These are the adjectives that come to mind when coworking in Omaha’s newest collaborative workspace, CAMP Omaha.
Snuggled secretively inside a former furniture warehouse that’s getting a creative make-over, CAMP has the feel of a 1950′s elementary classroom gone horribly right.
Gone are the intrusive fluorescent lights and clumsy chalkboard. In their place are giant windows, spacious desks, comfy couches, and a map of America so giant it’ll make you want to want to play Twister all over the Midwest.
In its own words, “CAMP is a dream realized through creative friends, late night pancake runs, Double Dead Guys, supportive parents, great friendships and a passion to give back to Omaha.” Translation: if you’re into private offices and library-like workspaces, don’t bother going to CAMP.
BUT! If you like comparing musical playlists, longboarding to the bathroom, and pulling all-nighters with freelance fashion designers, software programmers, writers, and photographers…CAMP has a bunk with your name on it.
Wanna learn more? Follow @CAMPomaha on Twitter or join their page on Facebook. If you’re passing through Nebraska, be sure to stop in and say hi to Megan and the whole CAMP gang. (And be on the lookout for the wandering mannequin!).
@GoneCoworking is the adventure of Beth and Eric, two crazy kids traveling the country to find out whether it’s really possible to be a location independent freelancer! The coworking community provides a unique opportunity for traveling telecommuters/freelancers/business owners to have a professional workspace and remain connected with their peers while away from home. Here’s an inside look at some of the coworking people and spaces we’ve met along the way!
A few months ago, I decided that Beijing really needed a coworking location, and I would be the one to build it. I immediately started to look at office leases here and quickly became discouraged because of the extremely high cost. At the same time, however, I’d been reading about lean startup techniques and customer development for my own startup. Lean startups focus on ensuring product-market fit before investing a lot of resources, so I decided to apply some of these ideas to my coworking project. I’m glad I did, because they forced me to slow down and saved me from making an expensive mistake.
If you’re also starting a coworking space and would like to know how I’m starting small and building up, here is the process I’ve used so far:
1. First, you have to find out who in your area is interested in coworking and what they are looking for. I set up a free survey on Wufoo.com to ask some simple questions and so I would have a link that I could forward people to.
In my opinion, the most important questions here are ‘Why are you interested in coworking?’, ‘Where would you like us to be located?’, and ‘What’s your email address/name?’. These tell you who what types of people will form the core of your community, where they are, and how to contact them. I also asked a lot of other questions including ‘How often would you want to work at a coworking space?’, and how important each of a whole list of possible amenities would be.
One mistake I made on this survey is that I asked about price in a multiple choice question – everyone chose the least expensive option. A better way to ask the same question would be to only ask ‘Would you be willing to pay $X per day/month?’ The best would probably be to randomize the price that gets shown to people, so you can tell when people actually start to hesitate.
2. In order to get answers, you need to start distributing your survey, so start by thinking about where you think potential coworking are hanging out now. Twitter can work if you get someone with a lot of followers to retweet, but coworking is very local, so other techniques might work best for you. If you just start talking to people at coffee shops and events, you’ll probably find a lot of people who are interested. Get their contact info and follow up by sending them a link to your survey. If you want to spend money, you can also put up an adsense campaign for things like ‘<name of city> coworking’ ‘<name of city> shared office’. This has the added advantage of letting you know how actively people in your area are looking for coworkiing.
3. You can’t have too much context on a survey, so put up some blog posts as well. Especially if your area doesn’t have anything coworking related, it should be easy to start ranking highly for important keywords. This is much cheaper than an advertising campaign if it works. Make sure your survey and your blog link to each other; you wouldn’t want people who come to the blog to not be able to find your survey.
4. As soon as you have some responses, you should start an email list. I use MailChimp to manage mine, and it’s really easy. This is far better than BCCing people on emails like I did at first. For one thing, it gives people an easy way to opt-out just by clicking a link in your email. Another is that you can keep track of how many people are reading your newsletter and manage your users easily. I now automatically add people to an ‘important updates’ email list; basically, I’ll email them when we’re about to officially open.
5. Once you’ve done all these easy steps and have found a few interested people, think about the minimum, most valuable part of what you are offering – generally, that is the community that you want to build. You should see if there’s a way to get people hooked on that without needing to invest in real estate immediately. For me, this is getting people to work together informally. I have a second email list for people who want to start working together right away. I actually think Google Groups might be a better option for this step because it supports discussions, but that’s blocked in China, so I can’t use it here.
