Author: Chris Messina

Green Coworking at Citizen Space

We’ve always wanted Citizen Space to be a green space — not just the walls (which they are) — but that we’d have as small a ecological footprint as possible in how we run and manage the space. And no, it’s not easy given that we work in high tech and there’s lots of disposables (like a 4′ long box that Amazon sent my new laptop in)… but I digress.

More recently I’ve become obsessed with carbon offsetting and other simple but effective ways that we continue to effectively reduce our footprint. I asked Ivan Storck, a Citizen Coworker who runs Sustainable Marketing, to write up what we’ve done so far and will be doing next:

Chris Messina has really lit a fire under my butt to get our shared “coworking” office CitizenSpace operating and certified as green. While Sustainable Marketing is already certified as a green business via the Co-Op America Green Business Network, it’s only recently that we’ve had a real office outside of my home. Now we can begin to participate in the Bay Area Green Business Program.

Some steps we’ve already taken:

  1. Ordered a full set of trash, recycling, and compost bins from our trash provider.
  2. Continuing our Renewable Energy Certificate program to offset our carbon emissions. See Sustainable Wesbsites Wind Power page for more details. We are going to extend this to the whole office in addition to Sustainable Websites.
  3. Our partner Ethotec has prototyped a green business basics class.
  4. Created a page on the Coworking Wiki to encourage other coworking spaces to be green. Feel free to add to it!
  5. When we moved into CitizenSpace Tara and Chris chose sustainable bamboo flooring and low-energy compact fluorescent light-bulbs (CFLs)
  6. Checked with our landlord on whether we had a low-flow toilet (we did!)
  7. Applied to the San Francisco Green Business Program.

And what’s next:

  1. Figuring out a strategy to deal with phantom power – all the various chargers (”do you have wall warts?!”) for our gadgets sucking up power even when they’re not charging.
  2. Encouraging other technology businesses to go green and devising innovative programs to accomplish this.

So, you can of course contribute on the wiki or leave your thoughts here on how we can bake green principles and practices into the coworking movement.

Twittering while you cowork

Happy from Snow WhiteIt dawned on me that upcoming “What are you doing now” app Twitter is actually a really good tool for coworking.

I say this for a number of a reasons and will make one and a half feature requests.

First, Twitter is a global consciousness app. Basically, you sign up, tune in and shout out.

You can also use it for productivity or virtual teams, but I won’t get into that here.

What I’m more interested in is 1) finding social energy while you work and 2) knowing that you’re not in the slog alone. These two ideas I think fit really well with the ethos and spirit of the coworking community.

Indeed, more often than not, folks look to coworking to sate a need for social interaction that, let’s face it, you just don’t get from instant messaging or video chat. Being around other people and having them in your peripheral vision reinforces your choice to keep at it and stay focused. it also means that you’ve got people nearby who can help you “unstuck” yourself.

So, when it comes to letting the world know what you’re up to, Twittering allows for the least bit of interaction with the most possible return: with 140 characters or less, you tell the world what you’re up to and receive the same kind of pings in return. When you’re in a room full of coworkers, the social benefits are amplified since you can sense that you’re part of a much larger story than just your coworking experience that will continue on long after you’ve retired for the evening. And, being able to read about what other people are up to and how many of them are doing great things conditions you to get your priorities straight and pursue the things you love to do, just as other people have given themselves permission to do.

Now, in terms of those 1.5 feature requests, I’d love to see publicly joinable groups, in the sense of collated geographies of people. An awesome mashup would take all the people at a Plazes location (like Citizen Space or the Hat Factory) and make them subscribable as a group. This could also be done easily if people used their zipcodes on their profiles, but people move around, so Plazes would be more timely.

Additionally, it would be nice if you could move into an “earshot group” as you migrate from one coworking space to another — automatically subscribing to non-friends as you travel. It would be like being able to listen in to all the calls passing through the the cell tower that you happen to be on at any given time. This kind of “ambient socialization” or “digital overhearing” would nicely accelerate serendipity and potentially increase how quickly you’re able to acclimate to a new environment.

