Coworking website that isn't a wiki?

21 views
Skip to first unread message

nickf

unread,
Nov 6, 2008, 7:41:04 PM11/6/08
to Coworking
This may be a silly question but I am wondering why there isn't an
official public facing coworking website that isn't a wiki or a blog?
I know we have the great discussion list and an cool wiki packed with
information... but, well, a wiki isn't so easy to navigate and the
content that one might be looking for is sorta spread about the wiki
and such.

I am wondering if it's time to build a public facing website to cater
to audiences who may not understand wikis, blogs, and discussion group
systems? Or at the very least a site with basic content on coworking
that is geared towards the press, potential coworkers, potential space
catalyst, etc.

Something with simple architecture that answers the basic questions
of:
- What is coworking?
- Who came up with the idea of coworking?
- Why has coworking caught on so well?
- Where can I find a coworking space in my area?
- What type of people cowork?
- What does it take to start a coworking space?
- Who can I contact if I have a question about coworking?
- What coworking resources are out there?
....All questions that can be answered on the wiki or here in the
discussion group, but I just feel like the wiki doesn't provide the
ideal user experience for the media and potential renters and space
owners to really grasp the full scope of coworking and the breath at
which it extends to.

This question came to me as I was doing an interview with the local
press today who seemed to be be pretty oblivious to the whole
international movement and lacking I site I could really point them to
to get the gist really quick.

Full disclose, yes I am a user experience professional that creates
websites all day, but I am not looking to land a project like this for
myself. I don't have a personal interest in promotion or gaining a
cool project. I don't care who would build or design it. I am simply
asking the question because I see it as a hurdle here for dealing with
non-technical people on the outside of the coworking community.

Am I crazy here? Has this already been discussed before (sorry, I
didn't find any threads on this)? Is this a sore spot? What were the
reasons behind not doing this? Did I just step into a holy war
topic? :P


Cheers,
- Nick (A newbie space owner, be gentle)

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 6, 2008, 9:02:37 PM11/6/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Great idea! And we have been down this road before. Our official site is actually the blog: http://coworking.info but I've sketched out stuff for an official coworking site (about a year and a half ago):


Still looking to do that sorta thing. ;)

T
--
--
tara 'missrogue' hunt

Book: The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business (http://www.amazon.com/Whuffie-Factor-Capital-Winning-Communities/dp/0307409503?ie=UTF8)
Company: Citizen Agency (http://www.citizenagency.com)
Blog: HorsePigCow: Marketing Uncommon (http://www.horsepigcow.com)
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/missrogue
phone: 415-694-1951
fax: 415-727-5335

nickf

unread,
Nov 6, 2008, 9:22:45 PM11/6/08
to Coworking


On Nov 6, 6:02 pm, "Tara Hunt" <horsepig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Great idea! And we have been down this road before. Our official site is
> actually the blog:http://coworking.infobut I've sketched out stuff for an
> official coworking site (about a year and a half ago):http://flickr.com/photos/missrogue/sets/72157600017335084/
>
> Still looking to do that sorta thing. ;)

When I try to access http://coworking.info/ it redirects me to
http://blog.coworking.info/ was the intent that www. would be the core
public site and blog. would be the blog? I like what I see in the
sketches. I think with the number of coworking colleagues who do web
stuff we could get this rolling. What happened to that movement? Did
it just stall due to lack of time or something else?

- Nick

Tony Bacigalupo

unread,
Nov 6, 2008, 9:27:13 PM11/6/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
This actually gets right to the heart of a weakness in a large starfish organization such as this one, which has been touched on before, which is how to decide on something like this.

No doubt, the coworking movement would benefit from a better "landing page" for people new to the movement who have yet to grow accustomed to the wiki / blog / google group. I can still recall struggling to understand it all when I first discovered it.

That said, creating something that is the central, official spot is difficult. We had a good long spirited discussion about the "official" definition of coworking, but did not end up making any decisions in the end on whether to update it. 

As I understand it, a couple of people like Tara and Chris and others have direct control over things like the blog and the wiki's design and structure, and they're people I think we would largely trust to continue to do right by the movement in implementing a new design (with, of course, our input along the way), but, they're also probably the least likely to have time to allocate for doing so :-)

So we'd need someone to step up and take leadership on it.

nickf

unread,
Nov 6, 2008, 10:12:23 PM11/6/08
to Coworking


On Nov 6, 6:27 pm, "Tony Bacigalupo" <tonybacigal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As I understand it, a couple of people like Tara and Chris and others have
> direct control over things like the blog and the wiki's design and
> structure, and they're people I think we would largely trust to continue to
> do right by the movement in implementing a new design (with, of course, our
> input along the way), but, they're also probably the least likely to have
> time to allocate for doing so :-)
>
> So we'd need someone to step up and take leadership on it.

I think you hit the nail on the head, Tony.

If there is one thing I have learned through being involved in large
collaborative groups of people its that every group needs a leader of
sorts. They may not be the person who rolls up their sleeves and does
the heavy lifting, they just need to be the decision maker.

Even if Tara, Chris, and whoever else who may be administrating the
sites and tools don't see themselves as the leaders, the perception of
this community seems to tell me we see them as the individuals in
charge. It doesn't me we need to have a hierarchy to our structure,
but we need someone to be the decision makers. W

e also need people to lead various efforts, someone who has time to
properly lead them if we want them to get done. The people that do the
heavy lifting can look to the project leads for direction, and the
group leaders for making the tough decisions.

