Considering Federation

[Mike Schinkel]

Hi all:

In doing our planning for an Atlanta Coworking space we are finding that the
Atlanta geography doesn't lend itself to one central location where everyone
is wiling to be. That is probably true anywhere, but in Atlanta with poorly
planned public transit and no natural boundary (i.e. no mountains, big
rivers, or oceans) it is especially bad because we are spread out all over
the place.

Fortunately there is somewhat of a concensus on Midtown (which doesn't both
me because I live in Midtown :-) but there are factions vying for other
locations. We briefly entertained the idea of multiple concurrent spaces but
it will be hard enough to launch one space let alone two or three.

However yesterday I met with a former entrepreneurs and current mayor of a
town east of Decatur called Avondale Estates and he has a ~2000 sqft house
that he bought to turn into an incubator and is now considering making it a
coworking space. The problem is that from our list of people who are
interested almost nobody would travel to Avondale Estates although I'm sure
there could be people in Decatur I don't know cultivated to use it.

During our discussions the idea of federating came up, i.e. making it
possible for "members" of either facility to be able to go to the other
facility kind of how like members of the YMCA when they were independent
could go to any YMCA.

So how are those of you in cities with a large number of people handling
this? Have you thought of any kind of federation within a city?

-Mike Schinkel
President; NewClarity LLC
Organizer: Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeschinkel
http://mikeschinkel.com
http://atlanta-web.org

P.S. And while I'm on the subject, have any of you thought about federation
across cities, i.e. to allow members from one city to use space in other
cities?

[Alex Hillman]

There's been a number of great discussions around a "passport" concept:
http://groups.google.com/group/coworking/search?group=coworking&q=passport&qt_g=Search+this+group

The consensus is that it should likely be a low-tech, space-to-space agreement. A number of spaces have listed interest here:
http://coworking.pbwiki.com/CoworkingVisa

-Alex, IndyHall, Philadelphia

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

[Mike Schinkel]

Thanks, I'll check it out!

-Mike

 

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From: cowo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cowo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alex Hillman
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 4:08 PM
To: cowo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Coworking] Re: Considering Federation

[Jerome Chang]

L.A. is probably the most "evolved" suburban city, and we still have sprawl.  I think the trick for you is to get a space with a size that'll be appropriate for your market.  Santa Cruz opened up a 10,000sf place, which without knowing that city, seems awfully huge.  Other coworking spaces are maybe 1000sf.  It's really a gamble - I mean, experiment - so don't try pick one location that'll appease everyone in the city.  Even in NYC, that'd be a daunting proposition.  And much like we're all creating coworking spaces in our respective cities, then NOW finally allying, you can do the same on a local level.  Set up your location first, then ally with others.

Jerome

______________
BLANKSPACES
"work wide open"

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

[Mike Schinkel]

Jerome:

 

Thanks.

 

>> L.A. is probably the most "evolved" suburban city, and we still have sprawl.  I think the trick for you is to get a space with a size that'll be appropriate for your market.  Santa Cruz opened up a 10,000sf place, which without knowing that city, seems awfully huge.  

 

10,000 does sound huge.  We have a 10,000 sqft facility we can use at $6/sqft and they will subdivide, but it's off the beating path. 

 

We are really looking for 4000-6000 but in part because we want to have training facilities that can hold up to 100 people and plan to rent out the facilities to training companies and also let related meetup groups meet in the facility.  (BTW, I myself would also be running one of those training companies, so it's not a stretch.)  We'd ideally also like to sublease some space to a coffee shop for the front area, but that might be too much wishful thinking.

 

>> Set up your location first, then ally with others.

 

Hmm.  Good thoughts. Potentially countering that would be that the local PR efforts for Co-working in general could be shared and it might creates more incentive to join.  Not sure yet what to do on that front yet.

-Mike

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From: cowo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cowo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jerome Chang
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 4:46 PM

To: cowo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Coworking] Re: Considering Federation