteworthy in BOTH categories, as well as Society Culture - And as of a few moments ago, just #195 in the ALL PODCASTS OF iTunes...just ahead of my buddy (ha!) Jim Cramer http://dangerouslyawesome.com/snaps/iTunes_2014-11-12_16-38-00.jpg. There's a wave now, as people from outside of our circles can start to find this podcast...but the higher up I am, the better. I'd LOVE to be in the top 10 of the Business category. That would make my day. If you haven't listened/rated/reviewed yet, here's that link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/coworking-weekly/id938871054?mt=2 Thank youuu 3 3 3 -Alex -- 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.
[Coworking] Re: 4Legal na #SGE - Faça já sua inscrição
Sorry 'bout the spam being let through here, everyone :( I'll check in with the moderators to see what happened and how we can avoid it! As a moderator, I've noticed this google group has been getting a LOT more spam in the last several months, so it's easier for things like this to slip through the cracks. -Alex -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Phone Calls / Noise Control
I wish more accidental replies were THAT packed full of useful info, Marius! :) On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Marius Amado-Alves amado.al...@gmail.com wrote: We built phone booths. They can be a bit pricy to do up right but they help. Just remember to ventilate them. :) It's a long story but I am designing easy to assemble/disassemble rooms providing total sound insolation, with integrated ventilation and (special acoustic) glass windows. The 7m3, 50dB high insolation room I'm pricing at 4500-5000$. This is good for a drumset for example. Voice rooms would be around 2m3, at a price around 1000$ I imagine (still on the drawing board). At your entire convenience, tell me what you think of these prices. Regards, --Marius www.amado-alves.info -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Coworking Europe 2014 conference to take place in Lisbon on November 24-25-26
I'm stoked to be there, one of my favorite gatherings of the year! -- /ah indyhall.org On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 11:03 AM, JeanYves jeanyveshuw...@gmail.com wrote: We are very proud of the great lineup we managed to gather for the Coworking Europe 2014 conference (Nov 24-25-26). www.coworkingeurope.net Again, delegates from more than 40 countries will attend. We hope to see you in Lisbon in two weeks ! Jean-Yves Huwart Organizer Le mercredi 30 juillet 2014 16:06:30 UTC+2, JeanYves a écrit : Only on day left to register to the Coworking Europe 2014 conference (Lisbon, Nov 24-25-26) under Early Bird conditions :-) www.coworkingeurope.net Jean-Yves Huwart Coworking Europe Le vendredi 13 juin 2014 17:12:38 UTC+2, JeanYves a écrit : We are happy to announce that the Coworking Europe 2014 conference will take place in Lisbon on November 24-25-26. This year, we partnered with Cowork Lisboa and the Lisbon City Council. All information available on www.coworkingeurope.net Early bird registration is open until July 31st. We look forward to see you all in Portugal ! Jean-Yves Huwart Coworking Europe conference -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Crowdfunding Insights
I agree with Jacob. You dodged a bullet. How much does your community know about the situation? I’d be asking them what makes sense for rewards, not us! Pre-selling membership is one of the best things you can do (3-6 months of prepaid membership can really help build a warchest). But what else do they care about? It’s easy to overthink crowdfunding in terms of “rewards”, and even cripple your fund by needing to “pay out” those rewards in complicated, costly ways that take you away from your main community focus. Instead, tune in closer to what your community cares about and like Jacob said, use this shitbag landlord’s move as a rallying cry to bring people together. While not a kickstarter-style crowdfunding effort, I can share how each time we’ve needed money beyond our savings for growth we've turned to our community rather than a traditional bank financing. In each case, we had members offer us loans (amounts ranged from $8k-$30k). In ALL cases, we signed a promissory note that said that we would begin paying back the loan at a minimum monthly payment starting 1 year from the loan date (our conservative projections helped make sure that wasn’t an over-promise. But most interestingly was when we talked about what they wanted in return. Doing some basic math using standard interest rates of a loan in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, the interest earned would be pretty negligible. While we could bake that into our payback, we instead offered a conversation with that member, asking “Here’s what you’d earn in interest over the payback period. Is there something of similar value to you that we can provide instead of adding interest to our payments?” In all cases we agreed to 0% interest, and focused on something that was personally valuable to them. All of our supporters were community members who had already gotten some value from being a part of the community (their business had grown, they’d learned new skills, etc) so they saw growing Indy Hall as a way to perpetuate that value and “pay it forward”. It also helps that I’ve been willing to put some of my own money in at times on essentially the same terms. Anything you’d ask of them, ask yourself, is that something YOU would do? -Alex On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 11:39 AM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Some landlords don't get it. The first place we looked at took 3 months of negotiation and the guy was throwing all sorts of weird stuff at us like being worried people would sleep on the couches. He wanted us to make sure the place was empty by 8 every night. We walked away and it was the right move. You might have grounds to push back, but you might not want to. It really sucks that it's going down like this, but a crisis can really rally and forge a community. Now that you have been open for a few months, have some good stories, and an identity, it will be easier to find the next space and they will understand what you are doing so you can avoid this sort of thing. It might not seem like it right now, but you are in a really good position. Jacob On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 6:08 PM, Harman Grewal har...@lab-b.ca wrote: Hello Everyone, I haven't posted in the Coworking group for quite a while but I have frequented the topics as often as possible and whatever I've read has ALWAYS been helpful. My friend and I have recently started a coworking space in Brampton in August of this year. Being the first coworking space in Brampton, our expectations were exceeded with the amount of traction we were gaining in our local community. Events were happening, people were slowly signing up...things were good. However, down the line our landlord became very unsettled with coworking and what it entailed. We hoped that after seeing the publicity we were getting his building and after talking to community stakeholders he might understand what coworking is and its benefits but that wasn't the case. We received a formal cease and desist about a month ago and still don't know what we did wrong. The lease stated general coworking , rent was always paid and none of the terms of the agreement were broken. Fast forward, our community is left waiting for us to move into our new space. We're back to the coffee shops lol. To help with paying for the transition and to ensure that this doesn't happen again we're going to be crowdfunding. We're going to be using Indiegogo as well. What I wanted to find out was if anyone here has been involved with crowdfunding or has done crowdfunding themselves? What tips/advice/guidance could you provide to ensuring a successful campaign? What types of perks should we offer? and Where should we be focusing our efforts? Any info would be greatly appreciated :) -- 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
Re: [Coworking] Why do you go coworking?