My 2 cents anyway.

- Nick

Ryan Price

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 12:38:35 AM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
I like the idea from the whiteboard that there will be a space for the
nascent groups to have a discussion (a la meetup.com's feature for
groups that don't exist, minus the paywall).

Also, being able to tag yourself - as an organizer, a casual
participant, or someone who just likes to be social. I think folks on
the list often fall into the catalyst/organizer/thought leader realm,
but there are a lot more people out there who just want these spaces
to exist so they can get to work in the right environment.

Also, is there a "Coworking Planet" right now? Sometimes watching an
aggregated feed is much easier than maintaining your own list of
blogs. How about http://friendfeed.com/rooms/coworking for a start?

If there's going to be some sort of an IRC brainstorm or Skype chat I
can sit in on for the coworking site, please put me on that short
list. I would be overjoyed to be a part of such a noble project as
selling the world on coworking and connecting people who want to work
together.

Peace,
Ryan Price
ryanpricemedia.com
@liberatr

Darrell Silver

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 1:16:40 AM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com, Amit Gupta
I've grown to think that a written description of coworking doesn't sufficiently capture what most spaces and coworking sessions engender.  The more people I talk to, most recently Ian in Ottawa, and Pat & Dan from Montreal, the more I realize that the value in coworking is in discovering it through experience, especially given the different character of different spaces.  

This is all a way of saying that a central definition has value but may feel unclear to a newbe before actually showing up in person at a space. Thus, that's our challenge.  Why not put more time into the website?  But IMHO the best way to get people on board is to get them to show up at events like Jelly and the like, which have a very low barrier to entry. 

To improve the definition of coworking, perhaps tale a look at what amit et al have got over at workatjelly.com.

D

nickf

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 3:28:52 AM11/7/08
to Coworking
Ok, my apologies. Somehow this thread got turned into "defining what
coworking is" and "what features the website should have"... don't get
me wrong, those are all great discussion that should happen, however,
I want to take this thread back to my original point of a simple
website that helps communicate coworking to the media and first time
visitors, etc. People who don't have any idea what "coworking" is and
want to learn just the basics.

How we write the actual definition and content that goes onto the site
is another discussion in it's entirety.. same can be said about what
features or tools should exist for coworking... tho I would argue that
those tools are not specifically something that should be introduced
to first time visitors and the press. What we're starting to do here,
I am afraid, is solutioneer... putting the solution before we fully
explore the problem. The problem here has two parts 1) clarity in the
concept to non versed individuals and 2) ease of use in finding that
information.

If we look at those problems in detail we'll get a little further
along to defining the goals of such a website, then, and only then can
we bring various solutions to the table for consideration and vet them
against the goals of the site. If they don't match up then we need to
consider a different solution. This will help us keep whatever
solution we come up with down to a manageable and achievable size. We
don't need to over engineer this or have some grandiose site with the
worlds most perfect definition of what coworking is.. we just need a
site that media and the first time users can use, read and understand.

- Nick

Ryan Price

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 8:05:56 AM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Completely agreed, Nick. The uninitiated should be the first priority.
The blog and this list serve the people who know what's going on, for
now.

Sorry to jump the gun, but Tara's whiteboard excited a part of my
brain that tends to run away with those solutions.

I just want to list my support, and for what it's worth, my time.

Peace,
Ryan

Alex Hillman

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 9:44:29 AM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
So, many of us agree that defining coworking without experiencing it is extraordinarily difficult. In fact, I just finished a draft for a post on mashable to that point. But that's another story...

Prior to IndyHall opening, having a full blown website for us wasn't really practical. We started with a wiki, but most people didn't know how to use it. Gardening it was a pain in the ass, too.

Having our own site wasn't practical for the main reason that I was busier out working the crowd, and my care for blogging outside of my personal site was minimal. The other thing was, MY perspective was important, but limited. The real value was finding ways for the community we were cultivating to be showcased.

Tara's Coworkination mockups addess this issue the same way that I addressed ours: I built a very basic homepage that pulled in feeds from flickr, feeds from technorati about coworking and indyhall, and feeds from our google group. This showed constant activity from within the community to the outside community of newbs, and had a "always fresh" look without me needing to do any work.

I STRONGLY propose this direction for two reasons:

1) once it's built, it's not very much work. Minor tweaking of feeds, etc. I suggest that there is some gardening because tag-based feeds WILL be exploited with spam and innappropriate stuff...it didn't take long for it to happen with us. But most importantly,
2) it addresses what I said in the first line of this email: explaining coworking is HARD. SHOWING what coworking is does a much better job. It's the hook.

I personally love this direction enough to be willing to project lead the initial prototype. What I need from everyone else are the feeds that we should aggrigate. I'd like to start simple: all of the individual coworking site blogs should get pulled in, this google group, and flickr photos tagged coworking.

What I won't let this becomes is a design-by-committee project. That's the biggest scare of approaching this project when the community has grown to this size. If anyone has suggestions for how to approach THAT issue, I'm open minded.

-Alex

-Alex

--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org

Tony Bacigalupo

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 9:50:02 AM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
What I won't let this becomes is a design-by-committee project. That's the biggest scare of approaching this project when the community has grown to this size. If anyone has suggestions for how to approach THAT issue, I'm open minded.

I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking the best chance is to declare who's in charge of what, and dare the rest of us to disagree.