There are lots of coffee shops in Beijing, so every week I decide where I’ll work each day and send out an email on Sunday evening. This has been really helpful in getting community around this idea and we can also start appreciating the benefits of working together sooner. In person, you have much more in-depth conversations with people and gauge their interest better, so maybe you can even find some of them who are really excited and can help by suggesting locations, paying for a month in advance, etc.
If the coffee shops in your city aren’t very good for working, maybe you can find some other way to begin creating the community. Perhaps get people together for dinner or run a jelly in your apartment every once in a while.
Right now, this is where I am in Beijing. My next step is to look again at places to rent. Two or three people who have been participating in our informal coworking group have already said they’d like to be core members in the beginning. Unlike when I first looked at offices, I think I’m going to concentrate on finding an apartment to convert – these are generally smaller and less expensive, with more flexible leases, so three people is already enough to make the cost per person very reasonable. Boston’s Betahouse also works out of an apartment, and it was great to visit. It’s relatively small, but everyone is productive and there’s a very strong community, which is exactly what I’d like here.
I hope that if you’re considering starting a coworking location, some of these tips will be useful to you as well.
If you’d like to read more about coworking in Beijing, feel free to check out my blog at http://blog.mpdaugherty.com.
Wood Project / Meeting Table (Jay and Tom at their desks)
Short History
A couple of years ago, I read an article on coworking. After reading it, I thought to myself…wow, this is just like the old Neighborhood Telecommuting Centers of the 1980’s.
Having co-written the first “Telecommuting Plan” at LLNL, I became a staunch advocate of telecommuting and in the early to mid-90’s, I pondered opening a Telecommuting Center in Tracy, CA. Hey…205 was getting busier, 580 was packed most days, lots of commuters complaining about their long commutes, and these commutes were getting longer and longer. I thought “Wouldn’t it be perfect to give commuters a place to work, close to home?”. However, not having money or support, that never happened….probably a good thing.
Fast forward 15 to 20 years or so….
Now “retired” from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (but, still needing to make money) I opened the Tracy Virtual Office (now AltamontCowork) as a “coworking” location on May 1, 2009.
Did I understand what coworking was? Ahhh….No. My mind was stuck in “telecommuting” mode, and commuters. But, that’s ok…I’m great at learning on the fly. I did.
Originally, as I sort of said above, I thought opening a coworking location was a great way to get commuters off the roads, reduce traffic, save dollars, be closer to home, improve their quality of life and increase productivity. All the benefits of telecommuting. In other words, a modern version of a Neighborhood Telecommuting Center…my dream.
Scratch that….
Fast forward, 14 months (and change)
I now understand “coworking” (at least from my own experience).
Before I move on, let me get the following out of my system, as I still believe VERY strongly in the benefits of telecommuting (working at home or, now, at a coworking location). There are ZERO commuters using AltamontCowork. ZERO. Let me rant on that point for a few seconds: If you are happy commuting over 4 hours a day from Tracy to the Bay Area, great, BUT, I DO NOT want to hear ANY complaints! If you complain…then DO SOMETHING about it. TALK to your Old Fashioned Boss (OFB) about telecommuting. Believe me, your OFB will NOT talk to you…he / she does NOT care one whit (maybe with an “s” in front) about your commute or quality of life. If you are too chicken to do something about your commute (assuming your job allows you to telecommute)…don’t complain, pure and simple. Ah….there, I’m done. I feel better? Arrrghhh….
Back to coworking. 🙂
A coworking location IS an open collaborative space where independents, freelancers, small / micro businesses can call “home”.
It is NOT a boxed 10 x 10 office, it is NOT a virtual office…which is just a time-shared boxed office.
Likewise it is NOT Starbucks or McDonald’s or Barnes & Noble where you can sit and work on your laptop (in isolation except for the noise) until you get booted out.
And it is NOT your home. This means you have to get dressed and go to work. It does help you stay away from the refrigerator, helps you avoid distractions (honey-do lists, kids, pets, laundry, lawn, garbage), and fight off isolation.
It IS a place where you get to know your fellow coworkers, where you can work in environment similar to a company, but, you are your own boss.
It IS a place where IDEAS flow freely (you are no longer isolated).
It IS a place where you can get help just by asking. “Can someone help me?”.
It IS a place where you can give seminars, teach a class, or have a meeting.