That’s the idea anyway, I’ll leave it up to the clever coworking folks to figure how to mitigate that kind of mass of information.

Hat Factory open house party

San Francisco coworking space The Hat Factory is having an open house party next Wednesday, February the 28th:

Coworking is having an open house, and you’re invited!

Been wondering what all the buzz about coworking is about?

Tired of fighting for desk space at coffee shops like Ritual House Coffee Roasters?

Are you self-employed and miss community and structure in your work life?

If so, then it’s time to start the New Year right and give coworking a try!

What is Coworking? Coworking is a non-profit, cafe-like community and collaboration space for developers, writers and independents. Grassroots coworking spaces are popping up all over the world, from New York City, to Paris, to our very own San Francisco.

On February 28, Wednesday, the Hat Factory Coworking space in San Francisco is throwing its doors open to welcome interested folks who want to give us a try, for free. Come and work with us during the day, from 11 AM to 5:00 PM.
Bring your laptop and that manuscript, screenplay, or killer app you’ve been working on and leave the crowded, loud coffee shops behind.

We’ll also be cooking a big meal starting around 5pm with free dinner served after 6pm. Come and eat with us! We’ll have a projector set up so everyone can show off their work.

Coworking in Orlando

It looks like our friend at Emurse, Alex Rudloff, is putting together a nascent coworking community effort for Orlando.

As a number of startup and Web 2.0 events seem to be popping up in Florida, I wonder if this is a sign of things just getting started? Don’t miss the upcoming BarCamp in Miami either — only a month or so late after it’s original date in South Beach! 😉

Coworking office in Palo Alto

SocialText Office 2.0

Ross Mayfield, CEO of wiki company SocialText, recently blogged about his company’s expansion into the recently vacated bob and bob location on High Street in Palo Alto.

Besides a venue for hosting events like their recent Wikithon and the more regular Wiki Wednesdays, Ross is also considering turning the space into an open coworking facility for space- and socially-starved independents and mobile work warriors.

If you’re somewhere in the peninsula or would like a convenient drop-in workspace close to University Ave. in Palo Alto, drop Ross a note.

Coworking in Second Life

Coworking in Second Life

Vadim Zaliva reported that a coworking has been set up in Second Life (wiki page).

Of course, we’ve previously passed around the idea of having a virtual space that people could exist in while working at a physical space in the coworking community, but it was thought to be more of a webcam directory rather than a Second Life world.

However, another option could be to map existing real spaces to rooms in the virtual building, and people working could express their physical presence by
“taking a seat”.

Remote workers not at a shared coworking space 1RL could still get the benefit of the community by hanging out in 2L. We could totally mix it up — and it just might be interesting to augment RL with 2L connections.

The Human Workplace

My thesis is that just as the advent of the steam engine eventually turned all our organizations into quasi machines and turned most people into helpless zombies, so the advent of the web has the power to restore our metaphor of the organization to the Tribe and hence has the power also to transform us poor old zombies back into autonomous human beings again.

Robert Paterson, via Steven Garrity.

CoworkingManhattan Dinner

Noel’s been rocking the NYC Coworking effort and as his latest effort, he’s throwing together a Coworking NYC Dinner:

  • How much do you love your independent office/work environment?
  • Love working from the confines of your cramped studio?
  • Love the $10 mocha/matte/frappe/whatchamacallit?
  • Love the sound of a clanking espresso machine?
  • Love the fight for an electrical outlet and WiFi Connectivity?

Yeah, nor do we… come join us for coworking!

What is coworking?
…it is a cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers and independents.

Currently we have coworking spots in mid-town and brooklyn. Now we want to open a coworking spot in lower manhattan (ie below 14th street).

Come join us Friday, 13 Oct, for a meet and greet with food, drinks
and free flowing conversations. Starting at 7pm, we’ll be meeting at
Congee Village Restaurant & Bar -100 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002

To get involved, take the following steps…

  1. RSVP on the Coworking Wiki for Friday, 13 October @ 7pm Congee Village Restaurant & Bar – 100 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002
  2. Join the Coworking Google List
  3. Blog it with the tag ““