Photographic proof: a coworking community is more than its space

[Tony Bacigalupo]

You know the whole adage about how a coworking community is something that still exists even when you burn the space down? Well, I luckily didn't have to burn New Work City's space down to prove it true. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, we faced week-long outage of power, internet and transit-- so, for all intents and purposes, we were hosed.

Luckily, large parts of Brooklyn were relatively unaffected-- including the home of the Brooklyn Brainery, an educational space run by two of the most wonderful people I have the pleasure of knowing. They're moving to a new space and opening a coworking space (hooray!), but for now, their classroom space was available for use.

They were kind enough to give me a key and show me how to run the space. Before I knew it, New Work City had a temporary home in Brooklyn. I put the word out to everyone, and it wasn't long before familiar faces were showing up in an unfamiliar place. We peaked at about 20 people on Thursday. 

New faces mixed with old, but the spirit was no different. Good coffee was discovered. Bodegas were raided. Beers were purchased. We were very much alive, despite our space being plunged into darkness across the river.

So far, nobody's complained; nobody's asked for a refund; nobody's been anything but super supportive. It's given me a whole new perspective on things. And I got to dream for a bit about having a space of my own in Brooklyn.

Cheers to community!

[Dirk Onderdonck]

Tony,

good to see that, despite of  the Sandy sorrows, NWC is going well and future-focused!

I didn’t expect it otherwise J

Congrats and see you next week in Paris

 

Dirk

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[Sam Rosen]

That's pretty rad, Tony.

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[TCS]

The world of coworking gets inspired by the perseverance and true nature of entrepreneurs.   We don't give up.  In fact we tend to give more when the waters rise. (A respectful pun)

Although most of us strive to make our place operate, look and feel great, this proves what the true draw of a genuine coworking community;  belonging trumps place of work.

Thanks Tony and we pray for all those tragically effected by Sandy.

Chad

Chad Ballantyne

705.812.0689

ch...@thecreativespace.ca

Barrie's Coworking Community

Perfect for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs.

Memberships start at $25/mth

www.thecreativespace.ca

705-812-0689

[Tony Bacigalupo]

Thanks Chad & everyone! 

There is actually a very compelling story unfolding in the storm's aftermath as not just we, but many other communities banded together to find shared space to work in. 

Existing spaces that were unaffected by the storm like Secret Clubhouse, Bitmap, Bat Haus, AlleyNYC stepped up in a big way and others opened up their offices as temporary pop-up locations for displaced workers. Coworking spaces essentially acted as a resilient infrastructure of workspaces that reshaped themselves around the circumstances at hand.

People displaced from affected areas found temporary respite at a workspace within walking distance of their homes. People who, perhaps, had no power or Internet in their homes. I don't know the scale of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the economic impact of Sandy on small businesses was mitigated by this fact.

And it relied largely on two key things:

1. The #sandycoworking hashtag that Charlie O'Donnell created almost immediately after the storm hit

2. The http://sandycoworking.crowdmap.com site that Noel created and we started using to aggregate known sites that were still active.

I'm now a big fan of Crowdmap and think the above can be distilled into a best practice for any city after a disaster.

I'll get on that blog post at some point :)

Tony

On Nov 3, 2012, at 10:35 AM, TCS <ch...@thecreativespace.ca> wrote:

The world of coworking gets inspired by the perseverance and true nature of entrepreneurs.   We don't give up.  In fact we tend to give more when the waters rise. (A respectful pun)

Although most of us strive to make our place operate, look and feel great, this proves what the true draw of a genuine coworking community;  belonging trumps place of work.

Thanks Tony and we pray for all those tragically effected by Sandy.

Chad

Chad Ballantyne

705.812.0689

ch...@thecreativespace.ca

<TheCreativeSpace-door-decal.png>

Barrie's Coworking Community

Perfect for small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs.

Memberships start at $25/mth

www.thecreativespace.ca

705-812-0689

On 2012-11-03, at 10:12 AM, Sam Rosen wrote:

That's pretty rad, Tony.

On Nov 3, 2012, at 12:27 AM, Tony Bacigalupo <to...@nwc.co> wrote:

You know the whole adage about how a coworking community is something that still exists even when you burn the space down? Well, I luckily didn't have to burn New Work City's space down to prove it true. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, we faced week-long outage of power, internet and transit-- so, for all intents and purposes, we were hosed.

Luckily, large parts of Brooklyn were relatively unaffected-- including the home of the Brooklyn Brainery, an educational space run by two of the most wonderful people I have the pleasure of knowing. They're moving to a new space and opening a coworking space (hooray!), but for now, their classroom space was available for use.

They were kind enough to give me a key and show me how to run the space. Before I knew it, New Work City had a temporary home in Brooklyn. I put the word out to everyone, and it wasn't long before familiar faces were showing up in an unfamiliar place. We peaked at about 20 people on Thursday. 

New faces mixed with old, but the spirit was no different. Good coffee was discovered. Bodegas were raided. Beers were purchased. We were very much alive, despite our space being plunged into darkness across the river.

So far, nobody's complained; nobody's asked for a refund; nobody's been anything but super supportive. It's given me a whole new perspective on things. And I got to dream for a bit about having a space of my own in Brooklyn.

Cheers to community!

<2012-11-01 13.48.32-1000.jpg>

<2012-10-31 19.39.11-600.jpg>

--
Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
 
 

--
Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com