It IS a place where you and your coworkers can (and do) go out to lunch together, enjoy birthday parties, have family nights, laugh, and enjoy other social events. It is kid and pet friendly, and, geeezzz, you could field a softball team in your town.
It IS a place where you can meet clients without cleaning your house! And feel safe.
By the way….a coworking location IS ALSO CLOSE to your home. You can be with your family, you won’t miss important plays, games, doctor visits, etc. You can ride a bike to work or walk (good for your health and the health of the world). You will probably spend more of your money in town (good for the fiscal health of your town).
Coworking has MANY benefits….and it is super affordable for starting out.
One coworking location came up with a great description:
“Work FOR Yourself, Not BY Yourself”
I thought of another while running….rats, walking one day, we are:
“A Community of Independents” (since there are no commuters / telecommuters).
Summary
Coworking is a NEW way to work, and I predict it will be THE way to work 10 years from now as box offices and virtual offices knock down walls to become coworking locations.
The benefits of coworking are simply too compelling to ignore.
Commuters?…..hmmmm, well. Have fun. Until you get the nerve to talk to your OFB (Old Fashioned Boss) to start telecommuting / coworking, have a good life on the road. No complaining!
Driving through Iowa on our way to Des Moines revealed exactly what you might expect about a midwestern state: corn, tractors, wind farms, and more corn. But nestled inconspicuously in a warehouse just outside the downtown area is a hothouse for creativity and technical innovation called Impromptu Studio.
As Iowa’s first home for coworking, Impromptu is proud to have inspired others with the spirit of coworking and led the way in igniting growth in Iowa’s technology scene.
The mix of coworkers that call this comfortable space home is eclectic and refreshing. From artists and writers, to developers and remote workers, many different types of people have come to depend on the community and collaborative potential of Impromptu Studio.
Chatting with @catrocketship, it was easy to see that a common coworking problem affected the professionals in this space as well: the inability to avoid coming up with new projects, business ideas, and website themes on a daily basis. Coworkers are constantly inventing and creating, a process that is effortless when working an elbow’s length away from likeminded people.
The other half of this delightful spacecrew, @scottrocketship, was clearly passionate about what coworking can do for the still-developing cultural and technological scene in Iowa. Striving to push the envelope, whether it be throwing rockin’ parties or offering the only voice of criticism in room full of yes-men, it’s creative thinkers like Scott that will continue to reinvent coworking into something even better.
@DanielShipton is the space’s founder, and dedicated advocate of the coworking lifestyle. CEO of @BitMethod a company that has quickly grown to support five employees, Daniel refuses to retreat to private office space. Instead, his company proudly inhabits the upper section of the loft space, happily brainstorming and inventing out in the open at a long conference table.
In the future, Daniel sees coworking as a recruiting tool for technology companies like BitMethod. Companies that contract out their work to freelancers can offer a cafe-like space on the company grounds as a way to take the “remote” out of remote worker. Morale and productivity go up, while the company is able to keep wasted space and resources down. And the company will have a built-in pool of awesome people to pick from when it’s time to expand.
If you’re ever passing through Iowa, I highly recommend stopping into say hi to the coworkers at Impromptu. Even if it’s just for an afternoon Mario Kart tournament.
We have been making great progress cleaning up the coworking wiki and eradicating spam. The first step is to start a moderator group that approves/denies people who would like to make edits. This is a pretty easy step as folks who are not interested in coworking and only want to add links and such generally don’t try very hard. Will Bennis from Locus Workspace in Prague personally writes everyone who doesn’t include a message in their sign up request and only one in four write him back. We also keep a close eye on the changes RSS feed and jump in and clean house when someone mucks things up.
The space listing has been cleaned up too and moved into a specific Directory page. We have also kicked off The Coworking Database Project aimed at creating better searching functionality. The end result will be a fully decoupled data set with APIs to hook into various interfaces around the net. For example, imagine the data behind Coworking in Deutschland was centralized and they were able to pull just the German spaces to power their list and map. If you would like to get involved in that project we have a mailing we use for collaboration and it’s all listed on the project splash page.
If you are interested in helping out with the wiki cleanup work, or would like to make suggestions, just drop me a line at jacob [at] officenomads [dot] com.
We’re looking for guest bloggers from the global coworking community. Help support the coworking movement by sharing your experiences, knowledge and insight about coworking here. Use the “Submit a Blog Post” button on the right.
