In my opinion this sounds very authoritarian and bureaucratic. I'm not against coordination, or the spirit of what you are wanting to do. But I think the way you are proposing going about it is a missed opportunity. Coordination is being approached in a different way these days. For example, this google group is a lot more communication amongst it's members than most industries have, and it's for free.
First, I'd recommend you do not use the word "Authority" to describe the idea. Think more along the lines of some kind of service you can provide that people would find worth their time and money to pay for. Instead of focusing on creating an organization that operates above, and benevolently on behalf of, coworking operations. More of an independent enterprise/profit center that also serves the dual purpose of the kind of coordination you envision. Some sort of 'infrastructure' service that saves businesses time and money. Rather than having some Authority that they all blindly push money to and may or may not know what ever becomes of it. Many industry organizations that I've been involved with who operate with the top down 'you must pay me so that I can help you as I see fit' model just spend all their time trying to figure out how to make more money to pay for themselves, so they can "do more". I don't think anyone needs some new layer of bureaucracy to sit there on top of everyone's heads and point fingers about who should be doing what. That's what coworkers are trying to get away from in the first place. Instead create some kind of organization, like google did or twitter does or mozy does, that provides a service that everyone finds useful, and thus represents all the users in this industry by the nature of what it does. And it's all a voluntary business transaction that people choose to make because it provides a directly useful service. On Jul 14, 7:13 pm, Chris Stewart <[email protected]> wrote: > Good Evening All, > > My name is Chris Stewart, and I'm currently a software developer > for an insurance company based near Dallas, Texas. I've been > passionate about coworking for over a year now, and decided to write a > 2010 SXSW Interactive panel proposal on Federated Coworking. I was a > panel liaison this year and loved the experience so much that I > decided to put together a panel of my own. The term "federated > coworking" doesn't seem to be used at the moment, but my thought > behind it is the need for greater collaboration and resource pooling > between existing spaces to raise awareness of coworking to the general > population. It appears from reading posts on this forum and elsewhere > about the Starfish/Spider argument that coworking spaces are against > strong top-down organizational hierarchy, and are happy to work > independently from each other apart from knowledge sharing and > occasional meetups. My contention is that we need to respect the > desire for coworking spaces to maintain independent, unique > atmospheres, while at the same time embracing new levels of > connectivity. > > From my perspective, federated coworking is an umbrella term used > to represent a centralized authority elected by the spaces to 1) > represent their interests amongst government, business leadership, and > the general public; 2) serve as a collection point for knowledge, > money (to fund awareness and development), and best practices; 3) > provide training to people who want to start a coworking space but > have no idea how to begin; and 4) actively develop new coworking > spaces in partnership with area business and government to house > creative collectives of individuals who will have the benefit of a > comfortable, warm office environment in community with other creatives > without the office politics of a traditional office. > > Whether or not the SXSW panel is approved, I believe it's important > that we begin asking tough questions about the future of coworking, as > this movement will not grow to its fullest potential housed in loosely- > connected silos. I'd like to present several plans during the panel on > what federated coworking could look like, and allow the panelists to > debate the pros and cons of each strategy. Instead of making a lot of > noise during the event and then returning to the status quo, we can > make this panel a jumping off point to real-world change in the way we > approach coworking. > > I'll add more thoughts on this subject as I listen to your > feedback. Respond to this post directly or contact me via twitter > @socialtopher. > > Thanks, > > Chris Stewart > Endaris (my iPhone stealth company) > http://www.twitter.com/socialtopher --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
