Making "hotdesks" work for software developers

[CIC Sales]

Hi, gang! I'm hoping to tap into the collective intelligence to get
perspective on a question we're facing. We have organized our
coworking center around offering hotdesk service only. If someone
wants a dedicated desk, we offer that through our larger innovation
center (www.cictr.com).

However, we're finding that some software developers really want to
have both a dedicated desk AND participate in the coworking center
community (it's not that our innovation center has no community, but
compared to a coworking center, it's "community light"). Just offering
a second monitor that they can plug their laptop into doesn't seem to
be enough: they want to leave a desktop computer there all the time.

Our concerns are that offering a dedicated desk would have a revenue
impact -- we count on being able to oversell our physical seating by
at least 2X, to make the center work financially -- and we are also
concerned that we would see those dedicated desks sitting empty much
of the time, which has a deadening impact: someone obviously sits
there, but they're not around. We also value the simplicity of the
offer: one price, that's it.

Has anyone else run into a similar problem with accommodating
someone's need for dedicated space? Are there any substitutes you've
found that have worked well?

Thanks!
Geoff

Cambridge Coworking Center
v: +1.617.758.4200
f: +1.617.401.3700

[Alex Hillman]

We blend our full time with our flex desks. 

http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/10/visual-cues-for-better-coworking/

We have an upper bound on the number of full time desks we have at any given time (economics is one of those reasons, but it's not the only one). We also continually adjust the limit on the number of full time desks based on utilization. 

YMMV in terms of your ratio of full time and flex desks, of course. 

Further, mixing these two use cases addresses the "dead space" problem: if clusters are a mix of full time and flex, it's very, very rare that an entire cluster would be empty.

In fact, I think it's important to have some thread of cultural consistency in full time members. Significant daily turnover makes it very, very hard for people to feel anchored and comfortable enough to build relationships.

So I'd also consider the long term impact of not just the finances, but the culture. What are you losing or gaining by having (or not having) permanent desks?

-Alex

/ah
indyhall.org
coworking in philadelphia

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[Jonathan Yankovich]

I would argue in favor of picking a simple system and sticking with it.  Optimize for the 80%, let the other 20% adapt.  You could support the wannabe-full timers by providing lockers or something where they could store equipment (laptop), etc.

I don't really buy the "I need my desktop machine" argument... Especially for software developers, laptops are just as capable as desktop machines.  

I think its important to mix the communities, certainly.. Maybe offer a discount to full-timers for use of the hotdesks, but don't turn hotdesks into full-time if you have any major concerns about it.  Its important for coworking spaces to serve their members, but your members are some of the most resourceful people in the world - They can adapt too.

J

[Jonathan Yankovich]

[Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking]

I use the mix strategy of having full-time and hot desk options. Just
as Alex mentioned this is for cultural and financial reasons because
the consistency of full-time members helps make people feel
comfortable here. I would like to see a 25% to 33% mix of full-timers
with hot desking, but that number is always adjustable (likely
lowered) because I love the extra energy of hot desks. For financial
reasons I charge a premium for full-time desks at twice the rate of a
3 day/week hot desking membership at $350.

Geoff, take a careful look at the design of your space and see if
adding a permanent desk is possible. If so, I would recommend it. If
you charge them for it and the energy is good than they will most
likely use it and the dead space problem may not be as big of a
problem as you imagine.

Craig
Creative Density

[CIC Sales]

Thanks, Alex, Jonathan, and Craig, for your responses. We really seem
to get a lot out of the extra energy that the place has when it feels
"packed". Anyone who wants a quieter vibe can go to "the quiet car",
but a lot of people seem to want to work in a crowd. Any seats that
signal "you can't sit there", but are empty a significant part of the
time, bring down the potential energy of the room.

All of our members are "long-timers"; we don't offer day or week
passes at all. So I don't think we'd get any special value in terms of
consistency from having some people in the same spots on a regular
basis (actually, I think we get a certain amount of this behavior now;
some people report that they arrive early just to secure their
favorite seats. That's OK -- when they're not there, someone else is
sure to take that seat by the window in the corner, or whatever).

We are playing with different ideas now for how to design a solution
that works for the software developers who want to leave their
desktops in place (Jonathan, to your point, my little iPhone has 10x
the compute power of any machine I ever wrote software on, but hey, if
we're getting this message repeatedly from some of the software
developers, we need to listen carefully. We learn so much more than I
would ever have imagined about how to improve our service just by
listening to our members). Maybe there's a way to make these folks
happy without losing any of the flexibility we have now.

Geoff
Cambridge Coworking Center

v: +1.617.758.4200
f: +1.617.401.3700

On Nov 2, 12:09 pm, Craig Baute - Creative Density Coworking

[Anne Kirby]

We do a blend as well and it works out great.

Best of luck!

Cheers,
Anne

The Candy Factory
Coworking in Lancaster, PA
http://www.candyissweet.com