Author: Alex Hillman

Coworking Turns 6

Traditionally, society forces us to choose between working at home for ourselves or working at an office for a company. If we work at a traditional 9 to 5 company job, we get community and structure, but lose freedom and the ability to control our own lives. If we work for ourselves at home, we gain independence but suffer loneliness and bad habits from not being surrounded by a work community.

This excerpt is from Brad Neuberg’s first writing about coworking on this day in 2005.

Today, coworking in unmistakably a global phenomenon with spaces and communities active and forming in cities and cultures around the world.

Events take place to discuss the present and future state of coworking. The press has a darling.

But most importantly, as Brad seemed to hope for in 2005, coworking is fundamentally changing peoples’ lives by changing not just where they work, but how they work, and who they work next to.

While it’s trendy now, Coworking is so much more than a trend. Today, we celebrate 6 years of working together as a global community of people dedicated to the values of Collaboration, Openness, Community, Accessibility, and Sustainability in their workplaces.

For today, I’d encourage you to remember that coworking isn’t just an idea, or a trend, or even a “kind” of place.

Coworking is what people want for themselves.

I write this post proudly as a member of this community. Thank you for the most exciting ride of my life.

-Alex Hillman, Indy Hall, Coworking in Philadelphia

Back in July, I received a ping from Patrick Tanguay from Station-C coworking in Montreal suggesting that we should band together and submit a panel for SXSW Interactive 08 (the conference at which we had met, in fact).

 

Over the course of the next week, we shared ideas and, with input from Chris and Tara of Citizen Space, about how we might approach this topic to be a bit more general to appeal to the entire audience. We came up with a title and synopsis!

Coworking and the evolution of the independent worker:
A few years ago everyone wanted to work from home. Now we realize, working alone sucks. What new resources and communities, both online and off, are enabling workers to really step up their game. Coworking spaces are opening everywhere and playing a central part in this new way of doing business.

After submitting the panel and having it voted on, weeks passed. Months passed. Panels began being picked and posted for the conference. Our expectations were set appropriately (we’d be first time SXSWi presenters), and we weren’t shocked to not hear back.

As the last few weeks have been filled with lots of twitter-chatter and question-asking about our SXSW plans, I decided to email the event director, Hugh Forrest, to see if he had any news since we never really got an official “no” on our panel.

As it turns out…we weren’t out of the running! I found out this morning that we’ve been slated to join the list of Core Conversations, a new format to SXSW that reads a bit more like an unconference (see BlogPhiladelphia). This format, rather than a panel, is more of an opportunity to converse and share experiences and knowledge about our journeys in the “indy” workforce.

I’m SUPER excited about this, as it will give us a platform to unite the coworking community as it converges on the city of Austin from all over the world. Last year we had a really fun coworking meetup at Barcamp Austin, this year, we get an official session and location, as well as a spot in the program, to hold it!

I’d like to work with a handful of key people to help make sure that the 1 hour session we have is loaded with interesting and valuable information, so for those of you attending who have something in particular you want to share, drop us a line.

I’ll be posting more as I hear more about the time and date. We’ll also have to organize a coworking lunch or brunch or something like that. I know there are currently ~8 people from IndyHall who will be attending the conference, and many more from Philadelphia I’m sure. If you’re going to be attending and interested in coworking (or Philadelphia and our social/creative scene on any level), drop a line in the comments and we’ll be sure to look you up once we’re in Austin!

The Philadelphia Inquirer loves IndyHall

A reporter and photographer spent several hours at IndyHall this past Wednesday and the product of their work hit newsstands this past sunday morning…we’ve got a bunch of printed copies of the biz section of Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer but if you’re not near a copy (or your newsstand doesnt carry it) you can read it here! If you do grab a copy, we’re on the front AND back page of the business section.

Photo of the front page via Mika Kania

Inky

The local response and support has been absolutel incredible, lots of drop ins coming out of the woodwork to check out our space.

Our grand opening is September 1st, if you’re in or near Philadelphia I encourage you to RSVP and attend!

Let’s walk through through IndyHall together!

We shot a little video earlier this week and I finally figured out how to cut together some stuff in iMovieHD.

Check it out, and leave comments/tags! Oh…sorry about the fact that I’m talking crazy-fast…I’ve been drinking a LOT of coffee!

[viddler id=40e87a66&h=437&w=370]

We’ve been open all week for free use. Our internet was spotty since we were borrowing a connection from a neighbor until today, when we had our DSL line installed. On Wedneday, we had 15 people working from the Hall and the Philadelphia Inquirer spent about 4 hours here interviewing and taking pictures.

Tonight, just 5 days after our first day in the new office, we’re having our first official event, a brainstorming session organized by one of our members for his client. We’ll be videotaping that as well, so expect o see that posted to the IndyHall site.

We currently have 15 desks and chairs put together, and next week will be fitting out our lounge and conference room.  If all goes well, we have a good deal on digital projectors and other office equipment like that.

We’ve got a lot of donated gear too, from furniture and items for the kitchen, lounge, and office supply closet to a recovered server rack for our networking set up.

Our free use will roll into membership driven use on September first, but not without a big bash! Keep an eye on our Upcoming Event and RSVP if you’d like to attend the social event. We’ll have an open house all day, and in the early evening we’ll switch over to reception mode, crack open some champagne, and toast, before heading over to our partner bar less than a block away. I hope to see lots of people on the 1st, it’s going to be awesome!

