The question of overusing space brings up a number of issues... 1) What is your current agreement with members? Do the desks "belong" to individuals or are they all communal? If individual, do you have a written agreement with each "tenant". If not, make one right away. Since you have two members you can involve them in the formation of the agreement if you want to. Bring up the question of personal storage and make sure you discuss the impact on future members.
Fiber High does not permit personal items in the co-working space. Drop-ins and monthly members take all their belongings when they leave. Those who want to store stuff have to rent a cubicle and stay within it.If they need more space they can rent a second cube or a bigger one. Of course, we, the partners, are the biggest offenders of overflow. However, since we pay for all the unrented cubes we don't feel too guilty. 2) How have you set up governance, policy making and policing? When I ran a retail cooperative arcade space almost 40 years ago we had monthly meetings with required attendance of each shop owner. Decisions were made by universal consensus with a "consent with a heavy heart" provision that I learned from Quaker meeting. This means that you keep discussing the problem until everyone either agrees to the solution or agrees to abide by the groups decision (consents with a heavy heart). The meetings were long and torturous but did succeed in building a tight community consistent with our hippy culture. If you decide on some kind of group governance like this, be sure that you make it clear that the meetings are for business, not group therapy or Alcoholics Anonymous-like. You need to be able to confront non-conformers openly and critically. It's easier to have a group bad- guy than to carry that role alone but you won't survive if nobody take on the bad-guy role. 3) Under what conditions can you ask someone to leave or ban them from using the space? This is a situation we all hope never comes up but often can't be avoided. For example, we had one guy who wanted to bring his dog to his shop but the dog barked at the customers. Since the dog didn't actually bite anyone, the guy thought this was ok. The other members decided to ban the dog. The dog problem was easy compared to a person with criminal intent or a mental illness. Sad to say, every society has people who cannot fit into a communal setting. It's better to have rules and customs in place from the early stages of your operation than to have to make them up when an unpleasant situation arises. I have many more ideas...let me know if these are helpful and you want more. And best of luck with your venture. Liza Loop Fiber High, Palo Alto, CA www.fiberhigh.com On Jun 18, 5:41 am, Franklen <[email protected]> wrote: > Our new space is just getting started and is very informal at the > present. We have one person who regularly uses a desk, but also > regularly uses another empty desk or two as well as some extra floor > space for storing personal items, or maneuvering their own stuff > around. > > I don' want to be a bad guy but I think I need to nip this in the > bud. If nothing else I think it would be better to have the place > neat and orderly when others come to visit or look at the space. But > other than that, what kind of policies of resources do you have for > storage of personal and/or business stuff on site? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
