Eclau: Opening a Coworking Space in Lausanne, Switzerland

I’m thrilled to announce that we are currently moving into our new coworking space, Eclau, in Lausanne, Switzerland. I’m Stephanie Booth, by the way. Here’s a post (in French) with some photos of today’s work. We have a wiki where I’m trying to get the other members to contribute too ;-).

The space will be opening next week (we’re getting the keys on Monday and then making a big hole in a wall, between two rooms).

We offer 3 types of membership:

Fixed: members have their own desk, 300 CHF/month (250 when paying six months in advance)
“Floating” (“Flying” in French, but it doesn’t translate well): members don’t have their own desk but use the common spaces, 150 CHF/month
“Nomad”: like “Floating”, but members can’t leave anything in the space, 100 CHF/month

There are currently 3 fixed members and 3 floating members signed up, plus myself, for a 112 m2 surface. We will be walling off part of the space in December to create a meeting room.

If ever you’re in Lausanne, please let us know (Twitter @eclau or just contact me) and drop in!

Coworking in Media PA!

Hello, I am Lisa Thompson.

A couple of you know me; I am starting a coworking facility in Media PA. Currently the stage is set with a location that I am applying for right near the courthouse. I don’t have it yet, but the landlord is very excited by the project so I expect some leeway there. With the proximity to the courthouse, I expect the majority of my clientèle to be lawyers needing either meeting space or those from out of town. The space is small to start out but there is room to grow. I will announce more as it happens!

New Work City has a home!

Hey all! We’ve been very quiet for some time with a number of initiatives going on here and there – but one thing that I am happy to pass along has been the completion of a new coworking space for New York City.

Signed Letter of Agreement for NWC — NWC Signed Letter of Agreement

New Work City – a name created by the coworking community and efforts spearheaded by Tony – has finally signed for a space in New York at 200 Varick (right on top of the the Houston Street station on the 1 line).

Taking it straight from the horse’s mouth on the NWC tumblr blog:

That’s right! After a long year of figuring out the business model, building interest, and looking at space after space, we’ve finally arrived at 200 Varick Street!

We’ll be sharing the space with element^n, who have graciously given us a very flexible deal and a chance to get on our feet.

The building has lots of other young, creative companies in it, and will be a great environment. The entrance, hallways, and elevator have all been recently renovated and look great (there’s even an LCD screen in the elevator!).

The neighborhood is great, with tons of restaurants, cafes, bars, and little parks to explore. Adjacent to 200 Varick is SOB’s, a famous latin dance club. On the other side, Chipotle. The cafe downstairs, attached to the entrance, is Deb’s. It pumps in salsa music nonstop and has wifi.

We’ll be getting the first set of keys this week, and will be able to do tours in the next couple of days, but our official occupation date will be November 1st. There’s a whole lot to be done between now and then, including a trip to Ikea, signing up the first members, and, of course, a launch party.

Check out the rest of the post at the new blog: http://nwc.tumblr.com/

Smart Worker

I recently read an article about a man who was working from Indy Hall in Philadelphia for a company in Vancouver. Teleworking is not new these days and even working for a company located elsewhere on the globe isn’t that earth shattering with the technology for communicating 24/7. What was brilliant about this man’s story was that he had figured out how to get his corporation to pay the $275/month membership fee for him to work their full time. It’s a win-win for the corporation and the employee. Let’s do the math:

A corporation typically pays for about

200 sq. ft. for each employee – cubicle + hallway + breakroom + cafeteria + restroom + dead space like lobbies.
$4.00/sq. ft (minimum/month) – Rent + taxes + utilities
200 sq. ft. * $4.00 = $800/month per employee
$800/month per employee – $275/cost of employee working in coworking space = $525/month savings

Now a company that employs 1000 people, if they had just half of the space in corporate office and let their workforce telecommute 50% of the time they would save $262,500/month ($525 * 500 employees) and $3,150,000/year. $3 million per year is not small potatoes and a great way to cut back.

The employee also saves money on gas But more importantly this employee benefits in intangibles such as lack of commute stress, living where his spouse needs to for her career, the community created in a coworking environment, and as a result is happier and more productive for his company. We would all benefit from more people using coworking spaces (checkout a list of my favorites). Of course, as the owner of Cubes&Crayons that’s my favorite for coworkers with and without kids. I love it when everyone wins!

BizDevHouse: Oakland, CA

Open House tomorrow

grand opening in 2 weeks

Did the Mayor declare this coworking week in Oakland or something while I was outta town? East Bay spaces in general and Oakland spaces in particular seem to be proliferating all of a sudden.