Updates from the Philadelphia Front

Indyhall 2.0 Screenshot

A lot has been going on in Philadelphia! Our ever-growing group of creative and independent business people is about to come together to open our first coworking space! We have a bazillion things to do to prepare for signing our lease on August 15th (everything from space planning to purchasing equipment to scheduling broadband installations…nevermind signing member agreements and collecting payments!). We plan to soft open as quickly after that as possible with a grand opening soon to follow. We’ve got a wonderful space in Old City Philadelphia (32 Strawberry Street, map), which puts us in an awesome neighborhood with easy access, lots of restaurants, as well as regular foot traffic. Really, it couldn’t be more ideal!

To ring in this excitement, I’ve relaunched our website to now include a group blog, allowing contributions from our members. Our membership plans are posted on the site as well, as well as much of the information regarding our plans. As dates harden, I’ll be sure to post here again so people can attempt to make it down for our opening if they are nearby!

Coworking around the world, via Noel(noneck)

Back in May, Noel Hidalgo shot some footage of Jelly in NYC (recently featured in Wired along with our Philadelphia verison).

[blip.tv ?posts_id=231491&dest=-1]

Now while on his ’round the world journey which he’s blogging at LuckOfSeven.com , he’s continuing that tradition of interviewing people about their coworking and web working experiences. He just posted a new video which featured Travis Todd and David Troy, both of whom he randomly ran into while visiting in Berlin.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=317558&dest=-1]

In Philadelphia, we’ve resolved to start recording more video of our events, so look out for similar kinds of footage of our efforts as well!

Philadelphia Jelly = Cream Cheese Sessions?

This is a repost from my personal blog, dangerouslyawesome.com because I thought that the coworking community might be interested in this.

Cream Cheese Session

I just left the inaugural session of Philadelphia Jelly coworking. As per a suggestion from Jacob Patton, with a twist from one of the participants, I am considering dubbing this Philadelphian version, Cream Cheese Sessions. Alternatively, we could simply adopt something along the lines of “PhilaJelly”, but I’m a pretty big fan of Cream Cheese Sessions, especially if we can invent some kind of ridiculous back-story :-). I’m open to ideas in the comments.

At any rate, I would call the event a success. Over the course of the day, there were 8 on-site participants (most of whom were there for the entire day). The campfire backchannel that I set up was visited by about a half dozen off-site “drop-ins”, some from Philly, as well as one couple from Rochester that are moving to Philly soon and a friend of mine in Maryland. Additionally, Geoff from P’unk Ave dropped in during the class that he teaches at UArts, and I gave the class a quick overview on Coworking and Jelly via the campfire room.

The cafe that we crashed was the Chapter House at 9th and Bainbridge. Honestly, I felt kinda bad because I didn’t give them a heads up that we were taking over but they were kind enough to not kick us out, this time. Next time I’ll provide some warning and maybe arrange some kind of compensation. But we all bought drinks and most people bought some food.

The spread of talent and skills and “titles” was varied. Everything from designers, developers, project managers, general creatives…there was a good representation across the board. Really, anyone who works alone, or in a non-creative setting, could have benefited from today’s session. And really, you don’t need to even be an indie. A few of our coworkers either “worked from home” (and thats what we are, a home away from home), or took a vacation day to work on side projects.

The response was positive from all of the participants, and a few photos can be seen on flickr, as well as on the Independents Hall Homepage.

Will we do it again? Absolutely. As Roz said:

“I felt so much more productive working in an independent yet collaborative environment. I could focus on my work, but draw inspiration from the random moments where we’d all stop briefly and chat about an idea or concept. I hope to make coworking a regular part in my work process.”

And I’d agree.

I’m considering contacting twitter to set up a “PhillyCreamCheese” group that people can join, and I’ll send out an notice (or anyone, really) that I’m working from location “X” today, and anyone can join me. Impromptu Coworking at it’s finest, dontcha think?

This was a great experiment and I can’t wait to see where it takes us as we continue down the road to having an established coworking presence in Philadelphia.

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Historical Collaboration

“The Junto was a club established in 1727 by Benjamin Franklin for mutual improvement.”

Sound familiar? I’m really excited about the interest in coworking that I’ve been able to generate here in Philadelphia. I’ve got a couple of agencies that are interested in sharing space with indies, and some potential dedicated-space opportunities. At the rate I’ve been getting feedback on the website I created for Independents Hall, I’m confident that after some meetup events, and maybe one or two more successful ‘Camps(if not sooner), we will have a good start to an established collective of indies here in Philadelphia.

Also exciting is the interest from one of the cities oldest running New Media organizations, PANMA. PANMA has spent the last 10 years representing the regions digital development community. I’ve spoken with a couple of their board members, and one even proposed that I think about joining the board and launching coworking with the support of PANMA.

At this point, my biggest concern isn’t getting people, it isn’t all of the administrative tasks involved with running a space (though thats pretty high on the list, I’m confident the tool being built by the guys up in NYC will help), my biggest concern is funding. I’m considering approaching Ben Franklin Technology Partners for a grant since this seems to be right up their alley. I’m of the conviction that if I can build it, they will come.

Stay tuned for more cool stuff coming out of Philadelphia.

-Alex [dangerouslyawesome (at) gmail (dot) com]

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