Coworking Values: Differentiating Openness and Accessibility

[Julia Ferguson]

Hello all.  

We're updating our website, which has me reviewing our current content.  We're just wrapping up a branding exercise that have given us some good language we can use to talk about who we are and what it's like to cowork with us.  We have always said we embrace the five values of coworking, established in the movements early days:  collaboration, openness, community, accessibility, and sustainability and we've tried to say what that means to us and how they apply to our every day operations and how our members relate to each other.  I've always had trouble with openness and accessibility.  In many ways they seem the same to me.  In fact, if you look up "openness", one of the words used in its definition is "accessible".  I've read what I can (including Alex Hillman's great posts from 2011 and am still struggling. I would like your thoughts. 

Here's what I have so far:

>> Being open is about sharing, about being authentic, ready to learn new things, accepting of others, listening to other perspectives.  

>> Being accessible is about how easy it is for others to reach you in your open state, how easy you make it for others to hear and understand your ideas and perspectives.  

The two go hand in hand.  Being open, but not accessible does little good because people can't take advantage of the openness.  Being accessible but not open is just rude. 

Thoughts?

Julia

[Julia Ferguson]

As follow up to my original post, I'm hoping some who have been doing this coworking bit longer than I can also clarify what was meant when those values were identified. 

[Alex Hillman]

The two go hand in hand.  Being open, but not accessible does little good because people can't take advantage of the openness.  Being accessible but not open is just rude. 

I think this is a very keen observation, and quite right. 

The key context for open when it was being attributed as a core value was references from the Open Source Software world where a lot of early coworking folks came from. Open Source software culture is informed by ideas and ideals that, frankly, subvert a lot of the transactional nature of business. In this context, openness leans more towards a kind of generosity that doesn't always show up in business or business cultures. 

I recently listened to a keynote about these themes that reminded me...I hadn't really heard these themes clearly articulated in a while. Don't be scared off by the fact that the keynote is from a software conference, the keynote is not technical in any way but more of a commentary on culture, business, and the complex value of "open" as it was intended to describe coworking. https://rework.fm/open-source-beyond-the-market/

In my opinion, accessibility has a lot more meaning today than it did when it was first used to describe coworking. Early on, I think it was simply about the removal of visible gatekeepers. Again, remember, many coworking pioneers were corporate outcasts of sorts. Accessibility was, in many ways, about who you were (or were not) actively trying to keep out. So in those early days, it was more about eschewing credentials and applications in favor of "if you show up, you're welcome."

In hindsight, though, I don't think it accessibility as a coworking core value really addressed the subtle, less visible gatekeepers of power and privilege. The door was open, but we didn't always do a good job of proactively inviting folks who weren't showing up or asking why they weren't showing up in the first place. I'm personally guilty of this, and have done a lot of work personally and organizationally to take a much more proactive stance on accessibility. 

I hope this helps! I think having core values that are open to some interpretation is why they're not "core rules." Asking what they actually mean, and how the meaning has changed over time, is part of why they're valuable. 

-Alex

[Jerome Chang]

This behavioral discussion translates well to the physical realm. In architecture, accessibility is a legal term and is about barrier-free design, to allow disabled bodies of all types to use the space as with anyone else. 

The converse is inclusive design, which also translates well back to behavior. You may have thought you were accessible, but you may not necessarily have been inclusive. 

Design for the most disabled, and you'll have beneficially designed for all. 

Embrace for the least empowered and you'll have accommodated all levels of power and privilege. 

Jerome, architect

www.BLANKSPACES.com

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[Alex Linsker]

I'd encourage you to find the values that are core to your community, and values that are core to you, and be aware of the two sets, and write it publicly. For example: https://collectiveagency.co/who-we-are/

An answer to your question is in the last two sentences of that page (I wasn't sure either of those values would be there. If you want to use these sentences or something very similar anywhere for your business or community, please link to our site just as prominently.)

"It’s important to members that we are all treated the same when we’re here, with the same access to everything. Everybody is worthy of being here." Access, and openness.

-Alex Linsker, Collective Agency, Portland Oregon