It's a bit outdated, but here's a report we had done in 2011: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/07/why-do-people-love-indy-hall-we-asked-they-told/ This one is newer and a mix of quantitative and qualitative data: http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/alexknowshtml/quantifying-community-how-we-measure-success-in-a-coworking-space -- /ah indyhall.org On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 5:33 PM, Chad Ballantyne c...@thecreativespace.ca wrote: Awesome Jonathan!! Love the graphic! Chad Ballantyne 705.812.0689 c...@thecreativespace.ca Barrie's Coworking Community Perfect for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. 12 Dunlop St E, Barrie Ontario, L4M 1A3 Memberships start at $25/mth www.thecreativespace.ca http://www.thecreativespace.ca/ 705-812-0689 tel:705-812-0689 On Nov 4, 2014, at 5:28 PM, jonathan.markw...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Rachel One of our members surveyed our community a year ago to make this infographic: http://www.pureedesign.com/design-portfolio/skiff_brighton_infographic_design/ http://www.pureedesign.com/design-portfolio/skiff_brighton_infographic_design/ The top three reasons they found were: 1) Sense of community 2) Getting out of the house 3) Increase in productivity — Jonathan Markwell Follow my adventures in space, time and code: http://jot.is/sustainablyindy The Skiff: Brighton Coworking Community http://jot.is/sharing-space Coder Founders: Digital Product Consultancy http://jot.is/investing-time CoGrid: Meeting Room Booking Software http://jot.is/writing-code +44 (0)7766 021 485 skype: jlmarkwell | twitter: http://twitter.com/jot On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 10:16 PM, Rachel Jensen rach...@shaw.ca mailto:rach...@shaw.ca wrote: What are you're top three reason for buying a membership to a coworking space? I know the benefits of coworking but I'd like to hear from people who actually use coworking spaces. Why do you make the decision to spend your money on coworking? Thanks for your insight! Rachel -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com 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 mailto:coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com 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 mailto:coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Handling phone calls in an open coworking office
In all of the examples I've seen, the issue with zones in either direction is that they inherently need to be enforced...which either doesn't happen or when it does, people end up feeling slapped on the wrist (not a great feeling for the enforcer or the enforcee). Zones don't actually solve the problem, they just put a bandaid on it and worse, allow the passive non-communication between members to continue. It's surprisingly simple, and a longer-lasting solution, to just make sure that neighbors are talking to each other :) -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 1:39 AM, Ramon Suarez ra...@betacowork.com wrote: This is not really an issue at Betacowork except in the cases of a couple people that have very powerful theater-grade voices. When people worry about being to noisy we just tell them to make a call and then just ask those around if it bothered (response is no). We have the advantage of having the space divided into 3 rooms, so there are less interruptions affecting the whole space. What we have also done is setup one of the rooms as a call free zone -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] is there a design language in all co working spaces
Hi Jasmeet! Check out this recent thread: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/coworking/Tvf2gg-WZ5w As you’ll see from the discussion, there are very few things that apply to all coworking space. But there ARE a lot of design language (read more simply, patterns that predictably work), and a lot of the ones I’ve written about on this forum I’ve also written about on my blog - http://dangerouslyawesome.com. A few “getting started” patterns are linked right on the homepage for easy access :) The most common meta-theme of successful coworking design, though, is keeping members at the center of your actions and decisions. That plays out in nearly ALL of the different more tactical design patterns that we’ve uncovered and shared here over the years! There are ALSO some outside scholarly works that I’ve referenced that you should definitely check out, they’re near the bottom of this page (which reminds me, I have a bunch of new things to add!) http://dangerouslyawesome.com/recommended-reading-for-community-leaders/ -Alex On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 2:54 PM, jasmeet saluja jasmeetsaluja.pe...@gmail.com wrote: my question to you guys is throughout out your experience in co working spaces is there a design language which can be related in all coworking spaces ? -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Coworking in Astana, Kazakhstan
Hey Faraz! You can see different groups of coworkers interacting with each other on a daily base. The space looks cool, but why aren’t those people in your photos?! That would make it look WA more inviting! See what I mean: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/06/whats-wrong-with-this-picture-dos-and-donts-for-photos-of-coworking/ I’d love to see this space again with photos of people in ACTION. :) -Alex -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Handling phone calls in an open coworking office
Hey Jensen, Here’s the answer I wrote when somebody asked a question like this on Quora, which was one member asking about how to deal with another member. http://www.quora.com/Is-it-normal-to-take-a-lot-of-phonecalls-in-coworking-space/answer/Alex-Hillman It's not a matter of common or uncommon, in my experience this sounds less like it has anything to do with phone calls and more to do with people being inconsiderate of the people they're sitting around...or more often, simply unaware. When we have this issue at Indy Hall (a member may approach us, much like you've approached Quora), our first question is: do you know the person/people who's bothering you? If you don't know their name, odds are they don't know yours and if you don't even know each others' names, you're never going to be considerate of each other. Start there, by simply getting to know each other as neighbors. From there, it's much easier to say hey, when you take calls from your desk it can be really disruptive to me and the people around you. if you found a place that isn't surrounded by people, you'd probably find it easier to talk quietly and it'd be less distracting to others. Most of the time, people don't even realize they're bothering anyone, and are happy that you said something. Oh maybe THATS why people always seem annoyed with me! You'd be surprised how many people are simply not aware of their surroundings. And if they don't respond, or respond poorly...find a new coworking space. The shorter answer, is that no, there isn’t an ‘easy’ solution because the easy solution is avoidance…which is about the worst example you can set for your community about how to handle problems. You already know what you have to do, but you’re avoiding doing it because losing a single member would hurt right now. That’s true, but losing more members over the long haul is going to hurt a lot more. The easiest way to think about this is to set the expectations with your members that part of sharing space means looking after three things: - Look after yourself - Look after each other - Look after the places and things we share If this person doesn’t know that they’re being disruptive, then it’s your (and every member’s) responsibility to help by looking after for them. If they DO know they’re being disruptive, they’re not looking after themselves. Either way, that courtesy goes a LONG way to reminding people how to be mindful of each other. -Alex On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 4:02 PM, Jensen Yancey jensen.yan...@gmail.com wrote: We're a relatively new coworking office and have run in to a bit of an issue that I'm sure lots of you have had to deal with before. The whole office is open plan, just one big room, and the majority of the time there will be about 5-8 people in the space, sometimes there will be multiple conversations going but it's usually pretty quiet. We have one person who's very nice and polite, except for the fact that he is prone to have extremely long phone conversations at his desk (almost always 30+ minutes) and I have no idea what to do about it. On the one hand, nobody has said anything to me about it, so it's entirely possible that I'm the only person he bothers and we don't really have a good alternative to offer him since these phone calls seem to be an important part of his job, so if we make it an issue, I imagine he would leave and losing any member right now is really going to hurt. On the other hand, I'm worried that he's really impacting the experience for everyone else and they're just building up resentment without wanting to say anything. Are there any easy solutions to this? -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Coworking Space in Hyderabad
Raghuveer - I just noticed that you’ve got “tummler” as part of your title in your signature. That rules. :) -Alex On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 5:18 AM, Raghuveer Kovuru raghukov...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks a lot Alex! Those are some really encouraging words. And coming from a veteran like you, my morale is all boosted up now! On Monday, 13 October 2014 22:12:39 UTC+5:30, Alex Hillman wrote: Raghuveer, the good news is that you’re not alone. The kinds of problems you’re encountering happen everywhere! Unfortunately, people get distracted by the people who don’t get it. At the risk of sounding all “back in my day…”, remember that for communities like Indy Hall, New Work City, Office Nomads, and others that started in 2006-2008 we didn’t have anywhere to point for examples. NOBODY knew what coworking was, anywhere in the world. I’m going to tell you the secret: the people you’re worried about aren’t your members, and most will never become members. So you can stop worrying about them. Don’t try to convince the people who “don’t get it”. That’s an uphill battle. :) *Instead, focus on finding a handful of people who DO get it. * Encourage them. Support them. And promote THEIR successes. In time, as people see the kinds of successes that come from working together, more people will come around on their own. Focus on *everybody*, and you’ll run out of steam before long. Focus on finding a a few who understand and believe in the same things as you, and you’ll find that you never have to “convince” somebody ever again. -Alex On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 12:22 PM, Raghuveer Kovuru raghu...