James - It sounds like you're talking about Hacker Spaces <http://hackerspaces.org/>, a parallel movement to coworking, sharing many principles.
Perhaps the best way to introduce the concept is with a variant on the old saw: How many coworking space members does it take to change a lightbulb? None, because it becomes a hacker space when you start messing with hardware. While some of the first coworking spaces to use the term came together out of programmers, writers, and other creative professionals sharing space and resources and cooperatively managing the project while pursuing our own ventures, we recognize that, at its core, both movements are, in essence, reconnecting to and building on centuries-old practices<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilds>pursued by craftspeople, attorneys, architects, artists, and others needing access to specialized tools, peers, and types of spaces that would be expensive or harder to create individually. Generally speaking (and of course there are exceptions and counter-examples), Hacker Spaces tend to have: - More of a focus on hardware, soldering, creating, D-I-Y, and the like. - More smoke, less mirrors. - Replaces garages rather than home offices. - More welding, less WarCraft. - If it's broke, we fix it rather than call a service tech. - Less desks by default, more drawers and dangerous devices in dedicated spaces. - More machines and custom tools, less bandwidth and business managers. - More co-creation and art, hacking and soldering, less coding and graphics and design. - Less Wired, more Make magazine. - When you say "give me a file," they hand you an edge-roughening tool, rather than attach and email or reach into a filing cabinet. - More PERL, FORTH, and Arduino, less C++/Java/Ruby on Rails/JavaScript/Python. - More microcontrollers, less Microsoft. - Rather than a Wii, we've got an old-school "insert coin" arcade console. - More Wiki than WordPress. Flash is something Hacker Space denizens use to take pictures, not enliven websites. - Stitching rather than Pitching to VCs. - More 3-D printers, less fax machines. - More freeganism, less catered cappucino coffees? Of course, some of these distinctions are reflections more of the stage of different fields of development and their relation to different economic institutions, and the priorities of the space founders, so don't take them as part of a definition of either coworking or hacker spaces - what do you see as key differences in the personalities, projects, and ventures each type attracts? A few coworking communities like Carrboro Coworking Collaborative (NC) are listed as Hacker Spaces, and vice-versa. While many hacker spaces, like some coworking spaces, are collective/cooperative ventures, some "second-generation" professional-service-model, dare I say "chain" Hacker Spaces have emerged, like TechShop <http://techshop.ws/> (*now with several SF Bay Area locations, including one in the SF Chronicle building next to The Hub<http://www.HubBayArea.com/>coworking space network that I'm a member of *). I participated in a coworking/hacker spaces presence at Maker Faire<http://makerfaire.com/>a couple years ago with some of the founders of HackerDojo <http://www.HackerDojo.com/> (Mountain View, CA) and am a member of Ace Monster Toys <http://acemonstertoys.org/>, just down the street here on the Berkeley/Oakland/Emeryville (CA) border. NoiseBridge<http://noisebridge.net/>(San Francisco) was an area pioneer that I connected with at the BIL unconference near TED. As someone involved in the Intentional Communities <http://ic.org/>movement, helping people co-create residential neighborhoods for greener living, I see a strong parallel between the evolution of Hacker Spaces and Coworking with the development of Cohousing <http://www.cohousing.org/> and EcoVillages <http://gen.ecovillage.org/>: two frameworks, with independent origins, following similar paths, with much to learn from one another, and many opportunities for growth, collaboration and better serving their members by staying in their own silos and talking only to "pure" examples of their own types. We're all struggling to find ways to embrace and support professionals venturing in and growing our realms, while honoring our grassroots cooperative roots. Raines Cohen, Coworking Coach <http://www.CoworkingCoach.com/> @ CoworkingCoach <http://twitter.com/CoworkingCoach/> Planning for Sustainable Communities (Berkeley, CA) Still drawing inspiration from the Coworking Europe conference in Brussels last month P.S. Do check out the wikipedia article on Guilds<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilds>I reference above for the pre-history of collaborative shared spaces. Did you know that these proto-coworking ventures, starting over 1.5 millennia ago, were part of the development of corporations, patents, apprenticeship, insurance, retirement funds, money (rather than trading/bartering goods), social-security equivalents, unions, bar associations, and the like? Does coworking belong in the "Modern Guilds" section of that article? P.S. The wikipedia article on coworking<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/coworking>just got flagged for potentially inappropriate "tone" by an anonymous user but the Talk pages don't elaborate on any particular concerns. P.P.P.S. Don't they have a nice clean simple table-on-a-wiki list of Hacker Spaces <http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces>? This may be something for CoworkingDB, excuse me, *Open Coworking Data*, to emulate. On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 12:32 AM, james rock <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > I work from a coworking facility here in Birmingham, UK called Moseley > Exchange (see: http://www.moseleyexchange.com) and I am helping to set > up another one locally which is focused on Designer/Makers and as well > as office space there is a real aim to provide workshop space with > shared machinery, etc. I suppose you could call this a "comaking" > space? Does anyone know of any other spaces like this? > > Look forward to your replies.. > > James Rock > -- 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]. 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