Hi Felicity, We're enjoying some growth in community here at betahouse, and here are some quick observations on success factors. I hope you find some of this useful.
We got major press early last Fall with a front page story in the Boston Globe. It led to a lot of interest both from people we already knew, and new folks discovering coworking. But how do you convert buzz into community? After the Globe article, we had a hard time keeping up with all the casual interest, so we instituted a weekly Open House. It's really just a casual social time where we serve beer and snacks, turn up the music, and make sure that we can give visitors a warm welcome. When people inquire about space, we invite them to Open House. It makes for a very different impression than "walk quietly around the space and try not to disturb the busy coworking people." And as Raines said, coworking is about the people: if visitors have time to bond with people they meet when they visit, they'll leave thinking of more than cost per sq ft and the discomfort of sharing space with strangers. But more importantly: we built betahouse to serve a community (web entrepreneurs), and nearly everyone who has come join us at betahouse has come from this community. People come to betahouse not for the cheap office space, but to be around other people with similar interests and challenges. We regularly attend community events where we tell everyone who will listen about betahouse, and remind everyone we see that they're welcome to stop by and visit during open house, or come work for a day. We even go so far as to follow our friends on Twitter, and respond to the frequent complaints about nomadic cafe life with invitations to come work at betahouse. More seriously, we try to make betahouse a center for the community we serve. We have invited the community in to betahouse for special events, like the all-day hackfests we call DevHouse Boston. Several of our resident coworkers discovered us through these events. We've also held a series of big parties (beer by the keg, endless food, and live DJs). These are tons of work, but it's always a pleasure when I see two people meet and recognize each other from our parties. I'll conclude by saying that we've done all this without a blog. Of course we know we should have one, and everything that Raines says is completely right. But connecting to the community has been our main strategy. I'll try to make this a bit more coherent and post it on the coworking blog. -- Brian Del Vecchio | Virosity, Inc. | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 617-899-0798 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