We can all have input and feedback, but we should entrust someone with the power to make the final cut.

pa...@arbotek.com

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 10:36:01 AM11/7/08
to Coworking


I can't wait to meet some of you guys.... Alex I need to come up to
Philly soon on some of my other business issues...I'll let you know so
I can put some faces to names!

I completely 2nd what Alex is saying.

1 question i have is are you still talking about the coworking general
page? Or a template for all of our pages?

Alex Hillman

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 10:42:24 AM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Paul, you're welcome anytime.

We're talking about a general coworking landing page.

-Alex

--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org



Jacob Sayles

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 12:54:25 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Nick,

So happy to have you onboard! To paraphrase what everyone has said in
my words, the first trick is drilling down to the core need, and
finding a solution that serves that specifically. Take the visa
program for example. There are LOTS of things we COULD do and the
discussion quickly turned into grand ideas like a unified member
database and billing system... With a group this large and disparate
that's a recipe for project crib-death. In the end, a simple list of
participating spaces is all we needed. Once we've figured out WHAT we
are building then we can try and work on WHO is going to build it, and
HOW it will be maintained over time. We are awash in amazing,
talented people so I'm confident we can make this happen.

Jacob

P.S. Your space looks great and thank you for inviting me to the news interview.

On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 4:41 PM, nickf <nick...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

--
Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation
http://www.officenomads.com - (206) 323-6500

noel hidalgo

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 1:40:08 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
ah... coworking nation? it seems like we've been talking about this
for years... i'm all for it and would love to point a sub-domain of
coworking.info to a staging server (if needed).

also, i just realized that the pbwiki isn't resolving to
wiki.coworking.info. anyone one of the wiki admins care to take a
crack at this? if so, email me off the list.

noneck
--
[ play ] http://noneck.org
[ travel ] http://luckofseven.com

[ email/jabber/aim ] noel[a]noneck.org
[ sms ] +1.937.218.2422
[ skype ] nonecknoel

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 1:41:43 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
I get the pbwiki by typing wiki.coworking.info ... it may have been a glitch.

T

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 1:43:31 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
That would be amazing, Ryan! It's still my dream to get that coworkination site done. sigh.

Alex Hillman

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 2:26:16 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Hooray, progress!!

Noel, how about this. I'll donate some space on my VPS.

Can you point nation.coworking.info to ns1.weknowhtml.com and ns2.weknowhtml.com

Baby steps!!


-Alex

--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org



Alex Hillman

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 2:58:58 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
I had a moment of hesitation about the term "nation", thinking it might be viewed as limited to the US efforts, or those of any specific terrestrial nation.

Then I checked Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

A nation is a human cultural and social community.

So yeah. nation.coworking.info sounds about as appropriate as it could possibly be.


-Alex

--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org



nickf

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 4:54:09 PM11/7/08
to Coworking
On Nov 7, 11:58 am, "Alex Hillman" <dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I had a moment of hesitation about the term "nation", thinking it might be
> viewed as limited to the US efforts, or those of any specific terrestrial
> nation.

I have to say I agree with Alex here. Nation really doesn't encompass
it, even tho I know that is what this project was previously referred
to. It is truly a international or global effort. I'd hate for us to
get bogged down with the name now that we just started getting
momentum. I would propose keeping it simple. www. could be the site
and it could just be called "coworking" ...it will, of course, link to
all the tools and resources out there like the discussion list, wiki,
blog, map, and more.

So the domain layout would be:
- www.coworking.info
- blog.coworking.info
- wiki.coworking.info

for that matter we could put some redirects (if we really wanted to,
but lets not get ahead of ourselves):
- discuss.coworking.info -> http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/
- map.coworking.info -> http://tinyurl.com/coworkingmap

- Nick

Alex Hillman

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 5:06:05 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
No no! You misread what I said.

Nation DOES encompass what we are! We're a nation (A nation is a human cultural and social community) that bridges the terrestrial nations!


-Alex

--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org



nickf

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 5:11:14 PM11/7/08
to Coworking
On Nov 7, 9:54 am, "Jacob Sayles" <ja...@officenomads.com> wrote:
> Once we've figured out WHAT we
> are building then we can try and work on WHO is going to build it, and
> HOW it will be maintained over time.  We are awash in amazing,
> talented people so I'm confident we can make this happen.

I agree. We do need to define who will be doing what, etc. To keep
things simple here are the roles I see we need*:

- Project Lead to manage the overall project
- Information Architect to define the structure of the site and pages
- Copywriter to write the content for the site if needed
- Web Designer to create the visual design of the site
- Front-End Web Developer to build the XHTML/CSS pages and perhaps
some of JavaScript/AJAX (if needed)
- Back-End Web Developer to code the pages if needed, API integration,
setup the CMS (if we need one), etc
- Server/Host Admin to manage and maintain the server
- Web Curator to maintain the site long term, delete any spam, address
bugs found later on, etc

* Note: these rolls could be combined depending on the skills of the
individual volunteering to take on these rolls, I often find designers
who can do front-end dev, or backend-devs who like to do front-end dev
as well, etc. Certainly we don't need to have one person per roll, in
fact I would like to see the team be as small as possible but
effective.

That said, any takers? :) I'd put my name in the hat for IA unless
someone else also wants to do it. I'd put my name in for project lead
but I feel there are probably others out there with more experience
and understanding of coworking than I have.


> P.S. Your space looks great and thank you for inviting me to the news interview.

No problem, I am hoping this local news coverage brings more exposure
to all of coworking in Seattle and beyond. It was great to have you
there with your experience answering the questions I couldn't as a
newbie coworking space owner.