Author: @GoneCoworking is the adventure of Beth and Eric, two crazy kids traveling the country to prove that it really is possible to be a location independent freelancer! The coworking community provides a unique opportunity for traveling telecommuters/freelancers/business owners to have a professional workspace and remain connected with their peers while away from home. Here’s an inside look at some of the coworking people and spaces we’ve met along the way!
GC: How were you first introduced to the concept of coworking?
Gerard: Honestly, I don’t remember at this point. I knew about coworking for the longest time, but I mistakenly defined it as rented office space. When I had the glimmer of a wink of a thought about opening one I started digging deeper and realized that coworking was very different from office suites.
GC: What are the benefits/challenges of coworking?
Gerard: I like to tell people that coworking offers self-employed workers all the benefits of working in an office, and none of the bad stuff. That is, you get to chat with colleagues, go to lunch with them, but nobody answers to anyone, so there is no boss, no politics.
The primary challenge with coworking is really the working environment. Working in an open space, next to one another, is not for everyone. Working in a dusty loft, with second-hand furniture is not for everyone.
GC: What sets Cincy Coworks apart from other facilities a traveling freelancer might visit?
Gerard: If you are a freelancer and work in Cincy Coworks you will be working right next to someone who is at least somewhat like-minded. Our current space is too small to avoid this.
There are plenty of office suites in town. Even better, market rates are so low right now, that you could get your own office for cheap. But you won’t talk to anyone and you will work alone. And if you work alone, why not just stay working at home?
GC: I love how part of your slogan is “not just for working.” What other benefits does coworking provide for entrepreneurs/freelancers that an office suite can’t?
Gerard: In addition to the benefits above, we are located in an up-and-coming neighborhood with a coffeeshop, an Asian restaurant, an organic market and deli, all within a couple blocks.
We’d like to hold more evening and weekend events and encourage our members to hold events, but this is a work in progress.
Check out this cool video for a sneak pick into life at Cincy Coworks!
If you’re in the Cincinnati area, and are looking for a place to cowork, you’ll be please to know that Cincy Coworks is a proud member of the Coworking Visa program, and are happy to welcome drop in visitors any time they’re open. Follow @cincycoworks on Twitter, or head over to www.cincycoworks.com to learn more!
Normally a superhero dons a cape and mask before saving someone. Today, Greg Fuhrman arrived at Cohere Coworking Community in relatively inconspicuous attire: a blazer. Greg is a “freelance Chief Financial Officer.” I’ve given him that title because he works p/t or interim for small and growing companies that need a little CFO love.
Greg taught us what a CFO’s role is, why we might want a CFO’s help, how to set and raise rates, adding employees and tips and tricks for securing venture capital! Yep, all that in just one hour at #frankfriday today.
Today’s financial focus will be on RATES. How much are you charging and is it enough?
Never undersell yourself.
Longer projects can be at a lower rate in return for the security of a long term contract.
Urgent projects demand a premium rate, sometimes double what you normally charge. If a company expects you to drop everything for them, it’s going to cost ’em!
Measure yourself against your peers. Your peers are people in the same industry with similar experience.
What seems like a lot of money to you may not phase a company with deep pockets.
You should not be charging less than $50-60 per hour. Yep, you read that right.
Know what your minimum dollar amount to survive is and work backwards from that number factoring in how many billable hours/month or week you can tolerate as a creative. (Angel’s note: I’ve noticed that many technically creative people can only produce high quality work for about 5 hours/day. This 5 hours/day is in addition to the more functional parts of freelance like billing, writing proposals and catching up on twitter).
When setting your rate, factor in taxes, retirement, insurance and the cost of doing business in your field. What software or equipment do you have to keep up to date?
Get off on the right foot with a new client by telling them your normal rate and then discounting their project. “My normal rate is $120/hour but I can do $100/hour since this is a large project.”
In summary, you probably aren’t charging enough. What could you accomplish if you doubled your rates and worked half as many hours? Marinate on that and tune in later this week for Greg’s advice on how to raise your rates.
Contact Greg (gregory@fuhrmanconsulting [dot] com) if your business needs an interim CFO, business planning or a long-term strategy.
Bringing coworking to nearby Loveland, Colorado has been an adventure. We’ve roved around looking for fast, reliable and secure internet. We’ve picked up shop and moved mid day for greener pastures. We’ve celebrated milestones and then suffered disappointment when things didn’t work out after all. I’ve asked myself several times if I can really do *this* again. Can I?
