3rd office spaces, Flash Cafe and teleworking research

[Joey]

Dear all,

I thought I'd pull together some stuff on 3rd office spaces that I've
gathered over the last 18 months or so. Would be useful for seeing
what's already out there and how Social Media Cafe could differ/
complement.

The largest list of wireless working spaces I have found to date is:

http://coworking.pbwiki.com/

A member recently developed:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=106781626613503194308.00043ae28812f6044bed3&om=1&ll=41.640078,-98.525391&spn=53.82412,117.949219&z=4

A good few London spaces are listed:

http://coworking.pbwiki.com/CoworkingLondon

They haven't got the following down:

www.lebu.biz

www.thecreationfactory.co.uk

www.learninghouse.biz

www.rentadesk.co.uk

As far as the coworking "movement" goes, I have never been happy with
their narrow definition of "independents, developers and writers" as
their group identifiers. Inherent is a sense of separation from the
bulk of society. I tend toward a more inclusive approach.

In terms of seeing Social Media Cafe in the light of the above........

I feel that the http://likemind.us/ approach mashed up with the above
sort of gets near my sense of what Social Media Cafe is about. The Hub
uses the space and the member list to create events. They have
breakfasts and lunches with speakers and presentations. The focus is
almost always some sort of social or environmental issue or covering
the practicalities of setting up/running a business. I can imagine the
same format laid much more open in scope would be really inspiring. I
can't help in the same mental breath also think of the Bar Camp/
Unconference approach to events. Essentially they are events without
set agendas where those who turn up create the agenda and people
choose to present. As with coworking the barcamp events have a bias
toward geeks. The same approach applied to whatever topics and
disciplines I am sure would be appealing to many.

A slight aside but the whole "bring your own stuff to create a cafe"
had me immediately thinking Flash Cafe. Aside from a permanent or semi-
permanent location I'm amongst those keen (I think Lloyd is another?)
to see a few events a year planned where a pop-up wireless cafe
appears and is used as a creative zone. I'm sure we could get great
numbers of interesting people along.

I have also uploaded to the files section of the group some documents
relevant to 3td offices:

1 = an overview of The Hub.
2 = the process for becoming a Hub space
3 = The Cube Space business plan: a large 3rd office space in Canada
that's been operating for a few years now

I have been interested since I first saw the Internet appear
wirelessly on my laptop in how in would change the world. As well as
keeping abreast of developments in the spaces such as those above I
have gathered loads of trend analysis info on teleworking in the UK.
For those who are interested I have also posted:

Is teleworking sustainable: an analysis of its economic, environmental
and social impacts
Home-based working using communication technologies

I also have some stats concerning teleworking in hard copy from the
most recent employment trends survey and the details of the most up to
date tracker on global laptop, PC and mobile technology sales. Holler
if either are of interest.

I've also got lots of stuff on wireless communities, urban/local
community organisation using the Internet and on the $100 ($175!!)
laptop project. Again lemmie no if of interest......

Hope this is useful,

Joey

[Lloyd Davis]

Joey, this is a great resource, thanks for sharing it with the group.  Lots of nodding of my head.

For those who don't follow every tweet in my twitter or subscribe to my flickr photostream, I put some pictures up of 25 Gerrard Street, which I went to visit this week.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lloyd-davis/sets/72157603449547711/

I know the floorplan isn't immediately obvious but give me a shout if you want to know more.

Having said all along, "Something that ticks all the boxes is unlikely to be on the market straight away" - here's something that goes a long way.  It's upscale and upmarket - it's something to aspire to and to stretch our imaginations, - it doesn't have a "retail" cafe space but there is space that could still fulfil the social area well as I imagine it.  I'm working now on some more solid figures and would appreciate some help applying sanity checking to them when I have something - numerate and dispassionate volunteers please. 

All the best for the weekend mes braves

ll

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