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: Thanks for the reply Tony! Yeah, I am already on the job of convincing people about the benefits of being a coworker at our space. The only challenge that I have is overcoming the local mentalities about cost. They run like this: Ohhh! Rs. 5000! I would get an air conditioned private cabin for that! I need a corner to work. I wouldn't involve much in events. So will you give me a discount? and so on. Haha. So wrecking my brain over what plan to come up with and bolster all these people. I am planning of holding an event with a celebrity speaker that would pull crowds and request the speaker to put in a few words about the advantages of coworking! On Monday, 13 October 2014 20:07:33 UTC+5:30, Tony Bacigalupo wrote: Raghuveer, rock on brother! Your space looks amazing and I'm glad to hear you're looking to bring the true community culture to coworking in your world. I'm curious when you say this: In Hyderabad, every space likes to call itself a coworking space and all they do is provide desks and people work in relative isolation! Our space wants to break that barrier! It has been a week now and there is footfall. However, people here mistake coworking to any other shared office or executive space and ask for fancy interiors, private cabins and air conditioning. Despite our effort to convince them of the synergies that can be achieved at our space, people say they will get back to us and never do. This is the desk side. I'm finding this to be a common issue as the desk rental industry continues its consumption of the coworking term. But you should be able to identify people who understand, as you do, that it represents something more. In other words, there are certainly other people out there who know they want something that isn't a fancy desk rental space. How can you empower those people to take emotional ownership over the project and help you construct a culture that is so irresistable that others who may be more tentative can't help but want to be a part of it? The reason I ask this is because to get over the default transactional thinking that many arrive with when they start to look at the world of coworking, we must sometimes work to help people to understand what they really want even if they don't quite understand it themselves. Sometimes they need to see it shine through so brightly that it shocks them out of their set ways. So if you can start-- even with just ten or so people-- who really get it, who really buy into it, who really share the same vision as you-- you can define a culture that can perpetuate through hundreds of people across multiple generations over the course of hopefully many years. Look out for opportunities to forge personal human connections with people. When you host an event, make yourself available and let your passion show. When you encounter people who respond to that energy, engage with them personally, face to face. Get to know them as real people and not just as business contacts. If there are indeed people out there, and I suspect there must be, they'll find you. Recruit them not just to be customers, but to be collaborators. Good things will happen from there. Best of luck
Re: [Coworking] Coworking Space in Hyderabad
Raghuveer, the good news is that you’re not alone. The kinds of problems you’re encountering happen everywhere! Unfortunately, people get distracted by the people who don’t get it. At the risk of sounding all “back in my day…”, remember that for communities like Indy Hall, New Work City, Office Nomads, and others that started in 2006-2008 we didn’t have anywhere to point for examples. NOBODY knew what coworking was, anywhere in the world. I’m going to tell you the secret: the people you’re worried about aren’t your members, and most will never become members. So you can stop worrying about them. Don’t try to convince the people who “don’t get it”. That’s an uphill battle. :) Instead, focus on finding a handful of people who DO get it. Encourage them. Support them. And promote THEIR successes. In time, as people see the kinds of successes that come from working together, more people will come around on their own. Focus on everybody, and you’ll run out of steam before long. Focus on finding a a few who understand and believe in the same things as you, and you’ll find that you never have to “convince” somebody ever again. -Alex On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 12:22 PM, Raghuveer Kovuru raghukov...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for the reply Tony! Yeah, I am already on the job of convincing people about the benefits of being a coworker at our space. The only challenge that I have is overcoming the local mentalities about cost. They run like this: Ohhh! Rs. 5000! I would get an air conditioned private cabin for that! I need a corner to work. I wouldn't involve much in events. So will you give me a discount? and so on. Haha. So wrecking my brain over what plan to come up with and bolster all these people. I am planning of holding an event with a celebrity speaker that would pull crowds and request the speaker to put in a few words about the advantages of coworking! On Monday, 13 October 2014 20:07:33 UTC+5:30, Tony Bacigalupo wrote: Raghuveer, rock on brother! Your space looks amazing and I'm glad to hear you're looking to bring the true community culture to coworking in your world. I'm curious when you say this: In Hyderabad, every space likes to call itself a coworking space and all they do is provide desks and people work in relative isolation! Our space wants to break that barrier! It has been a week now and there is footfall. However, people here mistake coworking to any other shared office or executive space and ask for fancy interiors, private cabins and air conditioning. Despite our effort to convince them of the synergies that can be achieved at our space, people say they will get back to us and never do. This is the desk side. I'm finding this to be a common issue as the desk rental industry continues its consumption of the coworking term. But you should be able to identify people who understand, as you do, that it represents something more. In other words, there are certainly other people out there who know they want something that isn't a fancy desk rental space. How can you empower those people to take emotional ownership over the project and help you construct a culture that is so irresistable that others who may be more tentative can't help but want to be a part of it? The reason I ask this is because to get over the default transactional thinking that many arrive with when they start to look at the world of coworking, we must sometimes work to help people to understand what they really want even if they don't quite understand it themselves. Sometimes they need to see it shine through so brightly that it shocks them out of their set ways. So if you can start-- even with just ten or so people-- who really get it, who really buy into it, who really share the same vision as you-- you can define a culture that can perpetuate through hundreds of people across multiple generations over the course of hopefully many years. Look out for opportunities to forge personal human connections with people. When you host an event, make yourself available and let your passion show. When you encounter people who respond to that energy, engage with them personally, face to face. Get to know them as real people and not just as business contacts. If there are indeed people out there, and I suspect there must be, they'll find you. Recruit them not just to be customers, but to be collaborators. Good things will happen from there. Best of luck, friend. Keep us posted! Tony Bacigalupo *-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ Personal: twitter http://twitter.com/tonybgoode • fb http://facebook.com/tonybacigalupo+ Projects: NWC http://nwc.co/ • Meetup http://meetup.com/coworking-nyc • NYTM http://nytm.org/+ Recent posts: What happens when you become the boss? http://happymonster.co/2014/10/10/what-happens-when-you-become-the-boss/ •
[Coworking] I love when journalists actually TRY Coworking instead of just writing about it.
http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/business-journal/2014/09/20/schwan-inside-week-co-working/15995287/ Hyphen notwithstanding, this is a great example of people's expectations of coworking...juxtaposed against the realities. In the last year, we've STRONGLY encouraged a couple of our local beat reporters who have written about us extensively before to actually try working with us for a day or two. Both remarked independently how different it was from what they expected (for similar reasons as the person in this article) but also, subsequently wrote excellent pieces about their experience. When you're courting the press and trying to help your local community find out about Coworking, this is going to be MUCH more effective than the usual this is a cheap, flexible new way to work stories that journos typically write. -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Contest to Name the Co-working Space
1 - Crazy to invite your community to name the place? Not at all. In my experience, the best names have come from the community whose helped create the space. It’s just one more opportunity for people to feel a sense of ownership, which is a good thing. 2 - Crazy to do a contest? I’ve heard crazier…but remember that a contest creates a sense of competition amongst members, and not always in the best ways. I’d be curious who is doing the deciding on which name wins? How do you plan to handle disagreements over which name is best? 3 - Crazy to give away free coworking to the winner? I think it’s unnecessary, and at worst, counterproductive. Consider that the person who is likely to have the best name is also the most likely to HAPPILY pay for coworking. When your business is brand new and you’re starting by giving it away, you’re digging yourself a hole. I’d make almost anything else the prize. -Alex On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Ann Thaxton l...@att.net wrote: My partner and I are opening a space soon in Fort Worth. The word is out, we've signed the lease and it's official. We have a small community already. We want to have a contest to name the space. The winner gets free co-working. Can you guys help me think through that. Is that crazy? Thanks. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Membership Perks