- Nick

Alex Hillman

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 5:19:02 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
I'm concerned this is a severe overcomplication of  the needs for producing the simple "site" that is needed as a landing for coworking newbs.

An 8 person team to build 1 or two page site is not something I'm comfortable getting involved with. I know how those projects go, and it's not a productive environment.


-Alex
--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org



Alex Hillman

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 5:24:52 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Nick,
I think we've identified here the intrinsic problem with creating the project we're talking about: it begins to turn our lovely starfish into a spider.

This isn't as easy as identifying team roles, having people step up, and produce something.

-Alex

--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org



Tony Bacigalupo

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 5:31:58 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
For what it's worth, if we would be happy building a simple landing page to introduce people to coworking and how to learn more and how to get involved, then we don't need it to be centralized-- just visible.

That's what I had in mind when I bought whatiscoworking.com (which currently just sports an inside joke as a placeholder). 

It can exist separate from the central movement, but loosely joined, and perhaps referred to at the top of the wiki and blog ("new to coworking? click here")

Very simple:

1. What is coworking? (Recommendation: don't define it, describe it. Sidestep that landmine.)
2. How do I get started?
3. How do I help organize?

We already have these resources started on the wiki, so I think it's more a matter of presentation. Properly holding people's hands through understanding what coworking is about.

Wouldn't be half bad to have something like wtfistwitter.com too, and have multiple perspectives.

T


On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Alex Hillman <dangerous...@gmail.com> wrote:

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 5:54:34 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Ooooo...I like the wtfistwitter.com thing. We could all record on 12seconds.tv or viddler.com or seesmic.com or the like and put them up there. :)

Tony Bacigalupo

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 5:57:11 PM11/7/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
I'd be happy to donate whatiscoworking.com to it...

patrick...@gmail.com

unread,
Nov 7, 2008, 9:09:09 PM11/7/08
to Coworking
HI,

I've been loosely involved in Île Sans Fil, a free wireless community
group here in Montréal for a few years and just the few messages I've
seen in this trend remind me of what happened there for years. As
Nick's second message to the thread higlights, were are already
diverging into multiple discussions and if we aren't careful it can
quickly get worse and we all lose interest and/or run out of available
time to deal with it.

What I would suggest is:

- If the blog is on wordpress.com, switch it to our own install of
WordPress on a shared host space.
- Come up with a simple minimalistic design, something that's nice and
clean but not too flashy or in too radical a design direction, so has
to maximize our chances to agree on something.
- Configure that new WordPress to have the blog on a subpage and a
"static" frontpage.
- Start wiki pages or Google docs to write up and collaborate on a few
pages, Nick's outline is a very good start.
- Once the design and new WordPress install are ready, integrate the
content using WordPress pages.
- That's it. Quick, rather painless and that way we don't mix up too
many discussions about direction, features and semantics. I think such
a site would be a big improvement on our first impression making and
can super easily be edited if we want to keep fine tuning our content
and the way we present the movement.

In a phase 2, then, we can get into longer discussions about other
features and more detailed content. I think something like Drupal
could then be envisioned, with planet like aggregation, member
profile, space profiles, mapping of spaces based on those profiles.
(The member and places profiles can also serve for the visa program.)


Patrick
station-c.com

(I wrote this on the train back from NY, overlaps some of what has
been said while I was offline but I thought I'd post it anyway)

nickf

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 4:57:09 AM11/8/08
to Coworking
On Nov 7, 2:19 pm, "Alex Hillman" <dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> An 8 person team to build 1 or two page site is not something I'm
> comfortable getting involved with. I know how those projects go, and it's
> not a productive environment.

I may have not communicated clearly. I am not saying we should have a
8 person team. I am saying those are the essential roles we need. It
could be a 2 person team if the individuals involved can wear more
than one hat. I am all in favor of keeping it as small as possible as
I stated in my last message.

I do feel strongly that we need a skilled designer, not a web person
who can kind of do design. I also feel we need an IA, and not just
cause that is what I like to do :) I feel we need these two things
because if we dont we're endanger of building a site that is no better
than what we already have: a technical system that is confusing to use
and not well designed for a optimal user experience.

Just my 2 cents, take em or leave em.
- Nick

nickf

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 5:02:58 AM11/8/08
to Coworking
On Nov 7, 2:24 pm, "Alex Hillman" <dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Nick,
> I think we've identified here the intrinsic problem with creating the
> project we're talking about: it begins to turn our lovely starfish into a
> spider.
>
> This isn't as easy as identifying team roles, having people step up, and
> produce something.

It's certainly not going to be easy and we absolutely must avoid
decision by committee. I do think, however, if we can put together a
small, for the lack of a better metaphor, SWAT team for this project
and not over-engineer it we'll be able to get something together that
at the very least solves a few core communication problems with the
existing tool set and can be refined later if needed. I don't see
this as a end-all-be-all website and I don't see this site lasting
forever, i just see it as as reasonable solution to the problems at
hand for the time being given the resources we have and the complexity
of the problems themselves.

- Nick

nickf

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 5:19:15 AM11/8/08
to Coworking
On Nov 7, 2:31 pm, "Tony Bacigalupo" <tonybacigal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> For what it's worth, if we would be happy building a simple landing page to
> introduce people to coworking and how to learn more and how to get involved,
> then we don't need it to be centralized-- just visible.

