Comments embedded below. On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 7:42 AM, ruyoung <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Well, it's certainly happening right here in our back yard now. Two > employees of a large bank just walked into our space and said that > they are opening a coworking facility at a new location that is a 8min > walk from our door. Congratulations! I really mean that. Until now, you've had to do all the work yourself of local market development, explaining the term, outreach, and so on. Now, you'll have an established business, one even trusted in some circles that otherwise wouldn't pay attention to what you're doing, doing the hardest part for you. Once someone "gets it" about coworking (and in the case of a larger business, gets approval from management) and perhaps tries it in their space, they'll be much easier to get into yours. > They will have their bank on the ground level and > a separate coworking space on the second level. Meeting rooms, event > space, hot desks, participate in the visa program, the works. > I've noticed a certain trend of banks and other longtime "old-school" institutions having surplus ex-office space upstairs as they consolidate/automate/slim down, sometimes becoming coworking; for example, CubeSpace in Portland, OR; a local Oakland community bank in Oakland, CA (never opened as a space, but they were exploring it, and sub-leasing using conventional office-rental models). And the shrinking of the San Francisco Chronicle (and outsourcing printing) led to the 5M project which includes The Hub coworking (already quite full, within a month of opening) and soon a hacker space. I was open minded when they first walked in, thinking maybe there > could be a way to make this work, but in the end I didn't believe a > word they said about how they want to help the community. And if you don't believe it, why should anybody else? Just because they can talk a good line, doesn't mean they can deliver in the way you can. While they > may still attract a different crowd, they are co-opting the word > coworking, using it as a marketing tool to reach more banking clients > and strengthen existing clients, If a bank wants to attract and retain small business clients (and keep their business as it grows), then it is a good thing for it to be in the business of running incubator spaces and helping those clients succeed. and every dollar they earn takes away > from the rest of us. I fundamentally disagree. This "zero-sum-game" approach only holds true if there is a fixed market size for coworking. In my observation of spaces so far, this has not been the case. In general (and this may not hold true forever), the more coworkers you have in an area, the more salespeople you have for the concept. > Our current biggest competitor in town doesn't > need to care because they just got a $4million dollar loan from the > city to buy their next building. It seems like they need to care a lot more since they now have to run a sufficiently-profitable business to pay off $4 million in debt over the next x years. > It's the rest of us (including the > spaces that essentially do coworking but that don't brand themselves > as coworking) that have to worry about how this is going to affect our > bottom line. And if this affects our bottom line, then we can't be as > great a resource to the freelance community. > It might be worth looking at how much of the resource is a matter of dollars invested, and how much comes from your community organizing, and from community members, coworkers helping each other. If you're working the social aspect and creating a learning community, you'll remain a destination of choice. And for us in particular, it really stings that they will be so close. > Congratulations, you're now in the coworking district! And your business plan/location has been validated. That could be useful if you're seeking additional investment. Seriously, look at car dealers. There's reasons they cluster together - because that's where the customers are. And people then go there because they know they have a choice. In the end, I told them that they will be doing a disservice to the > coworking community if they proceed, and if they really want to help > the community, they should go back to their management and tell them > that they are making a mistake, that they should be investing in/ > offering grants to independent coworking facilities instead and offer > services or discounts or training sessions or something to our > members, but that moving forward with opening a coworking facility of > their own is, quite simply, wrong. > It shouldn't be either/or. If they're serious about building coworking as a line of business, they'll invest in getting folks working with you, because you will reach different types of coworkers in different ways than they can, more affordably and with greater relational integrity than they could accomplish on their own. I still maintain that competition is healthy, but this is not fair > competition. Agreed on this point, except not the way you think. You have a totally unfair advantage over them, IF you and your community choose to engage in that fashion. But rather than see it as a threat, consider it an opportunity. So what do your members think? That's what matters. Raines Cohen, Coworking Coach <http://www.CoworkingCoach.com/> -- 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.