We do all the same marketing Tyler mentioned, plus announce them at our monthly happy hour. One idea that I tried unsuccessfully was inviting a partner to do a quick preso of their own to the happy hour group about their product and discount. Seemed like a great way to create a personal connection - the partner loved it, got to talk directly with interested members, etc. - but it just didn't feel right in the moment. I could read my members' faces and they felt like they were being held captive for an advertising campaign. So we won't be doing that again :)” An alternative to this that we’ve done very successfully is encouraging the partner to TEACH something, or give actionable advice, rather than use that time to talk about themselves. Most people don’t like a sales pitch, but they DO like learning things that can help them in their lives and their businesses. When a vendor shares something useful, it not only keeps your members interested but also helps establish their trust in the vendor, and helps the vendor become a “go-to” resource (which turns into recommendations, etc). Many vendors who pitch us wanting to reach our members aren’t willing to put in even a little bit of time to earn our members’ trust, but ALL of the ones who do have built strong connections into the community and are often recommended by members over and over and over. Way, way more effective than the yawn-worthy sales pitch! -Alex On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Lisa Anne Logan lisaan...@hattery.com wrote: Hi Jessica, +1 to Tyler's approach - it works out well. We do a few 'personal' services like gym, but mostly focus on business service discounts. I occasionally ask our members what services they're using, and then I pick a few from that list to approach about a discount. Just position yourself as an influencer amongst a great group of candidates in their target market, and detail the internal marketing you'll do, and they're usually happy to offer something. We do all the same marketing Tyler mentioned, plus announce them at our monthly happy hour. One idea that I tried *unsuccessfully* was inviting a partner to do a quick preso of their own to the happy hour group about their product and discount. Seemed like a great way to create a personal connection - the partner loved it, got to talk directly with interested members, etc. - but it just didn't feel right in the moment. I could read my members' faces and they felt like they were being held captive for an advertising campaign. So we won't be doing that again :) On Friday, September 26, 2014 8:40:31 AM UTC-7, Jessica Hill wrote: Good Morning, We starting to think about creating perks (discounts from local businesses, and services) for our members. Do any of you have this at your coworking spaces? I am not exactly sure how go about asking businesses for discounts for our members especially since we are so new. Thanks! Jessica -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Importance of space
You can get away with imperfections in the space when the community vibe is good. It’s much, much harder to get away with cultural dysfunction (or nonexistence) when the space is good. It’s not debate of if space OR community is valuable or important. Both are important. What’s important is that the returns in absence of each other are unbalanced. Here’s what I’ve observed across LOTS of different styles/kinds/scales/breeds of coworking, including “dedicated coworking spaces like what many of us run, but also including some of the bigger patterns in how/where people work in other kinds of businesses corporations. Perfectly designed, beautiful, ergonomic, and inspiring spaces without an attractive culture are the ones that find themselves weak for new membership, weak to retain their members, and very, very difficult to sustain without constantly applying pressure. I’ve seen the lack of community lead to the burnout and closure of a LOT of beautiful coworking spaces that people seem to be “impressed by. Meanwhile, the returns on well designed spaces is MULTIPLIED by a great community. Take this out of the context of coworking for a second to see what I mean: companies are spending FORTUNES to create beautifully designed spaces to inspire their employees to create, collaborate, and be more productive…and they expect to get a return on those investments. If a company spends hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on an office, they expect that it can generate some multiple of that more in recruitment, retention, collaboration, and innovation. What I’ve learned along the way is that most of these companies design the space intentionally, but don’t do anything to design the culture of the company with the same intent. When the culture and the space design aren’t congruent, those hopeful returns are very hard to realize… When those companies put even a fraction of the effort and intention into designing the culture of the community as they do the space, the results are tremendous. COMBINE those two efforts, and the results are unparalleled :) -Alex On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 9:29 AM, Erynn Lyster er...@thecommonscalgary.com wrote: I know I'm jumping into this discussion late, but just getting to my overflowing in box! I just wanted to respond to the discussion that popped up about the physical space itself not being a huge factor when people think about what makes a good coworking space. I don't speak French, unfortunately, Nicolas, so I can't read what you wrote on the subject, but here at The Commons one of the first things people say that they enjoy about our space is the actual, physical space. We put a lot of effort into making the space feel comfortable, sophisticated and inviting and this has paid off tremendously. I would say that, yes, people choose to work here because they like the vibe and the community but I would argue that one of the factors contributing to the vibe and community is the physical space. It encourages people to talk, lounge and be comfortable. One of the big things that factor into them choosing us above other coworking spaces in town is that they are proud to bring their clients here, that it is comfortable to work in and it really does feel like a home away from home. Our members take great pride in our space - we can tell as they bring their clients on a tour when they come in and talk a lot about the design. I was a member here before I became an owner and I knew when I took over that that was one of the biggest criteria for me - to work in an inspiring, well-designed space. This is something I feel quite passionately about, in fact, and was a huge debate when my brother and I took over the space as he just wanted to put in the least expensive, most utilitarian furniture possible and said no one would care. It may be just sibling rivalry, but I do like the fact that he had to admit a year later that I was right and he was wrong ... ;-) ~Erynn On 2014-09-14, 11:45 AM, Nicolas Bergé wrote: I recently asked the members of Les Satellites What makes a good coworking space ?. I received different answers, none of them put the space as a criteria. I've realized that members are the best to define what coworking is and what coworking is not, even though they only know a few coworking spaces, if not only one. I wrote something here (http://www.les-satellites.com/2014/09/les-personnes-qui-font-du-coworking-ne.html) explaining why members of coworking spaces are not interested by the space criteria (in French). If you can include, Ramon, the members' - your members' - viewpoints on the definition of coworking you wish to show, you'll be better off - we'll all be better off. Nicolas Bergé Les Satellites -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Re: [Coworking] Re: Getting rid of the co-working hyphen
Lots of great analogies in there, Oren. http://ihighfive.com/ -Alex On Tuesday, Sep 23, 2014 at 8:51 AM, Will BennisLocus Workspace wmben...@locusworkspace.com, wrote: Hi Oren, I really appreciate your thoughtful reply about this. And it's definitely pushed me in the direction of greater support for the cause. Two particular points that I can agree with: (1) the name is being spelled in two different ways for no very good reason. We might be able to solve that, and get it spelled in the way most people using the word want it to be spelled, so why not do it? (2) The way it's spelled matters to a lot of people in ways that are not specifically about language clarity and are more about identity and community support. And for those people, the preferred spelling tends to be coworking, so why not respect that? I'm in. I can respect that. Best, Will On Saturday, September 20, 2014 9:41:49 PM UTC+2, oren.s...@gmail.com wrote:Hi Will, I know what your name is, I was just trying to make a point. :) I respect and value your points about no horse in the race and that the indifference of the co-working fans would never lead them to debate this to such an extent and that clearly this is something the coworking fans are pushing here. I also see your point about the flexibility of language and I agree no entity can stop language from changing and adapting and being interpreted differently in different contexts. All that being said, I find co-working to be disrespectful. There is a distinct difference between your example of personal computing and computing and co-working and coworking. One refers to a rapidly adapting industry where the nature of what was being described changed over time. While coworking is rapidly expanding and comes across new variants all the time, I don't think anyone is claiming a full transformation is happening like in your computing example. Nobody in journalism misspells kibbutz in writing and nobody just started calling them collective agricultural communities either. Kibbutz means something because it staked out the term and owned it. I see the exact same thing happening with coworking except that spelling it co-working means a distinct unfamiliarity with the subject matter. Maybe I'm making some assumptions here, but this was one of the first things I learned about coworking. I don't know a single major organization, association, product, content hub, group or otherwise large group of coworking people identifying under the co-working banner. We're all squarely organized under the coworking banner. So what if some space operators choose to spell it co-working? Obviously that's their choice as an operator and they're welcome to do so, but to me it's always been a red flag that they're disconnected from the global community. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming so, but in my experience it's been validated pretty consistently. Even if there is little ambiguity in co-working vs. coworking (because there's nothing currently called co-working), it's still very undignified not be regarded as important enough to have a consistent spelling. That's the core issue at hand from my perspective and maybe you disagree, but that's why I think we're talking about entering the dictionary and the style guides. It's for the same reason that a apple is in appropriate but an apple is ok. If I said I'm going to eat a apple, you'd understand me but look at me funny. We're just trying to get the journalists to realize that from our perspective, co-working = a apple. On Friday, September 19, 2014 5:19:38 AM UTC-5, Will Bennis, Locus Workspace wrote: Hi Oren, I appreciate your reply about this! Actually, my name is Will, not William, damnit!!! : But I don't think this is really the same. First, coworking isn't a company name or a given name / proper noun. It's not your name or my name. It's not even the movement's name. If personal computing became just computing, what would you think if Apple or Microsoft or a handful of influential early players in the personal computing industry campaigned against the change and said that we can't change their name, and that it was as though their given names were being mis-spelled? I'd personally think they should leave the English language alone and that it wasn't the role of people in an industry to try to manage what have become common nouns in the English language. I have run a coworking space for more than 4 years now. I care what you call my space or what you call me and I care about coworking, but the idea that spelling coworking differently from how people who run coworking spaces think it should be spelled, or that misspelling is like misspelling a proper noun seems to me like a stretch. Second, to the extent the name is owned by the community of coworking space owners, or at least we have a meaningful stake in it (which I think we do), then who are *we*? You write
Re: [Coworking] Coworking as summer camp?