Exactly, tho based on my understanding of the content that will be
needed for this, it's probably going to involve a few pages... but we
may be able to make it work on a single page.. we'll see.


> That's what I had in mind when I bought whatiscoworking.com (which currently
> just sports an inside joke as a placeholder).

That's a pretty good domain... and we could use it... tho I still
think the core publisized URL should be simply www.coworking.info


> It can exist separate from the central movement, but loosely joined, and
> perhaps referred to at the top of the wiki and blog ("new to coworking?
> click here")

I was thinking of somewhat the inverse of that, provide some basic
high level content then link to the resources that already exist on
the wiki and in the discussion group for more information. We just
need to point people to the right information and make sure its
presented in a fashion that is easy to understand.

> Very simple:
>
> 1. What is coworking? (Recommendation: don't define it, describe it.
> Sidestep that landmine.)
> 2. How do I get started?
> 3. How do I help organize?

I would add a few more, mostly associated with the issue that I ran
across that sparked the idea for me to post this very question at the
top of this thread.. those are related to us getting press coverage:

- Who can I talk to about coworking? i.e. who is our press contact?
who is the subject matter expert?, etc.
- where can I find facts about coworking? i.e. when was it founded?
who started it? how many locations & coworkers are there world wide?,
etc.
- Where can I find the coworking press releases? i.e. when a new
location launches or an event is about to occur, etc.

I don't know if these are primary items enough to justify points #4,
#5, and #6 to be added to your list.. maybe instead they are grouped
under you point #1.


> We already have these resources started on the wiki, so I think it's more a
> matter of presentation. Properly holding people's hands through
> understanding what coworking is about.

Yep, exactly... which is why I think the design and IA are very
important.


> Wouldn't be half bad to have something like wtfistwitter.com too, and have
> multiple perspectives.

haha.. hadn't seen that before. Interesting concept, it would help us
"describe" it for sure.. tho, to the press and frankly my mom.. well,
it needs to be one message that is more clear. If its confusing to
the press then how are we going to expect them to explain it to their
views; my mom? Clarity is what is needed... as much as a pain as that
may be. I do agree with your point tho, "describe" it rather than
"define" it.

- Nick

nickf

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 5:28:12 AM11/8/08
to Coworking


On Nov 7, 6:09 pm, "patrick.tang...@gmail.com"
<patrick.tang...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been loosely involved in Île Sans Fil, a free wireless community
> group here in Montréal for a few years and just the few messages I've
> seen in this trend remind me of what happened there for years. As
> Nick's second message to the thread higlights, were are already
> diverging into multiple discussions and if we aren't careful it can
> quickly get worse and we all lose interest and/or run out of available
> time to deal with it.

Exactly... lets keep it simple. If we see such a demand for some
features after it launches then we can add those later.. for now I am
thinking a handful of pages and links to the blog and wiki in a very
carefully detailed content plan.


> What I would suggest is:
>
> - If the blog is on wordpress.com, switch it to our own install of
> WordPress on a shared host space.
> - Come up with a simple minimalistic design, something that's nice and
> clean but not too flashy or in too radical a design direction, so has
> to maximize our chances to agree on something.
> - Configure that new WordPress to have the blog on a subpage and a
> "static" frontpage.
> - Start wiki pages or Google docs to write up and collaborate on a few
> pages, Nick's outline is a very good start.
> - Once the design and new WordPress install are ready, integrate the
> content using WordPress pages.
> - That's it. Quick, rather painless and that way we don't mix up too
> many discussions about direction, features and semantics. I think such
> a site would be a big improvement on our first impression making and
> can super easily be edited if we want to keep fine tuning our content
> and the way we present the movement.

Perfect. And good idea about Wordpress. And I think that others on
this thread have already voiced similar approaches. We all seem to be
on the same page here right?

> In a phase 2, then, we can get into longer discussions about other
> features and more detailed content. I think something like Drupal
> could then be envisioned, with planet like aggregation, member
> profile, space profiles, mapping of spaces based on those profiles.
> (The member and places profiles can also serve for the visa program.)

Oh no.. you used the "D-Word" ...oh my.... well, so long as I never
have to deal with it or use it, i don't mind :P Anyway, a discussion
about which CMS to use if we should do a 2nd phase of the site is,
well, a 2nd phase discussion that can happen later. :)

- Nick

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 12:25:43 PM11/8/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Hey Nick,

All of this makes me scratch my head a bit. I've been one of the MULTIPLE people behind this movement for three years now and, I think the others will agree, the following questions don't really apply:

- Who can I talk to about coworking?  i.e. who is our press contact?
who is the subject matter expert?, etc.
- where can I find facts about coworking?  i.e. when was it founded?
who started it?  how many locations & coworkers are there world wide?,
etc.
- Where can I find the coworking press releases? i.e. when a new
location launches or an event is about to occur, etc.

Why not? Well, for one - there is no CENTRAL press contact. You can actually talk to all of us on the list about coworking. Most of the press comes through individual spaces...and the people behind those individual spaces, then, may loop some of the others in (depending on what the reporter's angle is). There is no 'subject matter expert', really. No experts...just a large group of people who are still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't...and it's very individual for the region.

