Dave I think you make a great point and are raising an interesting issue. At Office Nomads, we also started out with a pretty homogeneous population - male, relatively young, and white (and interestingly enough, often bald with glasses, but I think that was more coincidental...). However, as time has moved on and our business has gained a bit more recognition in the wider Seattle community, we're seeing that dynamic begin to shift. We have a number of women members at this point, and have seen a wider variety of ages come through the door. We are still not seeing a direct mirror of our greater population, but we are definitely seeing a shift in that direction.
So as for what our experience tells me, time might be your best ally to getting a more varied audience in the door. We've certainly noticed that with time and a bit more familiarity with the concept we've expanded our audience. Some of the press we received early on may have contributed to that as well - we got some great attention from a few magazines and one of the local news channels that may have reached a wider audience than we had reached before. If you have a marketing budget and advertise at all, you could think about expanding your advertising into a different venue than your currently using to speak to a new audience. Best of luck, and thanks for bringing this up! Susan On Dec 1, 9:37 am, Dave Troy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey there -- > > As part of our process of forming Beehive Baltimore, which will be a > permanent coworking space here, we have been holding a series of twice- > weekly Jelly sessions and generally taking stock of the prospective > community which will make up Beehive Baltimore in the long term. > > What we have found so far is that our constituency is overwhelmingly > male, young, and white. I too fit into this demographic (er, maybe > not the young part so much these days), and I am concerned that we are > missing the input of other voices, particularly women and folks with > different cultural backgrounds. > > That all being said, I think we need to be reflective of our > community, and I don't want to create an issue where none exists. > However, I am reasonably sure that we are not yet truly reflective of > our community, and am curious to learn what others may be doing to > promote a balanced and inclusive culture that does accurately reflect > their local community. > > So I'm not convinced we have a "problem" per se, I just want to be as > inclusive as possible from the outset. Any input or advice is > appreciated! > > Regards, > > Dave Troy > Beehive Baltimore --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
