Hi All, Greetings from rainy Santa Cruz, California. There's been a lot of good discussion lately about coworking as an economic development tool, including at the "state of coworking" meeting a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco. This is a subject that's been at the heart of NextSpace. Before starting NextSpace, I was the city's economic development manager and my co-founder, Ryan Coonerty, was the mayor of Santa Cruz (he's still a sitting city council member and will begin his second term as mayor in November). So we've always thought of coworking as "economic development by other means." I'm eager to hear more stories (both successes and failures) about how others in the coworking community have engaged their local/regional governments, particularly economic development officials. I think it would be really interesting to hear from those of you outside the U.S. as well.
Also, Ryan and I just had an article published in American City & County Magazine about how local/regional governments aren't doing enough to attract and retain small businesses. And by "small business" we mean the 1- and 2-person companies that many coworking spaces cater to (aside: I was shocked to learn that a company can have upwards of 500 employees and still be considered a "small business" by the U.S. Small Business Administration). We argue that municipalities should, for example, try to attract/retain 200 one-person businesses rather than one 200-person company. Of course, we mention coworking as a potential strategy! If you're interested, you can take a look at the article here: http://bit.ly/awOJO4 Meanwhile, thanks for all that you collectively do to ensure the success of "real" small businesses.....! Cheers, Jeremy http://nextspace.us/ -- 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.