As for 'facts' about coworking, that's debatable, too. I have my own coworking story, I came to it through Brad Neuberg, who was running a part time drop in space in the Mission about 3.5 years ago. He coined the term Coworking for us. But it was Chris Messina who asked Brad if he didn't mind us co-opting the term and taking it wider. We started meeting up, then opened the Hat Factory with a large group (including Brad), then moved on to open up Citizen Space. But it wasn't until people around the world started opening their own space that we became a movement. And, that is only my story. In fact, the Workspace people in Vancouver were ALREADY opening a coworking space and THEN they found the group. John McCann in NYC had his space for 9 or 10 years. There isn't really a single factual story, just a collection of stories on how people found one another through the existence of a meagre wiki, blog and this Google group.

And press releases? That's so not starfishy. Spaces do their individual press outreach and the HUNDREDS of stories done on coworking over the past three years have come from: word of mouth, reporters stumbling across a random blog post, tweet or youtube video, barcamp, conferences, etc. where we hang out...blah blah blah. Not one single point of failure. Thousands of nodes of goodness.

We are now and, IMO, should always be a Starfish organization. Any way we slice this, it will alienate someone. Check through the history of this movement - we've had no issue with getting traction. And I don't really mind the fact that we aren't super mainstream yet. Slow, steady growth means that each of our spaces attract the RIGHT kinds of people. We've had very few security issues because we grow through the community.

That being said, I agree that the site could be more user-friendly. As Patrick suggested, a self-hosted install of Wordpress would be an option. The thing I don't dig about that option is: who pays for it? who hosts it? I don't want to just give one person those keys as I've been part of loosely joined groups for years and seen awful things happen when feelings are hurt. We could also, in the CURRENT Wordpress hosted site, create static pages you know. AND, we can use one of those static pages to be the homepage. Citizen Agency (Chris and I) currently pays for the WP upgrades - which are nominal, we also manage the relationship with PBWiki (a nice option because people can come along and edit that themselves without too much permission) and administer the Google group (which I've also deputized to a handful of others to help with).

So, let's try to think about this in terms of working with what we have. Even my ideas on Flickr were NOT supposed to be hosted at coworking.info, I bought the separate domain, coworkination.com, because I am cognizant that, tho I'm an early founder, I do not OWN this group and should not be able to make decisions willy-nilly on the behalf of the group. I merely shepherd it at times and serve it at other times.

Okay. That's my piece.

Tara

Tony Bacigalupo

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 6:37:55 PM11/8/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Whew, did it get hot in here? (Cue Rodney Dangerfield loosening his tie)

This thread is a perfect case study in one of a starfish organization's biggest weaknesses: collectively making a decision. I think the solution, therefore, is to avoid paths that would require the general consent of the starfish to proceed.

We can agree there's a need: some sort of landing page to help people understand what coworking is and how to get involved.

Our best shot at addressing this need is to sidestep anything that threatens to spider the starfish, keep the features to an absolute minimum to fulfill the basic need, and use existing resources as much as possible. There are already lots of great resources on the wiki to introduce people to coworking, so we don't necessarily need to start from scratch.

...

I just spent about a half an hour trying to write the next sentence, but can't quite word it right yet. I'll leave it at that for now and try to come back to it.

T



--
tara 'missrogue' hunt

Book: The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business (http://www.amazon.com/Whuffie-Factor-Capital-Winning-Communities/dp/0307409503?ie=UTF8)

axon

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 8:43:34 PM11/8/08
to Coworking
All--

I threw up a ning for Uptime so I'd have a place for people to go to
learn more about it.

Over time, folks have joined the site, not just members of Uptime, but
other people interested in it (like Ken, from Tampa, who posts here as
well).

Whenever anyone has a suggestion for the site, I just give them admin
privileges, and let them hack away.

Could something like that work for the galactic coworking community?

--Ax

On Nov 7, 2:31 pm, "Tony Bacigalupo" <tonybacigal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> For what it's worth, if we would be happy building a simple landing page to
> introduce people to coworking and how to learn more and how to get involved,
> then we don't need it to be centralized-- just visible.
> That's what I had in mind when I bought whatiscoworking.com (which currently
> just sports an inside joke as a placeholder).
>
> It can exist separate from the central movement, but loosely joined, and
> perhaps referred to at the top of the wiki and blog ("new to coworking?
> click here")
>
> Very simple:
>
> 1. What is coworking? (Recommendation: don't define it, describe it.
> Sidestep that landmine.)
> 2. How do I get started?
> 3. How do I help organize?
>
> We already have these resources started on the wiki, so I think it's more a
> matter of presentation. Properly holding people's hands through
> understanding what coworking is about.
>
> Wouldn't be half bad to have something like wtfistwitter.com too, and have
> multiple perspectives.
>
> T
>
> On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Alex Hillman
> <dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > I'm concerned this is a severe overcomplication of  the needs for producing
> > the simple "site" that is needed as a landing for coworking newbs.
>
> > An 8 person team to build 1 or two page site is not something I'm
> > comfortable getting involved with. I know how those projects go, and it's
> > not a productive environment.
>
> > -Alex
> > --
> > -----
> > --
> > -----
> > Alex Hillman
> > im always developing something
> > digital: a...@weknowhtml.com
> > visual:www.dangerouslyawesome.com
> > local:www.indyhall.org

pa...@arbotek.com

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 11:22:20 PM11/8/08
to Coworking
Wow this has become the topic of choice....lol

I think everyone that has posted has posted with thought and good
intentions. Alex I for the most agree with you, regarding making
this more complicated then it should be. There are a few people in
this community that although I've only recently begain contributing
to...i've been lurking for the last year or so..... Those would be
Alex and Tara. (and it's kind of natural as one east coast one west
coast)

Having a general open to the public "Launch Page" only benefits us as
facilitators, owners, groupies or whatever you like to call yourself.
My belief is that nobody that's posting here wants to hurt the
community....so lets move forward and trust each other, not let egos
or differences in what version 1.0 should look like get in the way.
We are all trendsetters and I embrace and value what each of you has
done to move this effort forward.

