I agree 100% with Thilo and Alex on collaboration, but I also think this extends to getting new members if you are a newer space like us.
We initially started having brainstorming sessions with pizza and wine on Thursday nights and a weekly wind down on Fridays on our deck to get all the members into the sense of community and become friends. For some reason, flipcup has become a favorite team building game here. Once we got everyone on the same page, we started inviting others from our local tech community to come see what we're doing. The response was great. We had our first real open-to-the-public party here last Friday and since have signed up 3 new members, become host to another usergroup, and some of our members have started scheduling things to do outside of work together. Some other ideas for collaboration/promo are doing one project in house all the time. We recently did a mobile photo contest and had everyone tag photos #WTFoto on twitter to enter...when it was over we used all of our members to judge it. It didn't require a big time commitment from anyone, but it got everyone to work together and helped promote the space. Cheers, -Willie -WhiteTableFoundation.com On Nov 11, 2010, at 9:34 AM, Alex Hillman wrote: > Thilo is on the money, and I like to look at it from an 'environmental' > perspective. Not like the earth's environment, but what in terms of how you > can influence behavior by changing the variables of the environment. > > Think of it this way: it may be your goal to encourage collaboration, but > ultimately, what you REALLY want is collaboration to be more likely to happen > on its own. So it's more of an indirect path to your goal. Here's how we do > it. > > We've operated on the thesis that trust and relationships are the most > important precursor to successfully working together, and as such, we've > worked hard to make Indy Hall a "Community of Trust", where events like the > ones Thilo lists below serve a very specific purpose: > > They get coworkers who otherwise might not be as likely to "bump" into each > other casually to get to know each other outside of the working arrangement, > but still in (or near) a working context. > > By having work be the context, there's a mutual understanding that the > potential for working together (or otherwise collaborating, learning, etc) is > baked into their interactions, so they don't have to focus on pitching each > other. Instead they focus on their personal relationship, what else they have > in common, what shared connections they have, etc. Those bonds lead to trust, > and trust as I've said is the precursor to collaboration. > > If you take this environmental approach, I think you'll find that it's far > more sustainable than shouting "COLLABORATE, YOU FOOLS!!!" at your coworkers, > and the quality of life at your coworking space increases multi-fold. > > With this in mind, you can take Thilo's list and see how it encourages this > kind of behavior, and you can also brainstorm what kinds of events make sense > for you and your crew! > > -Alex > > /ah > indyhall.org > coworking in philadelphia > > > On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 5:36 AM, thilo <th...@upstre.am> wrote: > Hi Wilson, > > great to hear that you open a space in Dublin, love the city, surley > will visit your next time I am there. > > Here a some things we do to encourage collaboration. > > - coworker meetups: once a month where coworkers can bring in their > ideas and projects for the space - informal, like dinner or beers so > that new coworker get to knew the others. > > - host usergroup meetups that fit the identity of your space, e.g. we > have technical groups like ruby or frontend dev > > - throw parties > > - open space design, a sperate public area > > - go out for lunch together > > These are some of the things we do. > > I guess people from the list come up with more. > > Cheers > Thilo > > --- > development: http://upstre.am > coworking: http://co-up.de > coworking managment: http://cobot.me > > > On Nov 9, 10:10 am, wilsond <wilson.denni...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello, > > > > I am new to this discussion group and would like to kick off my first > > contribution with a question that i would be very interested in > > hearing your answers on. > > We re currently in the process of putting together a coworking space > > in Dublin, Irl which we are pretty excited by. I have read a large > > amount of detail about coworking and the philosophy of it. But on a > > practical level, how would the owners/managers of a coworking space be > > best placed to ensure that their space would be one of collaboration. > > What practical steps can someone take to foster this environment and > > hopefully create the reputation/output that every coworking space > > wants. > > > > Thanks, > > > > wilson > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To post to this group, send email to cowork...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > 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 cowork...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > 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 cowork...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
