Wow Raine... thats an awful lot of really useful information - thank you so much!
I haven't heard of Hacker Spaces so will check them out. Thanks for the tip about guilds I will also follow that up - although from my knowledge they tended to be around a single area of expertise e.g tailors; furniture makers; etc whilst at this embryonic stage the intention is to offer a wider platform of skills and experience. Provision of shared machinery; welding area; etc Linking the makers with museum and shop / coffee shop for customers is one of the benefits - in many respect like an artists studios and we have some of those as well as crafts based people. Merry Christmas to you.... Thanks again for all this - James Rock On Dec 23, 1:41 pm, Raines Cohen <[email protected]> wrote: > 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]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