I'm good with saying Alex & Tara head it up..... task us as you need
put up coworkination or infocoworking or we bite the bullet and by
coworking.com...in any case we have to have *******coworking.com 1.0
and be open to inputs on 1.001 and 1.002 etc...

I would agree to as stated in here by folks much more eloquent then me
a site that consists of:

A few pages:

What is coworking
Why coworking
Media about coworking (focus on those that have goten video press)
Most easily accomplished by a feed from the wiki
Is coworking in your area? (either a feed from wiki or someone commits
to maintaining a list of locations)
How to join the coworking movement. (links to coworking groups)

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 8, 2008, 11:46:55 PM11/8/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Odd. I haven't heard anything about egos. I just want to be sensitive to everyone's needs here. And I want to make sure this is done right (I'm certainly not upset - just very cautious about moving forward with this).

Anyone who wants to work on this project and would like admin rights on the blog, where you can change the landing page to a blurb about coworking or a map or anything you'd like as well as add all of the pages that have been suggested, I'll upgrade you on the blog to Administrator. I don't have time to do this right now myself, but I wrote all of the content you specified on the wiki about a year ago.

One issue... "Is coworking in your area?" suggestion of a feed from the wiki just doesn't work - with wiki spam and so many spaces in progress, we've been using the Google Map (it's already in the sidebar) that everyone and anyone can add to (also an issue 'cause there are alot of non-coworking spaces on there - who is gonna manage THAT nightmare? I tried for a spell then lost track).

I've been adding the spaces to the sidebar as people request or announce on the group manually - but that doesn't work well, either.

Lemme tell you. This is a bit of a mess, but a beautiful one. There are ALOT of spammers that attack the blog, wiki and google group - and human spammers, too, who want to promote their expensive execu-offices that don't quite fit in the 'cafe like environment' we envisioned. So, part of not making this super easy has been a nice trick to keep these interests at bay...

Anyway. Unless people are reading into what I wrote before, there is no ego stuff here (this is what I hate about email - jokes don't come off as jokes and you don't hear the caution rather than the pissed-off-ed-ness in my voice), but to tell ya the truth, the ego comments do bruise my ego. ;) (that was a joke dammit)

But caution. That I am definitely feeling here. Cleaning things up and making static or automatically updating pages create administrative additions I've tried to avoid from the get-go. Just a caution...

Tara



--
--
tara 'missrogue' hunt

Book: The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business (http://www.amazon.com/Whuffie-Factor-Capital-Winning-Communities/dp/0307409503?ie=UTF8)

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 9, 2008, 12:00:27 AM11/9/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
And just 'cause I have writers block, I switched on the About page as the landing page on:

Tara Hunt

unread,
Nov 9, 2008, 12:03:46 AM11/9/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Oh...and FYI...


is where everyone is supposed to be putting their links to press (whether it is a blog or a traditional media source) about coworking. It currently feeds into the sidebar. We can make an entire page of these. An alternative is to take the Google News feed and create a page, but I get those notifications via email and there is alot of non-coworking (meaning our coworking) stuff in there, so it would produce a bunch o'crap. Which is why we use the ma.gnolia group.

T

nickf

unread,
Nov 10, 2008, 3:48:57 PM11/10/08
to Coworking
I also noticed there is a page on the wiki for this kind of content.
Rather than have people sign into more systems than they already have
to now (wiki, blog, google maps, google groups), it may be more
effective to just use the wiki for these kinds of links. What do you
think?

- Nick

P.S. Unfortunately I can't get into Magnolia for any of my past 2
accounts since the system refuses to email me my password reset
email... it claims my acocunt is "not activated yet." Sucks.


On Nov 8, 9:03 pm, "Tara Hunt" <horsepig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh...and FYI...http://ma.gnolia.com/groups/coworking

nickf

unread,
Nov 10, 2008, 4:15:06 PM11/10/08
to Coworking
Ok, I want to add five critical points to the discussion here so we
remain on track.

1) Everything that has been discussed on this thread I have largely
been in agreement with save for a few messages about scope (see below)
that were later identified as something that we can hold off on for
now. I don't feel anyone has thrown any egos into the mix, I really
value everyone's input into this little discussion and I hope you all
feel the same way about my input. What I see here is a group of
people who are passionate about this project and coworking ..however,
being passionate about something is much different than being able to
execute on something, what we need is a team (see below) to make it
happen. If we all can take a moment to get our ducks properly in a
row, we could have a new site up within a few weeks at most... which I
think is what we all want.. and I think none of us here has any intent
to cause harm to the group or to coworking, we all want coworking to
succeed, which is a great feeling to have.

2) The Scope - This does not have to be complicated, but it also
doesn't have to quickly thrown together without fully addressing the
problems that the site is intended to solve. I think we can set aside
all of the cool "features" until a future release, but I do think we
need to spend some time on the content to make sure it's all properly
worded, organized, and implemented. In short, lets not rush into this
just to get something together, lets also not over-engineer it.

