I'd also point out that, anecdotally, I've seen spaces have to work
much
harder to fill coworking when they offer both options (private
offices and
open coworking layouts). The problem, I think, is that private
offices are
familiar, and people will gravitate towards the things that are most
familiar to them.
Culturally, giving people a chance to even see a familiar option
inhibits
their ability to walk into a coworking space open minded...something
that
we've found helps get people acclimated to the "different" ways of
working.
Anything you can do to make the first moments of seeing your
workspace be
strikingly different, to elicit the "ok, I'm ready for anything today"
feeling from your new prospectives will mean they are likely to get
more out
of their first day, and more likely to join as coworkers that
contribute to
the culture of the space that you're trying to engender.
There's some chaos that comes with open spaces, and they aren't for
everyone. We do turn people away who are looking for private
offices. But
we've also tried having private offices and the value their inhabitants
added as contributing members of the coworking community were much
lower
than the average.
From a business perspective, since that is worth considering,...open
floorplans also mean more flexibility and therefore opportunity for
revenue.
Offices have a fixed price, a market value that's hard to change in
your
members' eyes. Even if you're introducing all of the "warm fuzzies" of
coworking, a desk is still only worth a certain amount.
Whereas coworking space and open, flexible floorplans provide an
opportunity
for creating new price points. Flexible space means that optimizing for
growth is much easier. And finally...while anchor members are
important for
establishing your revenue base, having flexible desk options means
that so
long as you can fill them, your revenue potential per flex desk is
likely to
be higher than your anchor desks! In our case, a flex desk has a
maximum
revenue potential of $300/month (our most expensive monthly plan).
But a
flex desk with a basic member at it every day is has a potential of
$600,
and a flex desk with a drop in at it every day has a potential of
$1000.
-Alex
/ah
indyhall.org
coworking in philadelphia
On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 4:38 AM, David Troy <[email protected]> wrote:
Yes, I need to put in a big vote for "open" here as well. Walls are
barriers to culture. To the extent that you want coworking to engender
common culture, you want it to be able to flow freely.
We have two large rooms, and two small offices that hang off the one
largest room. Invariably people want to be in the large main room
because
that's where the energy is. The folks in the two offices are
constantly
poking their heads out to be a part of what's happening in the main
area.
The secondary room is more of an overflow room at this point and it
only
gets used occasionally or for meetings. If it was used every day
all the
time, it would invariably have a different cultural "feel" to it
than the
main room.
IndyHall, in its version 1.0, had two floors and Alex has remarked
that the
main floor and the mezzanine folks had two different cultures; not
vastly
different but enough to notice.
That all said, Beehive Baltimore's space is something we took over
as-is.
If we get the chance to design our own space, it'll be primarily
open space
with perhaps a couple of meeting areas and possibly some tiny spaces
appropriate for phone calls.
If you're doing nothing but private offices I think it devolves
into being
executive suites pretty quickly, and that's a different thang.
Dave
--
Dave Troy
Organizer
Beehive Baltimore
On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 3:41 AM, jesse <[email protected]> wrote:
Open. We've got 20 dedicated desks in a large open plan space.
Probably self-selecting, but the folks here seem happy with it.
Easier
to start or join a conversation with neighbors, and lots of energy
seeing other people excited and working on their projects.
Occasionally we have bizarro moments where it seems like everyone is
on a phone call with a client, but usually it paces out fine.
The fact you would also have dedicated private space for meetings and
private calls is valuable.
Jesse
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jesse Taggert
Citizen Space
San Francisco, CA
http://citizenspace.us
@citizenspace
On Feb 2, 1:43 pm, Mike Pihlman <[email protected]> wrote:
OK, we have a chance (as our 1 year anniversary approaches) to
move to
the office space next to ours. Ours has a nice open area maybe
12 x 12
(The Patio). The rest of the space has a hallway with offices 5
of them
on either side, and storage. I took the doors down on the left
side to
encourage openness, but, use the right side offices (with doors) for
cell phone use, private meetings, etc. See floorplan here:
http://www.tracyvirtualoffice.com/cool-links/floorplan/
The next door space has three offices (the same as the old space
on the
right) that can be used for meetings, cell phone etc, but the
rest of
the space is wide open. The space looks and feels huge even
though it
is "only" 200 sq ft larger.
Our (mostly gut) feeling is that the open space would be better.
But, I
was wondering if you had advice or thoughts?
Thanks, Mike
--
Mike Pihlman
TracyVirtualOffice
"A Coworking Community"
95 W. 11th Street, Suite 203
Tracy, CA 95376
Mobile: 209-608-4340
Web: TracyVirtualOffice.com
Twitter: @TracyVirtOffice
Skype: tracyvirtualoffice1
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