I don't know of a particular summer camp vision statements, but I've had several of our members describe their experience/impressions this way (each one qualifying, in the best way possible). They described a bit more detail, including the generational aspect of the community (the seniors the freshmen, anybody?). The welcomingness and comradery, the support to be daring and try new things, the sharing of stories and experiences. So I don't have much to add except, I'm with you (and our members are with you) on the comparison. :) Excited to see how this thread unfolds. -Alex P.s. Two out of three of our staff members are improv vets. I don't consider this a coincidence and I think it will become part of our training going forward. -- /ah indyhall.org On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 8:38 PM, Alex Linsker alexlins...@gmail.com wrote: At Collective Agency in Portland Oregon we're starting to look at vision and values again, we update every now and then. I'm trying to find an overall metaphor/unifying theme of what most members want -- in the past it was cozy fireplace (which worked great for years) and small democratic city (which could have worked but didn't totally work), but we're outgrowing those for something even better. Part of what I'm trying to figure out is: when someone leaves or quits or chooses not to be there anymore, what is the metaphor (how do you tell people in a way that makes them want to be here even more, or at least not any less, or how do you think of it/feel about someone not being there who used to be)? Recently we had something that seemed like a summer camp reunion, with some past members, current members, recently joined members, everybody seemed happy to see each other. http://collectiveagency.co/2014/09/16/chapman-swifts/ I'm wondering if summer camp is a theme that might work for a co-working place, and if anyone here has thought about it, what works about it as a metaphor, what doesn't work. We have optional activities, people each have ongoing program commitments which ideally they are passionate about and committed to, people make friends who ideally they hang out with here and outside of here, etc. Differences from summer camp: it's year-round, people are paying for themselves, and they live nearby. Are there any other differences? Personal values that members have expressed a desire for (that we love having here and want even more of) include: friendships, laughter, expressing appreciation, inspiration, learning. Does anyone know any vision statements of summer camps? Also, I'm starting to put together a booklet of improv games for members and staff to organize activities such as lunch and thinking about doing sales. Has anyone done a games format to coworking (or community organizing or project management)? Thanks, Alex -- Alex Linsker Collective Agency's Community Organizer / Proprietor (503) 517-6900 http://collectiveagency.co Tax and Conversation's Statewide Community Organizer (503) 517-6904 taxandconversation.com (503) 369-9174 mobile (503) 517-6901 fax 322 NW Sixth Ave, Suite 200, Portland, Oregon 97209 -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Basic elements for a definition of coworking
Glad you mentioned Ray’s recent posts. This one was truly fantastic, full of gold. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Community-Collaboration-Traps-Plus-Debunking-1954077.S.5915187168640262147?view=item=5915187168640262147type=membergid=1954077trk=eml-group_discussion_new_comment-discussion-title-linkmidToken=AQENnkOIKC9ejAfromEmail=fromEmailut=3_EA13phjrLmo1 -Alex On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 1:30 PM, Steve King sk...@emergentresearch.com wrote: Great discussion and I really like the restaurant analogy. We use the following criteria to identify a space as a coworking space: - self-identifies as providing coworking space or uses language close to this. - offers a range of membership options such as daily, weekly, monthly, etc. (does not need to offer them all) - offers facilities broadly consistent with other coworking spaces including some form of community space - offers open membership, or membership available via a process that is open - offers activities that encourage community with the word activities being broadly defined - coworking is an important part of the facility offering - is actively in use. There is a fair amount of subjectivity in these and we've found identifying coworking facilities is a bit like identifying pornography - you know when you see it, but different people see it in different ways. But overall they've worked well for us. Interestingly enough, they've worked well not because they identify what coworking is, but because in combination they're pretty good at identifying what coworking is not. For example, many startup accelerators more or less look like Parisoma coworking in terms of look, feel, activities and membership demographics. But the accelerators tend to have some combination of a closed membership process and/or limited or no membership options. The prolific Ray Lindenberg (where does he find the time to produce so much content?) has been publishing a lot on segmenting and defining different aspects of the office as a service market over at the GWA LinkedIn group and elsewhere. He's doing this from the office business center point of view, but it's been quite interesting and is well worth looking at. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Basic elements for a definition of coworking
In my opinion a coworking space -- being a community of coworkers -- always calls and treats its coworkers members. I like this one a lot!! -Alex -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Background Checks
It's a trust network, not a blame network :) More importantly, the signatures themselves aren't the point. They're an action that someone has to take to get to know people who already care enough to look after the things worth protecting. Even a background check company doesn't have that incentive: the best they can do is tell you about recorded red flags and legal infractions, not that somebody is going to be disrespectful or problematic (which is statistically more likely than having an actual criminal try to JOIN in a long-com operation). Worth noting: we've made tweaks to the signature model since we invented it, the most important being that we make sure that the new keyholder a) gets signatures from outside of their pre-existing circles. This means that for people who become new full time members as part of an existing team who works at Indy Hall, they need to get their sign off from people NOT on their team. We explain to them why the process is in place and everybody has understood and appreciated it b) they need to be able to say who signed their sheet after turning it over to us. Some people were just going around and getting signatures without actually getting to know people. If they can't even remember the name of who signed off on them, the signature doesn't count because they didn't hold up their end of the deal that makes the process work. There's a recent thread in the google group archives where I explained how little ACTUAL overnight/24 hour use happens, but I can't seem to copy the link to that thread form mobile :) if someone else can grab it before I do and post it here that'd be awesome. -- /ah indyhall.org On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Tom Brandt twbra...@gmail.com wrote: I worded that poorly. The supporting members are saying that they trust this person to be a member, they are not guaranteeing it. If the new member violates that trust, I am sure the supporting members would feel badly, but nothing would happen to them. On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 4:55 AM, Marius Amado-Alves amado.al...@gmail.com wrote: ... the signatures of three members who will vouch for them as good fits for membership. Just curious, should the new member mischieve, what would happen to the supporting members. -- 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. -- twb member, Workantile http://workantile.com/ @twbrandt -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Background Checks
Back at my computer, here's that recent thread I mentioned: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/IHgBU9UpCDo/Maw_ilGMzqgJ Especially, this post about ACTUAL liability concerns: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/IHgBU9UpCDo/uCmegDpZhesJ -Alex -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: So...where are all the space managers?
Ramon, that group is actually specifically for organizing OpenCoworking (http://opencoworking.org/) related efforts. That certainly could (and should!) include space managers, owners, and members, but I think that its goals are broader than space managers helping each other. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Ramon Suarez ra...@betacowork.com wrote: The existing group for managers is at https://opencoworking.groupbuzz.io/ Ramon Suarez Serendipity Accelerator, Betacowork Author: http://coworkinghandbook.com email hangouts: ra...@betacowork.com Phone: +3227376769 GSM: +32497556284 Twitter:http://twitter.com/ramonsuarez Skype: ramonsuarez Try coworking: http://betacowork.com http://betacowork.com/free-coworking-tryout/?utm_source=emailutm_medium=468x60_bannerutm_content=girl-homeutm_campaign=ramon-signature On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 5:14 PM, Adam Teterus a...@indyhall.org wrote: So glad this resonates, Lindsey. I'm *really* looking forward to having a network of folks to talk with on a more regular basis. We all have so much to learn from one another just by sharing war stories, as it were. I'll get you on into the Slack team! On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 10:27:27 PM UTC-4, Lindsey Rima wrote: Hey Adam! Thank you for putting this out there. I'm the operations manager/ community foster-er/ coffee maker/problem solver/ non-owner at Link. I'm part of the Austin Office Managers group. The collective wisdom and experience in the group is amazing, but a coworking oriented group would be the bees knees. Please invite me to the Slack group and google hangout. On Saturday, September 6, 2014 8:47:49 PM UTC-5, Adam Teterus wrote: Hey, all. I'm Adam. So I've been running Indy Hall as the Point Man for just shy of 3 years, looking over this place and these people on a daily basis from January of 2011 to right now (and well beyond right now, I should hope). 3 years of facilitating relationships between new and old members, introducing newcomers to our community, saying goodbye to longstanding members who came before me, bumping into very *human* obstacles and guiding members through sometimes tough social situations, always toward a place in which we're much tighter and stronger and better than where we came from. I recently had a really great conversation with a friend about what it is that I do here at Indy Hall. Given that coworking is relatively new in the scheme of things, and given that it's a burgeoning meta-community and industry in its own rite, she asked me who I turn to when I have questions, when I encounter something new. That's a long, winding answer. My reference points are ALL OVER the place, there's not really anyone one, particular role model. Not really a coworking space manager that I look to for parallels or direct reference. Many of you on this forum are among reference points, but there's a contingent missing from the Google Group: the person that most closely reflects me and what I do here at Indy Hall. I know that person and those people exist, but...where are they? My friend, she's a researcher type, and she points out that I've got this wealth of domain knowledge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_knowledge, this set of skills and attributes that I reflexively understand and act on every day to keep this community up and running. Things that I often take for granted, admittedly. Things I rarely think about because I'm not talking about them out loud with other people who do it, too. She goes on to say that it sounds like I'm lacking a field http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_(academia), a network of people who share the same domain knowledge. A group of people like me. Where are those people? I know the Google Group is primarily for/frequented by owners and prospective space owners, but where do the space managers go to talk to one another? The daily, boots on the ground, hired to be here community leader - where does she go for answers? Where do they go to learn and talk and share? Hell, where do they go to debrief and unwind after a long week of weird social situations? Who teaches them how to do what they're doing? Further, for owners and prospective owners: when you're hiring for a coworking space manager, who are you looking toward and thinking, yeah, I need *that* person? When you do hire someone, who do you refer that person to in terms of a role model for the gig? Where are the people like me? Who are they? I want to meet 'em. -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Coworking group. To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/coworking/TKWCKxHlHE0/unsubscribe. To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. --
Re: [Coworking] Re: So...where are all the space managers?