3) The Message - I really do no want to overlook the press aspects of
the site. I am not talking about posting or linking to what has
already been said. I realize we're a starfish organization and there
is no one PR person to contact, however if we are ever going to get
mainstream national and international media recognition (beyond local
media) we are going to address at least some of the typical media
questions on a page. This means having a paragraph about the history
of coworking... don't assume the press will already know this. This
means having a paragraph about how to find a local coworking space
owner to refer to as a PR contact for their story... don't assume the
press will know to local at local spaces for press contacts. In
short, the press are just as important of users on the site as
potential renters or potential space owners.

4) The Domain - I really don't feel we should have to buy any new
domains or use any "branded" domain name for the new public facing
site. I really feel www.coworking.info would work fine. Why not use
what we already have? Or is there some major technical or political
problem with that domain that I am not aware of? While I like what is
going on on the blog home page as of late, I feel the blog is the
blog, what is on there right now should be on the public facing site.
The blog should show the most recent news/info/events/etc. In short,
lets keep the domain setup simple and in-line with what we already
have.

5) The Team - If someone wants to lead, or if a few people want to
lead they will have to take it upon themselves and speak up and
request to lead. I do not want us to nominate people simply because
we see them as the right people for they job. I heard a few people
step up but no one to lead it as of yet. This person will need to
commit some time leading the project. I dont think we need any more
than say 2 or 3 people to run this project, but.. and let me be super
clear here... the people who step up for this project need to actually
be able to do the work needed to finish it. I have yet to see any
commitments via this thread from Alex, Tony, and/or Tara.. and I'd
ready like to see that :) Or at least see acknowledgment of those who
do not plan to participate due to lack of time available or other
reasons. :( In short, lets keep the team super small but highly
effective.

With the above points main I hope we can all come to some sort of
agreement about how to proceed.

Thanks,
- Nick

Jeremy

unread,
Nov 21, 2008, 10:31:51 AM11/21/08
to Coworking
Hello everyone,

My name is Jeremy and I'm in the process of building some web tools
for coworking. I'm really pumped about the ideas surrounding
coworking, and I think some simple web tools can lower some of the
barriers to getting started or getting involved. The quicker the
coworking ideas can spread, build communities, and help more people
work the way they want to, the better!

This thread has been incredibly helpful for gaining some incite into
what kinds of tools make sense from both an owner perspective and
coworker perspective. I've also been talking with a local coworking
space owner to get some ideas.

I'm writing because I wanted to introduce myself and make everyone
aware of my project. I have a very early alpha now, and should have
something up that you all can demo in a several weeks. I'd like to get
as much feedback as possible, because there's no reason to build this
if its not going to be useful.

Thanks!

Jeremy

Tony Bacigalupo

unread,
Nov 21, 2008, 11:57:09 AM11/21/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
Hi Jeremy,

Cool! Will you be sharing more specifics about what you're building so we can give you some feedback along the way?

Tony
New Work City

nickf

unread,
Nov 21, 2008, 3:57:02 PM11/21/08
to Coworking
I am interested in what Jeremy is working on as well... perhaps some
of the tools could be incorporated into my wireframes for the concept*
I am drafting up?

* Don't worry, I am just doodling up some ideas that came from this
thread.

- Nick


On Nov 21, 8:57 am, "Tony Bacigalupo" <tonybacigal...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Jeremy

unread,
Nov 21, 2008, 4:13:07 PM11/21/08
to Coworking
Tony, I'll be sharing lots of specifics very soon. I did some research
with a local space owner, and will use his feedback for the first
prototype. I have a product management background, and one of thing
i've learned is that spending the energy to get a basic working
product is one of the hardest steps.

As soon as that base product is accessible, this google group will be
one of the first places to know -- alpha logins for everyone!

Jeremy

unread,
Dec 28, 2008, 3:25:11 AM12/28/08
to Coworking

quick update and a little teaser :-)

my team has been coding all this weekend and for the past couple
weeks, and beta 1 of the site is close to completion. i'll start a new
thread in the coming weeks to introduce and get feedback on the site
after it launches.

for now though, i want to offer the gist of the first two problems i'm
tackling with this site -- both are informational in nature and must
be tackled first before moving on to more tools. this first beta
serves a complimentary role to the google groups, blogs, and websites
that space owners and everyday coworkers already have. function 1 is a
hub of information on individual spaces, function 2 is aggregation of
owner and member coworker activity from the web (providing an
informational representation of the activity of the space).

before i give you the teaser, i want to share a couple tidbits
regarding the name of the site and the launch pad for my ideas. some
of my initial ideas for this kind of site came from start-up weekend
chapel hill from last year. i did not participate in the weekend, but
had a long discussion with someone who did, and subsequently acquired
the domain from the group, re-branded, and started building out some
ideas. this new app differs from the original start-up weekend idea (i
believe the original idea was to build an app to allow any owner of
office space -- law firms, start-ups, corporations, etc -- to post and
sell their unused office space). even though i've repurposed the name/
brand, i owe those guys a LOT for coming up with a great name and
idea, and I want to make sure that they are given proper credit. if
any members of that weekend (i'm pretty sure Brian from Carrboro
Creative Coworking was there) are reading this, thanks!! (and please
send me a message, i'd love to chat)

so here's the teaser ;-) enjoy...

http://www.workperch.com

Alex Hillman

unread,
Dec 28, 2008, 3:34:15 AM12/28/08
to cowo...@googlegroups.com
The "vision" youve outlined sounds rad. Looking forward to seeing the work in progress unfold!

-Alex, IndyHall, Philadelphia

--
-----
--
-----
Alex Hillman
im always developing something
digital: al...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.indyhall.org



Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages