Two Inspiring Founders of Coworking/Collaborative Workspaces profiled in mystartstory.com

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David Singer

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Apr 3, 2012, 9:07:09 PM4/3/12
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David Judson, the proprietor of www.mystartstory.com -- long form
interview of founders of starups has included two piorneering
coworking/collaborative workspace founders in his series: Benjamin
Dyett, founder of Grind [www.grindspaces.com] and Jenifer Ross,
Founder of W@tercooler [www.watercoolerhub.com]. I highly recommend
these reads -- both of these individuals have inspired me to do a deep
dive into exploring coworking on multiple levels. The links to the
interviews are here:

Benjamin Dyett: http://mystartstory.com/benjamin-dyett/

Jenifer Ross: http://mystartstory.com/jenifer-ross/

David A. Singer
www.twitter.com/davidasinger

Beth Buczynski

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Apr 4, 2012, 12:49:13 PM4/4/12
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I'm confused...Benjamin goes to such great lengths to say that Grind
isn't a coworking space because it's not "an incubator or an
accelerator" and that the "chairs, the tables, the real-estate,
renting a seat or a desk are secondary to constructing a strong
community." That sounds EXACTLY like true coworking to me! While
coworking spaces can act like incubators, the spaces that exist purely
to facilitate this aren't necessarily committed to the community
aspects that set coworking apart from every other type of work space.
On a related but unrelated note, Grind's pop-up coworking space during
SxSW was really great. Anyone else check it out?

Beth
@gonecoworking

On Apr 3, 8:07 pm, David Singer <davidasin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> David Judson, the proprietor ofwww.mystartstory.com-- long form

Derek Neighbors

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Apr 4, 2012, 3:02:22 PM4/4/12
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Beth,

As someone who also has distanced themselves from "coworking" I can sympathize.  Coworking as a fad has become largely about space owners trying to make money running their "coworking business" and/or propagating corporations are evil and freelancer nation will rule the world.  All of these things make building community more difficult in the long run.

I think the initial incarnation of coworking was very much about community, but it became a victim of its own success and now a days its hard to distinguish most coworking spaces from shared office groups like Regus other than more modern layout/furniture.

I think that Alex at IndyHall, Tony at NewWorkCity and the good folks at Office Nomads have made a great push in the last two years to try to get things centered back around community and many others have stepped up and started to turn the ship.

So while many spaces sound like "true" coworking, they are still the minority.  What can we do to fix this?

--
Derek Neighbors
Gangplank

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Jerome Chang

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Apr 4, 2012, 4:52:05 PM4/4/12
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Is making a profit for a business necessarily bad for the coworking community?
Coworking has brought about great ways to collaborate, and to create community.  Those kinds of intangible ideals will obviously manifest in many different ways.  I don't think there is one "true" coworking, nor two or three, just as there is no one "true" art.


Jerome
______________
BLANKSPACES
"work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"

www.blankspaces.com
ph: 323.330.9505 | 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles, CA 90036 

Derek Neighbors

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Apr 4, 2012, 5:27:51 PM4/4/12
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Making profit is not bad.  However, when it is the primary motivator for a space owner it certainly increases the friction in building community.  I would say that its a directly proportional connection.  The more important profit is to the space owner the more difficult it is for them to build real authentic community.

I am neither advocating that one size fits all or that all space should not have monetary capital costs.  However, when the majority of the spaces labeling themselves as coworking are less about community and more about profit we can't get confused or upset when community spaces actively distance themselves from the word coworking.

--
Derek Neighbors
Gangplank

Tony Bacigalupo

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Apr 4, 2012, 6:04:21 PM4/4/12
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So while many spaces sound like "true" coworking, they are still the minority.  What can we do to fix this?

We fix this by not thinking of coworking as a static thing that needs defending but by focusing on the deeper, more meaningful concept that is driving coworking. 

If you think of coworking as a movement, then its purpose for existence, by definition, is to change the status quo. It also means that it, like all movements, has a finite life cycle. Coworking, the movement, compels existing institutions like office rental businesses to change how they do things. In that sense, that's exactly what is happening now.

But what we're talking about goes far deeper than that. If all coworking did was create a world in which anyone anywhere could find a local community of people to work alongside and collaborate with, whether by way of small community space or large workspace provider, that would be awesome. 

But to stop there would betray the far deeper and more important shift that is taking place.

When Brad Neuberg invented Coworking, with a capital "C", he envisioned a more complete support system for people who were otherwise on their own. They maintained a mutual schedule of business hours, went to lunch together, and did group activities. It wasn't located in an office facility; it was in a wellness center.

In other words, it was about far more than workspace from the outset. 

A lot of what he pioneered was ahead of its time, but at the core of it is the need for us to think of this as a completely new framework for servicing the needs of a workforce that has total control over how, where, when, and why they work. That's really different from the workforce that the rest of the world is used to accommodating. The world is used to serving the needs of a workforce that commutes, works regular business hours, has a hierarchical employment system, regular paychecks, paid vacations, and all sorts of other constructs. Those things just don't fit the needs of these new folks anymore, and Coworking is the beginning of a solution.

But it's only the beginning. For coworking communities to distinguish themselves as something obviously different from renting office space, we have to continuously strive to find new ways to better serve that new workforce. 

The fact that Benjamin and Derek and others have distanced themselves from "coworking" is a wake-up call. If we ("who's we?") are to continue to compel the attention, respect, admiration, awe, and participation of a world of people for whom the old ways don't work, we have to continue to work hard to earn it by aspiring to better fulfill those deeper needs, and by continuing to bring this future to light.

