I honestly think the membership (or renters) of a space will have a
much greater potential of hurting the brand than any marketing message.
We can't trademark the use of the word or phrase by an average person
on the street, or by a journalist, or a blogger, etc. I'm more worried
about those people lacking the understanding or giving a bad first
impression than someone trying to co-opt the term.
Next is the obvious - someone trying to co-opt the term can cause the
average person to mis-represent coworking.
Touché: Mike
However, I still think the reward outweighs the short-term risk. I
also think services like Yelp can help force these impostor spaces to
be more transparent.
Maybe we need a Yelp directory for coworking? Just list all of the
spaces that attempt to use the word, and try to match them up with a
review page on Yelp, Google Local, etc.
Peace,
Ryan Price
[email protected]
@liberatr
407-484-8528
FloridaCreatives.com
Orlando Happy Hour: Mar 15th @ Crooked Bayou
Next Likemind: Mar 19th @ UrbanThink!
BarCampOrlando.org
Saturday, April 3rd, 9-6 @ Wall St Plaza
Flash Mob Pillow Fight to follow @pillowlando
On Mar 3, 2010, at 11:54 AM, Mike Schinkel wrote:
I understand the perspective, I just think it's shortsighted. But
as I'm in the vocal minority here, I'll abstain from further debate.
-Mike Schinkel
Ignition Alley Atlanta Coworking
http://ignitionalley.com
On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:56 AM, Tony Bacigalupo wrote:
I think we mostly all don't like the idea of people co-opting the
word. If someone has a reasonable solution to offer, feel free to
share. One hint, the answer is not to try to create an authority
which must decide who gets to use the word and who doesn't.
The issue is that "coworking" is more of a concept than a brand.
Spaces that truly embody the *concept* behind the buzz are the ones
that will benefit the most from the trend in the long term, even if
others try to jump on the bandwagon and water down the word itself.
We're all probably sick of hearing about how everyone's "going
green," but the companies that really get it and embrace
environmental sustainability in their practices are the ones which
are going to win out in the long run.
People have a growing need for real coworking. People that provide
something that fulfills that need will find success.
"Coworking" is a wonderful word, but we can only rely on it to take
us so far. We are building organizations which we hope to be
sustainable in the long run, I hope, and should therefore be able
to continue to thrive in a future world in which there's an untold
number of coworking, cobaking, colaundry, whatever spaces
everywhere. New Work City will still be around down the road not
because it's coworking, but because it's New Work City. The concept
behind coworking is of course at its core, but if the word itself
gets watered down or goes away, we'll still be here.
There's been talk in the past about what the future of coworking
is, and I posited that one day it will just be "working." Whether
the word gets used or not, the concept behind coworking is being
woven into how we think about work and life in general, and that's
awesome. We get to help build that.
Aside from the lower-case "coworking," the concept, we've also
described capital-c "Coworking" as a movement, and movements have
their own life cycle of growth, peak, and decline. But this email's
long enough so I'll leave it at that for now :)
We got off track from discussing specific actionable things. What
can we do to advance the discussion of a license/badge to a place
where a decision can be made and we can move on?
Tony
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Work City - Work with, not for.
Web: http://nwcny.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/nwc
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (888) 823-3494
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 5:15 PM, Mike Schinkel <[email protected]
> wrote:
On Mar 2, 2010, at 4:57 PM, Alex Hillman wrote:
I could see it make some sense in theory, but I think falls more
into traditional business paranoia than any scope of reality.
It's not business paranoia, it's a concern about branding.
If someone going to run a space branded as "Coworking" I would
think that someone would want to make sure that brand means
something and it means what they offer. If there's no guarantee
that it won't be diluted and come to effectively mean nothing then
I think they'd be better off coming up with their own term and
promoting that instead.
-Mike Schinkel
Ignition Alley Atlanta Coworking
http://ignitionalley.com
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