is any one operating a paid coworking and also running Jelly events?

[work@]

Hi I wanted to find out if any one has been running Jelly events from their coworking spaces.

I decided that on an ongoing basis I would open a part of our building for free to non-profits and people looking for work every Monday to

a) Help people get a foot in the door.
b) promote our hub and give people a day to trial it.
c) do something for the community

and wondered if anyone else was doing something similar?

I also wanted feedback on what people think of Jelly, mostly is it working? are people actually ding something for the community, or just networking?

[Jon Graham]

This is something that I have often wondered about. We just opened our doors for our coworking space and growth is, well slow. I am not sweating it too bad but I am always thinking of other ways to find others interested in building a coworking community. My gut tells me that Jelly's can be a great way to find some of these people, however, I think I might want to separate the Jelly session from the coworking space.

I have started a new group on meetup.com called "Bucks County Coworking" because I also wanted to meet others that are interested in coworking, but more importantly, I wanted to get involved in regular Jelly's. I think coworking and Jelly's are different with different benefits.  Once this meetup group was created, quickly two dozen people showed interested and joined. Since then I have attempted to host a "First Meetup Happy Hour" and one coworking session (this upcoming Friday). 

Hopefully both groups become successful communities with different norms, expectations. Maybe then, if I meet someone during a Jelly  that could be a good fit to the coworking community, I will invite them to come and check it out. 

- Jon Graham

Business Casual Coworking

[Alex Hillman]

Jellys are awesome for introducing people to coworking but, as Jon suggests, the conversion rate from free->paid coworking is a bit of a challenge, ESPECIALLY when there's not really a difference between the two experiences. 

When coworking from your space is free one day and paid the next and there's not a difference, people's ability to value the paid version goes down because…well…it was just free the other day.

Running a Jelly off-site, however, is an awesome hook. Happy hours are great for the same reason.

Another reason doing it off-site is to alleviate the feeling that you're hosting it in your space to sell them on membership. That's not to say you should be dishonest and pretend that's not your motive, but by hosting the event in "neutral territory," you get to build deeper relationships than when they walk in and view you as the owner/proprietor.

I've long wanted to do a research project to see what provided better conversion to paying member: hosting on-site events or hosting off-site events. Anecdotal evidence says that even when the on-sites convert better to short term members (and that's not always), off-sites tend to attract people around who join and stay members, keeping churn lower. 

One more thing on thing to remember is the interval that Jellies (or other events) happen. MOST people don't see the coworking experience and instantly go "ah! this is for me!". It usually takes 2-3 exposures to different versions of the concept - perhaps a jelly, an educational event, and observing a normal work day - before they see how it could work for them. Making sure that you're providing this spectrum and interval for participation and on boarding helps more than just doing a periodic Jelly that doesn't really have any rhythm to it. 

-Alex

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/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

building a community? http://masterclass.indyhall.org

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

[Jon Graham]

Alex, spot on advice. Thanks.

[Will Bennis, Locus Workspace]

"Coworking in Prague" (coworkingvpraze.cz)--a group of (now) three unaffiliated coworking spaces in Prague, Czech Republic--hosts a Jelly every 2 weeks, rotating across the three coworking spaces (so that there's a Jelly in each space every 6 weeks). I think it works well, though I am concerned with some of the issues Alex raised about the sense of mixed incentives hosting it at a coworking space. Maybe half or more of the people who come just come because they want to check out the space and figure Jelly is a good time to do it. They don't contribute to the Jelly environment (or even stay and work). We actually get a pretty good conversion rate, but it feels a lot more like an open-house sales drive than a Jelly. I still like it. The environment is more lively and diverse on Jelly days. We usually try to have it coincide with a talk or some other event, so it brightens up the space that day in particular. And the way we do it across the coworking spaces builds a nice bridge across the coworking community. The tough part for us is getting people to come (more than once) for the sake of the jelly-style coworking and not just to see the coworking space. So far Jelly has been a much harder concept to communicate than coworking, and coworking is a tough one at the start. But I suspect my elevator pitch needs a lot of work.

Will

[Jon Graham]

^ sounds like a great way to promote the coworking visa....