There’s not just Derby Creek Coworking Cooperative on Telegraph Ave. in North Oakland at the Berkeley border fresh on the scene (where this past Monday’s orientation meeting featuring a Concord coworking space creator and a Berkeley Coworking founder is a topic for another post). It’s much more than the meeting last night at a co-creative incubator-esque social-venture shared space that’s been together since 2003 just two blocks from my home, NextNow Collaboratory. What popped up today on my radar is another new coworking space in Oaktown.

BizDevHouse is in the lower Oakland hills/Glenview area, in what looks like a house (a la Cambridge’s BetaHouse) a block off of the neighborhood’s community-oriented commercial strip (Park Street), close to the Montclair neighborhood and MacArthur bus corridor (with frequent 24-hour AC Transit trans-bay service to San Francisco) and 580/13 freeways, one exit up from Grand/Lakeshore business district and Lake Merritt/downtown, near Piedmont and the Parkway Speakeasy theatre with sofas, and also close to the Dimond District and upper Fruitvale neighborhoods. A couple of miles from the BART subway, with a little hill-climbing involved; a similar trek from Berkeley or the downtown Oakland/Oaksterdam, Piedmont, or Rockridge neighborhoods.

One of the BizDevHouse workspaces (photos on CL)

I first learned of BizDevHouse via a MeetUp alert this morning. It officially opens September 2 (please remove all playa dust before bringing in your laptop), and seems to feature iPhone app developers and seeks Mac developers and “creative tech folks” in general. Another listing adds marketing people to the list, promising a “great place for people who can work virtually but understand the value of creative collaboration.”

BizDevHouse sites

BizDevHouse WordPress blog featuring just the obligatory “Hello, World” post so far: http://www.bizdevhouse.com/

BizDevHouse MeetUp group (featuring tomorrow’s open house):
http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/2011/

Open House upcoming.org event listing:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1024271/
Tomorrow (Thurs.), 4-8 PM

Craig’s List ad, including photos:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/off/802515133.html

I’m looking forward to seeing the space and meeting the people behind it. Based on certain clues embedded in the sites linked above, I think I already know some of ’em.

Raines Cohen, Coworking Coach
Planning for Sustainable Communities (Berkeley, CA)

Introducing GiraffeLabs, Seattle

We’re entering out second month at GiraffeLabs in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle. GiraffeLabs is a relaxed space where you can come to work, talk and play. We seek to encourage creativity by surrounding ourselves with creative people. We’re geeks, artists, engineers, makers, musicians, and computer scientists.

GiraffeLabs also plays host to Saturday House (on saturday’s of course) and next Thursday, June 5th we’ll be having a little bit of an open house to coincide with First Thursdays Open Art Studios in our building (well we are at 620 Alaskan, and the art studios are in 619 Western, but it is really one building with 2 entries.)

So come on down and visit with us on thursday evening. I’m sure well be there from around 6 to 8 at least.

FYI, we don’t have regular office hours yet.

Citizen Desk no more; party tonight

The citizens of Wausau (WI) are deskless! Or at least Citizen Desk-less.

As of last Saturday, there will no longer be “physical” space called CitizenDesk. We’ve shut down the office space.

I’m hoping to interview the space founder, Marcus Nelson, to do a more-detailed failure analysis and find some lessons that other coworking organizers and catalysts can learn from. He does give some clues, however, in his farewell message on the space blog, as he looks in the rear view mirror and notes the “slow adoption rate” of new ideas in the town:

Had I had more time to do it all over again, I would have first focussed on building up the local Web Community, like the idea of organizing the Jellys & a Web715 network (which should still move forward under someone else’s stewardship). Getting a group of like-minded people together takes time – especially in a smaller market like Wausau. My good friend Alex says all the time – community, community, community! I suspect that’ll be the way I do it next time.

Although the physical space may be no more, the community continues, marking the occasion tonight with brews flowing at Red Eye Brewery starting at 7. Let’s all virtually join them from afar, raising a glass to toast the coworking that was… and the coworking that will be… in Wausau and around the world. — Raines

It happens in Milano.

44 days afrter opening, Cowo Milano sees some interesting facts happening.

1- Mostly small groups seem to be interested in our coworking initiative. First a group of architects, then a group of 4 designers, then again 3 professionals… it made us think. Having 5 desks to offer, would we rather go for a rather nice monthly income, settled for a long time (all of them needed a place for the long run) and practically abandon the coworking idea, or refuse these offers to stick to a more open way, allowing only single or mini-teams of professionals, and leaving the coworking door open? Well, we chose the latter, both because we want to give a try to coworking (otherwise we wouldn’t be here) and also because we don’t feel like hosting groups that are larger than ours (we are 3).