Bringing coworking to nearby Loveland, Colorado has been an adventure. We’ve roved around looking for fast, reliable and secure internet. We’ve picked up shop and moved mid day for greener pastures. We’ve celebrated milestones and then suffered disappointment when things didn’t work out after all. I’ve asked myself several times if I can really do *this* again. Can I?
It seems like a hundred years ago when the Fort Collins crew was crammed into that reception area at RMI2 for free coworking. I have to think hard to remember how every Tuesday morning I would arrive twitter-pated to start the day and explore the concept of coworking with my new little circle of friends. I’d drag tables and chairs together and arrange them in some sort of semblance of a “real office” and then wait for the first freelancers to start arriving. We did this for just 5 weeks. Five weeks was all it took to grow a little community of coworking addicts in Old Town. 6 weeks after that Cohere opened. Ah, Cohere. Our (near) perfect little slice of historic Old Town with exposed brick, original hardwood floors, sunlight everywhere, sweet high back chairs and fun furniture. Comfort. Bliss. Sweet productivity and calm all at once. Hasn’t it always been this way?
Flash to today: in the back room of Dazbog in downtown Loveland. Four freelancers, 8 cups of coffee and the weirdest collection of music playing over the loud speaker (think The Beatles, funk and Bruce Springstein together at last). Don’t misunderstand me. Dazbog has been great. The owner has been flexible and helpful (the free snacks didn’t hurt)! But we’re in a coffee shop. You’ve all heard me talk about the horrors of freelancing from coffee shops and yet here we are again. We’ve found about the best possible coffee shop situation. To have a private room with a door, windows and a caffeine source 12 steps away is really, truly delightful.
I have to keep reminding myself that our beginnings in Fort Collins really were humble and not the perfect, flourishing community that we are today. Remember dragging those tables around? I mean, really dragging that stuff from the way back of the building? Remember those not so comfy plastic chairs? How about trading off and on for power with the only outlet? Remember that? What about the day we browned out the internet connection because there were 14 of us in a room built for 6 on an internet connection that was probably meant for 4?
In discussing the current coworking situation in Loveland today, we realized that the reason the U.S. economy needs entrepreneurs is because entrepreneurs can’t remember what it was like to start the first business. Much like child birth (or so I’ve heard), I just can’t remember if or how much pain there was when I started Cohere Fort Collins. I can remember the facts of having to move furniture back and forth but I don’t really remember the irritation or exhaustion of it all. I remember having a hundred things to do each day but I have no idea what I was feeling other than excitement. I think that this is the ONLY reason that entrepreneurs carry on. We take the risks, we take the plunge, and we’re never, ever looking over our shoulders into the past to remember how it was the last time. We just can’t remember the pain.
So we lost our free internet connection in Loveland today and will remain in the coffee shop for many more weeks. So we’ll be cold and need to wear jackets while we cowork. So we’ll be distracted by the weird music playing. So what? The most important part about coworking is being together. Just being together. We did it at RMI2, we’ll do it at Dazbog and we’ll keep doing it until we crash their internet and use up all of their chairs!
Sure, I don’t really remember the pain of starting Cohere the first time around. I’m sure to forget the little quirks that Loveland has held so far. But when we open in Denver next year, I’ll be just as excited and just as blissfully unaware of the past points of pain as I am today.
Yeah, independents, freelancers, emerging startups, web developers and others rejoice. You have a coworking option in Toronto again. After Indoor Playground “moved” in January 2008, Toronto has been lacking a general coworking space. (Yes I know about the Centre for Social Innovation, but it has mission-based selection criteria that helps create it’s ecosystem and not everyone qualifies). But today, Rachael and Wayne have announced the opening of Camaraderie. I provided some coverage over on StartupNorth, I’m hoping that we can again try to rally around a different office space model that is enabled by this emerging participatory culture.
Camaraderie is a located at 102 Adelaide St E, Toronto, ON. The doors are scheduled to open on Feb 15, 2010 and the space will be free until Feb 28, 2010. I’m hoping that many of the independents that are looking for a part-time, downtown coworking space will check out Camaraderie. The pictures of the space are still very raw.
The Details
memberships will be $300/mo for unlimited use during business hours
we’ll work out keys later, but for now the space will be open 9:00am-6:00pm (or later)
free wifi, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate every day