However, I know that OpenCoworking IS looking for regional volunteers to help organize…so if you’re interested in that sort of thing, you should contact them about joining the list! On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 11:35 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Ramon, that group is actually specifically for organizing OpenCoworking (http://opencoworking.org/) related efforts. That certainly could (and should!) include space managers, owners, and members, but I think that its goals are broader than space managers helping each other. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Ramon Suarez ra...@betacowork.com wrote: The existing group for managers is at https://opencoworking.groupbuzz.io/ Ramon Suarez Serendipity Accelerator, Betacowork Author: http://coworkinghandbook.com email hangouts: ra...@betacowork.com Phone: +3227376769 GSM: +32497556284 Twitter:http://twitter.com/ramonsuarez Skype: ramonsuarez Try coworking: http://betacowork.com http://betacowork.com/free-coworking-tryout/?utm_source=emailutm_medium=468x60_bannerutm_content=girl-homeutm_campaign=ramon-signature On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 5:14 PM, Adam Teterus a...@indyhall.org wrote: So glad this resonates, Lindsey. I'm *really* looking forward to having a network of folks to talk with on a more regular basis. We all have so much to learn from one another just by sharing war stories, as it were. I'll get you on into the Slack team! On Wednesday, September 10, 2014 10:27:27 PM UTC-4, Lindsey Rima wrote: Hey Adam! Thank you for putting this out there. I'm the operations manager/ community foster-er/ coffee maker/problem solver/ non-owner at Link. I'm part of the Austin Office Managers group. The collective wisdom and experience in the group is amazing, but a coworking oriented group would be the bees knees. Please invite me to the Slack group and google hangout. On Saturday, September 6, 2014 8:47:49 PM UTC-5, Adam Teterus wrote: Hey, all. I'm Adam. So I've been running Indy Hall as the Point Man for just shy of 3 years, looking over this place and these people on a daily basis from January of 2011 to right now (and well beyond right now, I should hope). 3 years of facilitating relationships between new and old members, introducing newcomers to our community, saying goodbye to longstanding members who came before me, bumping into very *human* obstacles and guiding members through sometimes tough social situations, always toward a place in which we're much tighter and stronger and better than where we came from. I recently had a really great conversation with a friend about what it is that I do here at Indy Hall. Given that coworking is relatively new in the scheme of things, and given that it's a burgeoning meta-community and industry in its own rite, she asked me who I turn to when I have questions, when I encounter something new. That's a long, winding answer. My reference points are ALL OVER the place, there's not really anyone one, particular role model. Not really a coworking space manager that I look to for parallels or direct reference. Many of you on this forum are among reference points, but there's a contingent missing from the Google Group: the person that most closely reflects me and what I do here at Indy Hall. I know that person and those people exist, but...where are they? My friend, she's a researcher type, and she points out that I've got this wealth of domain knowledge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_knowledge, this set of skills and attributes that I reflexively understand and act on every day to keep this community up and running. Things that I often take for granted, admittedly. Things I rarely think about because I'm not talking about them out loud with other people who do it, too. She goes on to say that it sounds like I'm lacking a field http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_(academia), a network of people who share the same domain knowledge. A group of people like me. Where are those people? I know the Google Group is primarily for/frequented by owners and prospective space owners, but where do the space managers go to talk to one another? The daily, boots on the ground, hired to be here community leader - where does she go for answers? Where do they go to learn and talk and share? Hell, where do they go to debrief and unwind after a long week of weird social situations? Who teaches them how to do what they're doing? Further, for owners and prospective owners: when you're hiring for a coworking space manager, who are you looking toward and thinking, yeah, I need *that* person? When you do hire someone, who do you refer that person to in terms of a role model for the gig? Where are the people like me? Who are they? I want to meet 'em. -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups Coworking group
Re: [Coworking] Basic elements for a definition of coworking
I’m pretty sure that Emergent Research has a rubric they use for when they do their research for their annual report, but I can’t remember exactly what is on it. Having some consistency with that would probably be helpful! I think it had some of the items you described, but it was a lot more specific with many of the attributes. Hopefully Steve can chime in! I used to be more opinionated about self-describing as “coworking” and the regular mis-use of the term, but I’ve become more and more comfortable with the idea that the word coworking is as specific as the word “restaurant”, which doesn’t really describe much on its own. I’d love to see more maps (including the one you’re putting together) display with more detail what people can expect. It’s more important that people find a place that makes them happy and productive than anything else…and reducing that to “coworking” is like reducing fine dining french restaurants and mcdonalds to “restaurant”. Technically accurate, but not really helpful. Related, this recent post caught my eye (I think Liz posted it from the GCUC account): http://www.cloudvirtualoffice.com/blog/a-coworking-safari/ I’m especially interested in the things vary widely, really impact the experience, but are hardest to really quantify: things like “ambiance” and noise level are such relative descriptions, so the source matters a lot, too! Who’s doing the describing: the owner? The members? Visitors? In a lot of cases, their descriptions vary quite a bit. To that point, even “non-hostile friendly” is relative. It’s become a common theme that I hear from coworkers who visit startup-centric coworking spaces that the only time people talk to each other is when they’re pitching their startup. For some people, that’s non-hostile and friends but for others, it’s their worst nightmare. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Ramon Suarez ra...@betacowork.com wrote: Hi everyone, I'm working on a definition of Coworking to make it easier to choose who to include in the map of coworking spaces in Belgium http://coworkingbelgium.be/belgium-coworking-spaces-map. I know it can be a controversial subject and I don't want to start a flamewar, but I would like to have your feedback on the basic elements to build this definition. I think it could also be helpful to make it easier to explain to our potential customers and journalists. In my definition a Coworking space : - Calls itself a coworking space. - Has a fully dedicated espace for cowoking (not just a few hours or a cafeteria shared with patrons). - Treats coworkers as 1st class clients, not as a lesser kind to fill unused space. - Has somebody dedicated to connect the members (a facilitator, not an administrative asistant.) - Provides a non hostile and friendly environment that encourages collaboration and interaction. What do you think? Ramon Suarez Serendipity Accelerator, Betacowork Author: http://coworkinghandbook.com email hangouts: ra...@betacowork.com Phone: +3227376769 GSM: +32497556284 Twitter:http://twitter.com/ramonsuarez Skype: ramonsuarez Try coworking: http://betacowork.com http://betacowork.com/free-coworking-tryout/?utm_source=emailutm_medium=468x60_bannerutm_content=girl-homeutm_campaign=ramon-signature -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Basic elements for a definition of coworking
If we can find neutral language to highlight distinctions like this it would go a long way to that goal of finding like-minded spaces and filling our communities with happy members.” I don’t think that more neutral language is what we need. In fact, I think we need the opposite. The restaurant industry has fine dining and fast food, regional cuisines, varying price points, etc. But people need to have terms like “fast food” and “korean BBQ” to narrow down what they’re looking for. I know that this sounds like fragmentation, which freaks a lot of people out. I think this is HEALTHY fragmentation, though, like this: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/07/theres-never-only-one-community/ It doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends, or even help each other, but I’m firmly convinced that having some more narrow specific terminology to add to add to the more neutral term ‘coworking’ is going to help the industry, not hurt it. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:16 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Tricky business for sure. One factor I've been looking more and more at is the motivations and intentions of the champions behind each community, or said another way, why the space was started in the first place. There are many conversations that come up again and again that, with hindsight, I can see are just a miss-match of intentions. For example the Open one space or many spaces conversation. It's a perfectly reasonable motivation to want to open multiple spaces and have a wide reach and impact. I personally started Office Nomads because I want a home and a community I want to be a member of. Understanding this helps me see why it doesn't make sense for us to make a chain of Office Nomads, and also why it's a waste of everyone's time to argue about this. If we can find neutral language to highlight distinctions like this it would go a long way to that goal of finding like-minded spaces and filling our communities with happy members. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500 On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: I’m pretty sure that Emergent Research has a rubric they use for when they do their research for their annual report, but I can’t remember exactly what is on it. Having some consistency with that would probably be helpful! I think it had some of the items you described, but it was a lot more specific with many of the attributes. Hopefully Steve can chime in! I used to be more opinionated about self-describing as “coworking” and the regular mis-use of the term, but I’ve become more and more comfortable with the idea that the word coworking is as specific as the word “restaurant”, which doesn’t really describe much on its own. I’d love to see more maps (including the one you’re putting together) display with more detail what people can expect. It’s more important that people find a place that makes them happy and productive than anything else…and reducing that to “coworking” is like reducing fine dining french restaurants and mcdonalds to “restaurant”. *Technically* accurate, but not really helpful. Related, this recent post caught my eye (I think Liz posted it from the GCUC account): http://www.cloudvirtualoffice.com/blog/a-coworking-safari/ I’m especially interested in the things vary widely, really impact the experience, but are hardest to really quantify: things like “ambiance” and noise level are such relative descriptions, so the source matters a lot, too! Who’s doing the describing: the owner? The members? Visitors? In a lot of cases, their descriptions vary quite a bit. To that point, even “non-hostile friendly” is relative. It’s become a common theme that I hear from coworkers who visit startup-centric coworking spaces that the only time people talk to each other is when they’re pitching their startup. For some people, that’s non-hostile and friends but for others, it’s their worst nightmare. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Ramon Suarez ra...@betacowork.com wrote: Hi everyone, I'm working on a definition of Coworking to make it easier to choose who to include in the map of coworking spaces in Belgium http://coworkingbelgium.be/belgium-coworking-spaces-map. I know it can be a controversial subject and I don't want to start a flamewar, but I would like to have your feedback on the basic elements to build this definition. I think it could also be helpful to make it easier to explain to our potential customers and journalists. In my definition a Coworking space : - Calls itself a coworking space. - Has a fully dedicated espace for cowoking (not just a few hours or a cafeteria shared with patrons). - Treats coworkers as 1st class clients, not as a lesser kind to fill unused space. - Has somebody dedicated to connect the members (a facilitator
