Alex, Sorry for deviating the conversation, but do you have ( or any one else in the group ) any other story of success like Parker's one?
Can this evolution be expected in a co-working environment, because of the co-workers attitude? I know that this is not 1+1=2, but the truth is that when thinking in starting a co-working space I would never imagine such a fantastic outcome Santi 2010/8/17 Alex Hillman <[email protected]> > Slate reached out privately, but I thought that others might find my > response useful: > > Hi Slate, > > I can't speak for Julie (Hi Julie!!) or Tony, but I can tell you that we've > paid one part time staff member a fixed amount of monthly compensation that > covered them for their time spent with us, but also intentionally hired > people who really wanted to work from Indy Hall on their own > personal/professional development. > > Since it doesn't take even close to 40 hours a week to take care of the > office management of our ~5000 square foot office and 100+ person > membership, and it's totally up to them to create even more efficient ways > of getting their work for us done, they can make as MUCH time as they like > for their own projects and essentially get free access to explore their > dreams. > > Parker, our current office manager, recently released his first iPhone game > http://brainarang.com Prior to coming to Indy Hall, he never thought he > could make a video game. In nearly a year of working at Indy Hall, he's > learned communication, team building, leadership, creative collaboration, > iteration, production, and more. > > It's like the best internship ever. > > In fact, we initially ran it as an unpaid internship, see: > http://www.indyhall.org/blog/2009/08/20/the-indyhall-internship/ to work > under our first office manager (who was my assistant). We used a ~3 month > internship to pilot a successor to Dana, and found Parker, who's absolutely > phenomenal and worth every penny we pay him (I wish we could pay him more)! > > Bottom line is: GREAT help is hard to come by, and they need to be > compensated fairly. I don't personally think a commission is fair because a > single staff member isn't going to make the difference between 20 and 40 > members, so they don't really have realistic ways to increase their > compensation to a fair rate. It looks to me more like you're trying to hire > a sales person than what a coworking space really needs: *a den mother*. > > Finally, and probably most importantly, the BIGGEST reason we only need to > pay one person a part time wage is because Indy Hall was built as a > community first, and we heavily included all of our members in the > construction of our clubhouse and continue to do so on a daily basis. So > many of the things that most offices would have to have an office minion > take care of get taken care of by our members because they're proud of the > home they helped create and inhabit. That's more valuable than any "cost > savings" approach we could have ever dreamed up. > > Best of luck on your new effort in Ct! > > Just remember: community comes first. Everything else is gravy. > > -Alex > /ah > indyhall.org > coworking in philadelphia > > > > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 2:21 PM, newhaven coworker < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> I was wondering if anyone has come up with a good formula for paying >> staff? >> >> Is there a percentage of monthly membership income that goes towards >> paying staff? >> >> Many of the posts on that have to do with paying staff are from >> several years ago. If anyone has any insight into this area our >> Connecticut coworking space would appreciate the input. Thanks >> >> SB >> >> -- >> 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]<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.