Keeping the perception of the word "coworking" centered on this deeper concept is important and it merits healthy discussion, but we only have so much control over that-- and, ultimately, it's just a shortcut. 

What we're really talking about is work as we know it, and what it will look like when we change it.

Tony Bacigalupo
---
New Work City
Site | Twitter | Newsletter

Jerome Chang

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Apr 4, 2012, 6:10:10 PM4/4/12
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FaceBook has profit as a primary motivator and they have plenty of community.
I think profit and community can go hand-in-hand.  Building a good community requires resources - there is no free lunch.

Believing that profit prevents authenticity would similarly accuse "wealthy" people of lacking authenticity.  Authenticity is the end result, not dependent upon the means to get there.

At the risk of speaking for Grind, I think that their efforts to "distance themselves from the word coworking" is more of an attempt to distinguish themselves from the rest of the 'competition', rather than actually not being coworking.


Jerome
______________
BLANKSPACES
"work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"

www.blankspaces.com
ph: 323.330.9505 | 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles, CA 90036 

Susan Evans

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Apr 4, 2012, 6:11:05 PM4/4/12
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Thank you thank you thank you, Tony. So well said, and rings true for me in many ways.

This connects quite well to the fact that I always try to steer people away from describing coworking as a "service" to be provided to folks. A service implies simplicity, a start and a finish, and the relationship between service provider and consumer to be more separate than intwined.

Coworking is not a service. It is complicated, ongoing, and invites the intertwining of relationships as opposed to the separation of such. 

I love love love these conversations and hope that they spark folks elsewhere to examine the how and the why of coworking in their lives.

Awesome stuff, folks.

Susan
__
Office Nomads         
officenomads.com  
206-484-5859

Susan Evans

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Apr 4, 2012, 6:14:21 PM4/4/12
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To add: I don't think that what coworking is has much to do with the profitability or lack thereof of a space. Making a living is important, and creating a business that can survive and thrive is important, but there are so many ways to skin that cat that I don't think it's worth bickering about whether or not spaces should look towards profits or not. 

Also I meant intertwined in that middle paragraph. INTERtwined. :) Typing faster than I'm thinking over here in Seattle...

S

__
Office Nomads         
officenomads.com  
206-484-5859



Jacob Sayles

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Apr 4, 2012, 6:19:13 PM4/4/12
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Wow Derek, way to get right to the heart of the matter!  

I think the "profit" conversation that comes up quite a bit is a little too simplistic.  As someone who's part of a strong, profitable coworking community I often find the "corporate vs hippy" debate confusing.  Derek's point about priorities is pretty key though.  Which is more important?  Why do we do what we do?  We have a profitable business because our community loves us and our community loves us because our hearts are in the right place.  It's a win-win and I love this kind of business.  

I've watched so many people try and explain this with words and it doesn't quite do it justice.  We try to define coworking as if that is going to solve this problem once and for all.  Now we are seeing qualifiers like "true coworking" or "traditional coworking". I don't really know how to do any better when limited to words.  So personally I try to see where I can get around words.  Locally I invite people into our space and show them what we are about first hand.  Globally I contribute to the conversation here on the google group, and put my energy into collaborative projects that help us all succeed (shameless plug for the wiki project!).  

So that's what I'm doing...

Jacob

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

Veel Hoeden- Where Many Hats Meet!

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Apr 4, 2012, 6:39:23 PM4/4/12
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Jacob hit on something I was just getting ready to submit here.  I think the easier it is for a coworking community to describe what it "is" the more at risk they are to becoming a space (read "place to work") and less of a community.  For the last 18 months I have struggled to find the right words to describe what we've created at Veel Hoeden and what I see elsewhere at other coworking communities.  I recently realized it's hard to describe because it's like trying to describe and emotion or the reason you really like a certain person dearly.  It's way too complex to put into a few words, and it is more about the feeling and the energy than a concrete picture you can paint for someone on the outside looking in.

 

That's why when I recently heard a "space" advertise themselves as a "business workspace" I already knew what I would find before I got there.  It's why the discussions I see out here on "how we beat/shame/embarrass/destroy Regus" is one I don't worry about.  To beat Regus at their own game we have to play their game, and the people and the coworking community I have grown to love out here are the ones who have decided to give that model the finger and create something deeper, more creative, with more emotion, and centered on the people and awesomeness.  And in those types of places whether they bring in no money, mo money, or enough money, guys like me will be lining up to be a part of it.

 

Thanks & God Bless,

 

Joel Bennett

Chief Dreamchaser

Veel Hoeden

veelhoeden.posterous.com

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David Singer

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Apr 4, 2012, 9:25:12 PM4/4/12
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Wow!  All I did was recommend people read the two profiles -- had no idea I was crowdsourcing the third rail of coworking. There is no one-size-fits-all to this domain.  Both the pioneers and the second adopters have plenty of room to grow and experiment with a wide range of coworking models.  I would venture to guess that members of Indyhall or NWC may or may not be comfortable being members at Grind or Watercooler of whereever. Growth in coworking habitats are not a zero-sum game.  The "market" for coworking is largely untapped -- because most freelancers have no idea this workplace option even exists.  

Everyone just needs to relax and let (and encourage)  a million flowers bloom........
David A. Singer
(914) 980-7301 - Cell
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