Re: [Coworking] Basic elements for a definition of coworking
Likening another space to a fast food joint is a little less neutral.” Lots of people love fast food and don’t think of it as derogatory at all. Again - the source matters. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:38 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Ah let me clarify. By neutral I didn't mean less specific I meant less hostile or actually more open to the difference. Using terms like Korean BBQ is a good example of this as it's not derogatory. Likening another space to a fast food joint is a little less neutral. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500 On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 10:24 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: If we can find neutral language to highlight distinctions like this it would go a long way to that goal of finding like-minded spaces and filling our communities with happy members.” I don’t think that more *neutral* language is what we need. In fact, I think we need the opposite. The restaurant industry has fine dining and fast food, regional cuisines, varying price points, etc. But people need to have terms like “fast food” and “korean BBQ” to narrow down what they’re looking for. I know that this sounds like fragmentation, which freaks a lot of people out. I think this is HEALTHY fragmentation, though, like this: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/07/theres-never-only-one-community/ It doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends, or even help each other, but I’m firmly convinced that having some more narrow specific terminology to add to add to the more neutral term ‘coworking’ is going to help the industry, not hurt it. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:16 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Tricky business for sure. One factor I've been looking more and more at is the motivations and intentions of the champions behind each community, or said another way, why the space was started in the first place. There are many conversations that come up again and again that, with hindsight, I can see are just a miss-match of intentions. For example the Open one space or many spaces conversation. It's a perfectly reasonable motivation to want to open multiple spaces and have a wide reach and impact. I personally started Office Nomads because I want a home and a community I want to be a member of. Understanding this helps me see why it doesn't make sense for us to make a chain of Office Nomads, and also why it's a waste of everyone's time to argue about this. If we can find neutral language to highlight distinctions like this it would go a long way to that goal of finding like-minded spaces and filling our communities with happy members. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500 On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: I’m pretty sure that Emergent Research has a rubric they use for when they do their research for their annual report, but I can’t remember exactly what is on it. Having some consistency with that would probably be helpful! I think it had some of the items you described, but it was a lot more specific with many of the attributes. Hopefully Steve can chime in! I used to be more opinionated about self-describing as “coworking” and the regular mis-use of the term, but I’ve become more and more comfortable with the idea that the word coworking is as specific as the word “restaurant”, which doesn’t really describe much on its own. I’d love to see more maps (including the one you’re putting together) display with more detail what people can expect. It’s more important that people find a place that makes them happy and productive than anything else…and reducing that to “coworking” is like reducing fine dining french restaurants and mcdonalds to “restaurant”. *Technically* accurate, but not really helpful. Related, this recent post caught my eye (I think Liz posted it from the GCUC account): http://www.cloudvirtualoffice.com/blog/a-coworking-safari/ I’m especially interested in the things vary widely, really impact the experience, but are hardest to really quantify: things like “ambiance” and noise level are such relative descriptions, so the source matters a lot, too! Who’s doing the describing: the owner? The members? Visitors? In a lot of cases, their descriptions vary quite a bit. To that point, even “non-hostile friendly” is relative. It’s become a common theme that I hear from coworkers who visit startup-centric coworking spaces that the only time people talk to each other is when they’re pitching their startup. For some people, that’s non-hostile and friends but for others, it’s their worst nightmare. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Ramon Suarez ra...@betacowork.com wrote: Hi everyone, I'm working on a definition of Coworking to make it easier to choose who
Re: [Coworking] Basic elements for a definition of coworking
Case in point: WITHIN the fast food industry, they refer to themselves as “QSRs” or “Quick Service Restaurants”. Sometimes it’s “Fast Casual”. That industry by itself is huge and diverse, even as a subset of the larger restaurant industry. http://www.qsrmagazine.com/ http://www.qsrweb.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_food_restaurant But tell me one time that you’ve heard someone dining at Micky D’s call it “Fast Casual” :) -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Likening another space to a fast food joint is a little less neutral.” Lots of people love fast food and don’t think of it as derogatory at all. Again - the source matters. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:38 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Ah let me clarify. By neutral I didn't mean less specific I meant less hostile or actually more open to the difference. Using terms like Korean BBQ is a good example of this as it's not derogatory. Likening another space to a fast food joint is a little less neutral. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500 On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 10:24 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: If we can find neutral language to highlight distinctions like this it would go a long way to that goal of finding like-minded spaces and filling our communities with happy members.” I don’t think that more *neutral* language is what we need. In fact, I think we need the opposite. The restaurant industry has fine dining and fast food, regional cuisines, varying price points, etc. But people need to have terms like “fast food” and “korean BBQ” to narrow down what they’re looking for. I know that this sounds like fragmentation, which freaks a lot of people out. I think this is HEALTHY fragmentation, though, like this: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/07/theres-never-only-one-community/ It doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends, or even help each other, but I’m firmly convinced that having some more narrow specific terminology to add to add to the more neutral term ‘coworking’ is going to help the industry, not hurt it. -Alex On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 1:16 PM, Jacob Sayles ja...@officenomads.com wrote: Tricky business for sure. One factor I've been looking more and more at is the motivations and intentions of the champions behind each community, or said another way, why the space was started in the first place. There are many conversations that come up again and again that, with hindsight, I can see are just a miss-match of intentions. For example the Open one space or many spaces conversation. It's a perfectly reasonable motivation to want to open multiple spaces and have a wide reach and impact. I personally started Office Nomads because I want a home and a community I want to be a member of. Understanding this helps me see why it doesn't make sense for us to make a chain of Office Nomads, and also why it's a waste of everyone's time to argue about this. If we can find neutral language to highlight distinctions like this it would go a long way to that goal of finding like-minded spaces and filling our communities with happy members. Jacob --- Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500 On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 9:48 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: I’m pretty sure that Emergent Research has a rubric they use for when they do their research for their annual report, but I can’t remember exactly what is on it. Having some consistency with that would probably be helpful! I think it had some of the items you described, but it was a lot more specific with many of the attributes. Hopefully Steve can chime in! I used to be more opinionated about self-describing as “coworking” and the regular mis-use of the term, but I’ve become more and more comfortable with the idea that the word coworking is as specific as the word “restaurant”, which doesn’t really describe much on its own. I’d love to see more maps (including the one you’re putting together) display with more detail what people can expect. It’s more important that people find a place that makes them happy and productive than anything else…and reducing that to “coworking” is like reducing fine dining french restaurants and mcdonalds to “restaurant”. *Technically* accurate, but not really helpful. Related, this recent post caught my eye (I think Liz posted it from the GCUC account): http://www.cloudvirtualoffice.com/blog/a-coworking-safari/ I’m especially interested in the things vary widely, really impact the experience, but are hardest to really quantify: things like “ambiance” and noise level are such relative descriptions, so the source matters a lot, too! Who’s doing the describing: the owner? The members? Visitors? In a lot of cases
Re: [Coworking] Innovation Themed Space. Thoughts?
