Thanks Tony and Mark for the great thoughts. And congrats to Elizabeth and her team - what a great adventure you've embarked on!
We've also had thoughts around sponsorships at Office Nomads so this is a great reason for us to get back into that conversation. Our goal of course would only be to work with sponsors that enhance the coworking community here, not detract from it. From seeing the great things happening at La Cantine in Paris, I know it is a real possibility, and want to see if we can work towards adding that aspect into our business here. We've started lightly with sponsoring (we're doing a little bit of shared marketing with Zipcar in Seattle and they're teaming up with us on our open house this week), but would like to continue working with other companies and organizations that help make our business better. :) Mark, your words of wisdom are really helpful, and I'm looking forward to seeing you in Seattle tomorrow! Best, Susan __ Office Nomads officenomads.com 206-484-5859 On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 2:47 PM, mark gilbreath <[email protected]>wrote: > Kudos indeed to Elizabeth and her team. > > On the topic of engaging sponsors (ie other large established > organizations) behind coworking facilities and the community as a whole.... > this is a realistic objective and something that individual facility owners > and the community as a whole should aspire for. > > Many of the underlying tenets of the coworking movement (the increasing > mobility of work, sustainability, energy conservation, economic development, > economic efficiency) are consistent with the values and strategic > directions of large organizations, both public and private. The > challenge/trick is to frame the relationship with a partner entity in such a > way that it reinforces what they want to talk about to their market > audience. Think of your community as an ecosystem. Visualize your > coworking operation at the center of this ecosystem and consider who your > members are... freelancers, consultants, startup companies, non-profits... > the seeds of the future pillars of your business community. Now imagine > orbiting around you: > - local/regional economic development organizations (such as chamber of > commerce, state econ dev board etc) - they want to lower the barrier for the > formation of more new companies... they can be a partner. > - your local elected official (mayor, councilman, congressman) - they > are looking to support any initiative that results in the creation of > jobs... they can be a partner. > - your technology provider... companies like IBM, Cisco, Google, MSFT are > all espousing the concepts of smart work, mobile work, connected work... > look at your technology provider list... they can be partners. > - your local power company... in our local community, Idaho Power got > behind our project because we created a smart green space that used less > energy. they became a partner > - your members... you are helping your members get connected...you are > enabling their success... they are your partners > > So what can "partnership" mean? Well in our case, in the above examples it > meant such things as, co-marketing, press releases, case studies, sharing in > the promotion of special events, special pricing on goods and services for > us and our members, scholarship grants to subsidize memberships. > > Bit of a ramble here when i should be working...apologies. I can polish > this up with a more complete and thoughtful post if this is of interest to > anyone. > > Best > Mark > On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Tony Bacigalupo > <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Hey hey everyone, >> >> TechCrunch just wrote up about Google funding TechHub in London... they >> even used the word "co-working" in the lead paragraph: >> http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/07/06/first-pearson-now-google-sponsors-londons-techhub-for-startups/ >> >> This might be pretty big news for us. I've copied Elizabeth here in the >> hopes that perhaps she'll jump on and share some thoughts with us on the >> backstory behind it! >> >> NWC is doing some deep exploration of the ways sponsors could get involved >> in a coworking space in a way that augments and reinforces, and doesn't >> detract from, the community... so any thoughts on best practices when it >> comes to lining up good sponsors are welcome. >> >> Congrats to TechHub; looking forward to learning more! >> >> Cheers, >> Tony >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> New Work City - Lowering barriers to working for yourself. >> Web: http://nwcny.com >> Blog: http://nwc2.tumblr.com >> Twitter: http://twitter.com/nwc >> Phone: (347) 559-1437 >> Address: 394 Broadway, Fifth Floor >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> 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]<coworking%[email protected]> >> . >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. >> > > > > -- > Mark Gilbreath > > PO Box 2830 > Ketchum, ID 83340 > > mobile 208-720-8107 > skype mfgilbreath > twitter markgilbreath > > -- > 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]<coworking%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. > -- 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.