[work@]

Thanks for all the feedback, I have a few further points after a week of fermenting the idea.

a) people in a social / community mindset are very unlikely to have a lot of cash to spend on coworking, They have to work on the cheap.... but in providing them with an affordable space to operate there are tangential benefits such as word of mouth advertising and consumable sales e.g. coffee etc.

b) freelancers and small companies that are not working on social projects or community efforts. Should not be able to use the spaces for there regular work for an extended period of time (i.e. a short introductory client meeting would be ok, spreading out and working on a clients project  or having an extended client meeting would not) .  ... this is the line. ... but I think most freelancers would be ok with that. the ones who wouldn't , wouldn't pay anyway.

c) there must be designated areas for the social/community spaces and these should double up as the break out / lounge / welcome spaces.

d) There should be a discounted rate for use of the full spec spaces for recognized charities and non-profit groups.

Most importantly (should never be overlooked) helping people get things done, is what adds value. If it adds value It can have a price.
Helping people socially either find work or make the world go round through resource sharing is a massive part of coworking, but it does have a cost.

Thus: If the coworking is starved of fuel (paid sales) everyone losses. So there always needs to be a commercial element to everything ...

I'm now thinking that while jelly is conceptual free. A token annual fee to attend events would offset the minor costs associated with running the events.

Thinking 5 x 12 = 60 .... say make it 50£/$/E respectively

The alternative is sponsorships ... would companies pay the 50 per person for 12 exposures to their product or branding?

...What do you think.... Waste of time or a possible solution to the problem of not making a loss running these events and still adding value to the jelly attendees? 

[Alex Hillman]

"Social/community minded people are broke" simply isn't true. It sounds like your theory starts on data that's incomplete. 

One of my favorite business lessons is "you can change the product or you can change the customer". 

There are tons of antisocial broke people, too :)

Be careful with wing the "cheap" option. That attracts a certain kind of customer, and I'm not talking about community-minded. 

Our price points were based on actual spending habits of prospective members, not made up numbers to cover costs and then hopefulness that the right people would pay it. 

C, I totally agree with

D, I think generosity is important but discourage institutional discounts. When somebody asks about a discount, it's an opportunity to learn about them an how they fit into your community (if at all). If they do, I'm quick to discount. If not (or if they are just scrounging for the discount option and don't care what it is, which is sadly common) they can be poison to a community. So be careful. 

Cool trail of thoughts, love playing along!

--
/ah
indyhall.org
coworking in philadelphia
building a community? http://masterclass.indyhall.org

[Bryan Koch, JellyLA]

I've run JellyLA for almost four years now. Started it a couple years after moving to Los Angeles from New York and finding no real centralized community for freelancers to work. Since then, coworking has boomed with 16 pro/paid coworking spaces and a good handful of invite-only shops spread across LA.

Much like Coworking in Prague, JellyLA brings together unaffiliated spaces to host complimentary events throughout the month. I've laid down basic ground rules to avoid conflicting events. However, each space plans and executes their own Jelly so the day suits their space and community. Currently, we have seven spaces actively involved. All events start with a productive day of coworking, and but typically end with something social:

-- Kleverdog does show-and-tell at 4pm and themes their days to set a proper Friday mood;

-- NextSpace ends their Jelly with Happy Hour;

-- Satellite Santa Monica is planning a screening series in their media room.

All that said, I absolutely agree with Alex on conversion. JellyLA has been great for new spaces looking for inflow, but you need to have a plan to capture people without a hard sell. The path I typically see for the ideal Jelly attendee is: Jelly day > Event(s) > Raving Fan of the Community > Part Time or Day Passes. Rarely do I see full-time memberships come from JellyLA, and the average Jelly coworker just floats between events as a break from their home office.

For 2013 (you heard it hear first!), we'll actually be testing a few new things through JellyLA to help drive conversions and better unite spread out, disconnect city that is Los Angeles.

I haven't been an active poster here, but love the conversations this group generates. Will make sure I post results of our tests.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

- -

Bryan

JellyLA Organizer, http://meetup.com/jellyla