2 – Coworking is raising interest in the italian media. On radio and national press (D di Repubblica recently published an article about cw, I’m trying to find it to post it). A couple of journalist have called to get info and get in touch for future interviews.

3 – Coworkers are finding us. Actually we have two regulars (a yacht designer and a new media consultant) and a third one should arrive in the next few days. All of them are interested in staying for a medium-range period and maybe longer.

4 – I really wanted a video to show what the Cowo is like, so ? pikced up the videocamera and did it. Here it is. Ciao from the Cowo!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKkX-p2pXrY&hl=en]

Cinco de May-aye-aye

So how many dollar store Hot Tamales can YOU fit in your mouth at one time and still breathe? My record is 27. I beat Stan by a mile who wimped out at about 19. He is so not the man. Well, at least when it comes to dollar store tamales. We are actually getting work done today, even though someone kicked in the blender a bit early (what do you expect we’d drink with pile high nachos and quesadillas anyway – coffee?).

Janis was a bit grossed out (by the tamales, not the tequila) but all survived and the new carpet is still intact. The whiteboard is getting worked overtime today as groupies add to the “What We’d Be Doing At Home Right Now If We Weren’t Sipping ‘Tea’ And Hanging Out” list. The more we sip, the better the confessions.

I just met and hopefully did not scare away Henry, a possible newbie who wanted to see the space. I told him that our work-party actually had nothing to do with Cinco de Mayo. We just like Mondays. He kinda sorta half-smiled. I think I need to learn to not dead pan in certain situations, especially those involving business deals.

Our favorite party animal, Cobi the golden, came down from upstairs to hang out and its a good thing too because I think Stan will need an escort home. Oops.

Okay . . . that whole rant above was a bit of a stretch. We didn’t have a bunch of members hanging out, the blender is still clean and, except for a very nice drop-in visit by my pal Bruce, here I sit, waiting to exhale a big sigh of relief for the day when this place is hopping with activity and, alas, a break-even revenue stream. Our day is just around the bend, I know it. But, for an uber impatient gal like myself it will seem like ions. Until then, more tequila for me.

Buenos Tardes Amigos.

Suzitta de Desparado

Introducing Cowo Milano (Italy).

Hi everybody, just wanted to introduce our brand new little coworking project, here in Milano: Cowo@ monkeybusiness.

First of all I’d like to say that the work thas been done and shared on this blog and related wiki has been fundamental for us, so… thanks guys!

We’ve been officially opened for 10 days now, and we have no coworkers in house yet. This may sound like bad news but actually we’ve started completely out of the blue, so it’s kind of expected to have a warm-up period, I guess.

Our space is a 140 sqm loft on two levels (pictures here) located in the eastern part of the city, towards Linate airport.

The neighborhood is being totally gentrified, being – in the past 20 years – an industrial district. Used to be blue collar environment, now it’s becoming student-artistic-media kind of thing. But still, for now at least, we enjoy the good sides of city borders, i. e. parking with no charge, not-as-much traffic congestions and… my house is at walking distance!

In these first days of Cowo, my wife + partner Laura and myself are mostly concerned with understanding the market need of a coworking place in Milano (as far as we know, we’re the only ones – speaking of cw, desks to rent you can find many), something that we’ll discover in the near future.

The people who showed interest, up to now, have been very different, ranging from the freelance art director to the sailing boat designer, from a group of architects to pr professionals and code writers.

They all seemed fine people and we enjoyed meeting them.

We did notice that our place seem to rise interest in small groups, which brings up the price issue.

Of course a three-people group have a different evaluation of the single desk price, and that’s something we didn’t think of. We are also considering offering a free drop-in 1 day option, which I feel is a nice approach that we already practice with the people we know (so why not extend it as a standard Cowo feature? Thanks Riccardo for your suggestion!)

What else? Oh, what we do for a living! We’re a creative consultancy for advertising, called Monkey Business, the three of us include a copywriting dude (me) with two supertalented art directors, that make look great whatever crap comes out from my mac. Check out our smiling logo and you’ll see what I mean!

Last but not least, we have enjoyed a good blogosphere attention thanks to the announcements made by the Italian Art Directors Club blog and the much-followed creative free-lance blog, BolleBlu.

So, next time you’re in town, please come and visit us: cowo @monkeybusiness via ventura 3 milano 20134 [email protected]… we’ll share pizza e birra to begin with!