From my experience, innovation comes at the end of a chain of events: - Innovation comes from collaboration - Collaboration comes from establishing trust, met with a common goal - Trust is established in casual, social interactions mixed with the ability to experiment with working together on low/no stakes efforts, mixed with the exchange of knowledge Which is exactly how coworking is done when it's done best. :) Innovation is often mistaken as the goal (which is why so many companies struggle with it) when on fact, it's the outcome of getting the other pieces in place. -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Abu Anas abuana...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I am relatively new here and in the process of setting up my first coworking space. Obviously I have a lot of questions and looking forward to benefit from the knowledge of the savvy space owners and managers in this group. In my online rounds of spaces I have seen many themed spaces (for example shared studios for designers or one for engineers with 3D printers and CNCs). What I am hoping to do is Innovation themed coworking space. It is not supposed to be a place where people just come to work and mingle but to innovate as well. Any ideas, thoughts or experiences to create such a place? Best regards, AbuAnas -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Innovation Themed Space. Thoughts?
I highly recommend the book where good ideas come from for a lot more historical context that backs this up: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1594485380?pc_redir=1410062587robot_redir=1 -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 10:09 AM, Jerome Chang jer...@blankspaces.com wrote: I Totally Agree Jerome www.BLANKSPACES.com On Sep 10, 2014, at 6:53 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: From my experience, innovation comes at the end of a chain of events: - Innovation comes from collaboration - Collaboration comes from establishing trust, met with a common goal - Trust is established in casual, social interactions mixed with the ability to experiment with working together on low/no stakes efforts, mixed with the exchange of knowledge Which is exactly how coworking is done when it's done best. :) Innovation is often mistaken as the goal (which is why so many companies struggle with it) when on fact, it's the outcome of getting the other pieces in place. -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Abu Anas abuana...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, I am relatively new here and in the process of setting up my first coworking space. Obviously I have a lot of questions and looking forward to benefit from the knowledge of the savvy space owners and managers in this group. In my online rounds of spaces I have seen many themed spaces (for example shared studios for designers or one for engineers with 3D printers and CNCs). What I am hoping to do is Innovation themed coworking space. It is not supposed to be a place where people just come to work and mingle but to innovate as well. Any ideas, thoughts or experiences to create such a place? Best regards, AbuAnas -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: G'day from Melbourne, Australia
Hi Lil! I’m not involved in Sean’s group at Collins Collective, but I thought I could help with your questions :) Getting people involved in the space and building a community even while we are in the build phase of this project. It sounds like you already have the space, but it’s not fitted out yet? My #1 tip here is to invite your potential members to get involved with that process as MUCH as possible. It might seem a bit scary, but the easiest thing you can do is to write down your fit-out todo list and organize it by things that need to be done by “professionals” (things like electrical, for instance, and other things that require safety and code requirements) vs. things that can be done with a little bit of creativity and elbow grease. For the things in the latter group, share that list with your prospective community and invite them to bring their interests/expertise/experiences to the table and contribute. This could be anything from painting to installing whiteboards to assembling furniture to even installing and configuring your network. You’ll still need to play a role in leading them, but the benefit is that the space turns from being a place that they’ll come into a place that they helped put together, quite literally. I like to think of it like a modern day “barn raising” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_raising), which was both a functional process of installing a new barn but also a community experience that involved people from the community across generations, disciplines, etc. Managing memberships - the amount of members vs the amount of chairs. How have you been tracking how members use the space and how many members you can sign up? I wrote a bit in here about how we manage this. A lot of people overthink this, and it’s much simpler than people think: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/A9AdyeFAsSQ/k5gDNidJk2oJ Basic rule of thumb is that a full time desk can only be used by one member, and flex desks can be shared by an average of 4+ members (depending on your membership spread, of course, so your milage may vary). Do all of your members have 24/7 access? And for those that do can you recommend an access system? Nope, more on how we handle that here: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/07/the-neighborhood-watch-method-for-coworking-space-security/ If there are any other do's and don'ts you could throw my way that you've learnt since you started it would be greatly appreciated. Definitely peruse this list’s archives - I’ve been here answering questions for a while ;) I’ve also got a lot of more specific articles on my blog, http://dangerouslyawesome.com Good luck and definitely keep us posted on your community in Melbourne! I got to visit there for the Coworking Australia conference early last year and absolutely loved that city, it reminded me a lot of my favorite things about Philadelphia :) -Alex -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Membership Agreements/Contracts
If you have an empty-space problem (that is, nobody wants to pay to be alone in a space) you can short-circuit that by having some limited run free coworking like Andy did here: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/06/how-i-turned-an-empty-coworking-space-into-a-coworking-community/ BUT make sure there’s a clear difference between “free” and what you intend to charge for. http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2010/06/a-case-against-free-trial-coworking/ When we soft-opened, we had a limited period of time that coworking would be free (it was a couple of weeks) while we were still putting furniture together, getting the network up and running, etc. A lot of the folks who came by actually helped out before they sat down to get some work done, but that’s the expectation we set. Those people weren’t just coming in to “try out coworking for free,” they were coming to be a part of the barn-raising process of launching a new space. There was a finite date where coworking would no longer be free, and we’d be “mostly” put together (that is, more put together than we were a couple of weeks before that). -Alex On Sun, Sep 7, 2014 at 2:01 AM, Jorge Vargas jo...@coworking.do wrote: I may be reading this too late but I'll advice you against it. You want to have *free* day passes when you open so when other people come they will see that your space is not empty. That worked marvelously for us. You will be surprise how many people love it and sign up for the monthly plans even before the free day passes are over. Also agreed 100% with Alex, you need to get them to fell like they belong not charging them a fee. To this day we do that as well. If you are new stick around enjoy the vibre, wanna pay your day pass sure, we'll take your cash. On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 11:49 AM, Alex Hillman dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com wrote: Jessica, Are you looking for something specifically for drop ins, or for memberships? For people who drop in/tour Indy Hall, we focus on making them feel welcome and understand what they’re experiencing rather than worrying about “agreements”. Bombarding them with legal jargon and rules doesn’t really send the message of “hey, this is something you can participate in!” Everybody gets this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/agh11gnvbwvl9yl/%5BWEB%5D%20NewMemberHandout.pdf?dl=0 which provides some basic information but also sets some expectations with our “House rules”: Look after yourself, Look after each other, Look after this place. When members actually *join *Indy Hall, they get this membership agreement which explains, in plain english, the expectations of being a member. http://dangerouslyawesome.com/snaps/screencapture-hello-indyhall-org-join.png -Alex On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 11:25 AM, Jessica Hill jessicarenee.h...@gmail.com wrote: *Hello Everyone, * *Our coworking space is opening up on September 2nd. We are only doing a walk in daily rate for the month of September; no monthly or weekly plans. We'd like to have some sort of loose membership agreement. Does anyone happen to have an agreement they would like to share? Or any suggestions. It would be helpful. * *Jessica Hill* *Co-Owner of Rise Center* *Facebook: www.facebook.com/NLRiseCenter http://www.facebook.com/NLRiseCenter* -- 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. -- 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.
Re: [Coworking] Re: Co-working as the future of work?
There might be slight confusion around and you can encounter anomalies where hot-desking or random business networking are identified with coworking (most directories don't make differences, throwing everything in). This is why Indy Hall doesn’t use any directory sites for finding members. http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/09/finding-coworking/ Dozens of commodity services create competing directories to sell commodity desks while everyone races to the bottom chasing easy money”. Meanwhile nobody is daring enough to try to highlight the communities inside and help people find their tribes. It’s sad. -- 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.
