Hello Co-workers, I am a software consultant and sometimes entrepreneur based in Boca Raton, Florida, and I am currently writing a report as a volunteer project for a local economic development non-profit focused on tech entrepreneurship. The report will cover what I think is necessary to nurture a thriving local entrepreneurial tech community (from a participant's perspective) and what I think the some of the opportunities are for non-profits, for-profits and groups that don't fit well in either category. There are many elements to this but one thing I am looking at is the idea of a space or spaces, in locations that are "places", that bring a stronger community aspect than incubators and more conventional workplace setups. Community is one of the missing elements here and I think the co-work movement has something to say about that. I believe there is room for a lot of different concepts and that they occupy different and potentially mutually supportive niches.
I became interested in co-work spaces through organizing my local Ruby developers meetup. For a long time, until I moved into an incubator, we lacked a place to meet. A number of us are freelancers and would enjoy working together along with other creative professionals whether or not anything we are working on would really qualify for an incubator. We also continually find ourselves in need of design and creative resources and we lack the community to make it easy to find people we are comfortable working with. At RubyConf in Orlando last month, I ran into several other people who were involved in co-work spaces in Minnesota and Washington State. I am primarily interested in creating a co-work space that would also be the "natural place" for professional meetups and user groups to get together. I am interested in what fellow co-workers think makes a successful space and location. How important is the convenience of public transit? How important is it to have potentially complementary nearby (walkable) resources and businesses such as libraries, book stores, cafes, etc? What are some surprising synergies you have discovered? Have you seen the co-work space produce new and successful relationships that would not have come about without it? Has anyone provided space for user groups to meet in the evening? Was this successful in bringing membership and attention to the space? How much did you go out of your way to accommodate these groups? When the meetings break up do the members go home or do they stand outside or go somewhere else? What about adding facilities for trainers to use? Anyone who could teach a class on something technical or useful professionally will struggle with finding an appropriate venue. What about one that is designed for it? Could that be complementary to co- working? How many anchor "members" (not tenants) do you need to have to begin to realize the community benefits? I ask the members of this group to please point me to books I should read or other resources you may know about that are relevant to my report or to share personal experiences that might be enlightening for us all. Very Much Appreciated, Steven Talcott Smith --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
