Serendipity, Weak Ties and Collisions

[Steve King]

The Startup Revolution Starts With You is an interesting article that sort of reviews a new book - Startup Communities -  by VC Brad Feld. It talks about the importance of 3 key things in the creation of a startup community (which he defines as a geographic area like a city, not a coworking community):

1. Collisions - "those amazing, productive times when people who don't run in the same circles meet and connect".  

2. Mobility - which greatly increases the number of collisions.

3. Density - meaning the more folks there are, the more likely they are to have collisions.

These are new/different terms for things that have been often pointed out in the past.  Collisions are, of course, a lot like the way serendipity is used in the coworking world.  And all of these are based on weak tie connections.  

This book and article are another example of the growing number of sources talking about the importance of place.  The New Geography of Jobs is another example, and well worth reading.  

This is just an FYI because I think these sources provide good information on why coworking communities are good for business:).

[Alex Hillman]

Someone just pointed out Brad Feld's "Boulder Thesis" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3vVX9TmaU18#) to me this morning and I was pleasantly surprised to find how much of it is in line with what we've built the Masterclass's patterns around. This isn't just for "startup" communities, of course, it's a pattern for community development in general. The ecosystem approach is why these patterns thrive.

New Geography for Jobs is new to me though - thanks so much for that reference!

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/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

building a community? http://masterclass.indyhall.org

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[Blue Ocean Innovation Center, Bozeman Montana]

Just did a blog post on "planned serendipity" and talk about Jobs and his redesign of Pixar from 3 buildings to one with a large atrium.  Brad Feld was just in Missoula, MT - he's awesome.  Was at an Entrepreneur meetup this morning for 3 hours to make those collisions...have two new coworkers because of it and their communities as prospects.  The U-tube on Feld was good.  Thanks. Becky

[John Saddington]

love this, thanks for the great link!