Hey Shera, great to see you again - this time on this national list for the coworking movement.
As a Coach yourself, why not check in with your local neighborhood Coworking Coach <http://www.CoworkingCoaches.com/> who knows the local options and can advise you on what's where, make introductions, and help you through the transition? Your message didn't indicate whether you've already consulted the coworking wiki <http://wiki.coworking.info/> and looked at the websites for the many coworking communities in the region. That's where I suggest that most clients seeking new shared workplaces start - map the terrain so they can rapidly get beyond the basic information level and into the fun parts: analysis, discernment, and decision. Unfortunately, the one Marin coworking spot on the map, bzhive in San Rafael, closed not quite a year ago (although, as is all too often the case, they left their home page up as a ghost site, with no updates; at least SF's Citizen Space got their lockers<http://citizenspace.us/uncategorized/lockers/>). I got to visit during their brief period of operation in early 2010, and found that, like other enthusiasts, the founding couple stepped out ahead of the market, but most importantly ahead of the community, approaching it from a real-estate leasing point of view without having depth of support. I've heard of others interested in making new spaces happen in Marin, but none that got off the ground (The Landing Pad in San Rafael seems to be primarily for nonprofits) Sonoma County's SoCoDepot was just a little ways up the road from Northern Marin, but the little town of Penngrove (between Petaluma and Cotati) was just far enough off the freeway to be, alas, "out of sight, out of mind" -- they also closed up shop last year. The good news: Just across the bridge in Berkeley (25 minutes' drive when all's well), there's a wide assortment of creative, collaborative spaces, some with connections to San Francisco and beyond, meeting many coworking needs. While I love the folks at Sandbox Suites and I helped set up Berkeley Coworking, my guess is that you'd be most likely to find a supportive base of operations meeting your requirements at The Hub<http://www.HubBayArea.com/>, where I'm a Founding Member (and working at this very instant), currently on a 100-hour-a-month plan. The Berkeley location is downtown at the David Brower Center (home of the Earth Island Institute), very convenient to the subway and the UC Berkeley campus, and the membership screen for "social entrepreneurs" results in an interesting mix of many people doing a wide range of inspiring things, with some creative collaborations emerging. It doesn't offer more than a cubby of storage or dedicated desks, so if you need significant quantities of paper, technology, or support materials for your work, and a range of membership plans with different numbers of hours-per-month are available, starting at $25, so you can "try before you buy." A lovely whiteboard-frosted-glass-walled conference room fits up to a dozen with a big central table and is available for hourly rental; likewise for a group-collaboration area. It's not nirvana: The two (soon to be three) "privacy booths" are in high demand for member mini-meetings and conference calls, so I find that sometimes to take a call I and others roam the hall outside with our cellphones -- so if you spend a lot of time responding to client calls, a space with more dedicated privacy would be more appropriate for you. There is a dedicated staff of hosts providing concierge-type service, but not as much transparency and member engagement as I encountered in some of the pioneering SF spaces, which have more cooperative management models. Also, I'm at the grassroots end of the spectrum, and less inclined to take advantage of some of the links to VC's and business-development resources that come as part of the deal. While the culture has improved over the course of its first year and a half, it still can be a little library-ish sometimes, with people working in their own little bubbles. But there is a strong sense of community, weekly "Sexy Salads" and other activities brewed locally or imported from the international Hub network, and cooperation that I've both observed and participated in. >From the tone of your message, it sounded a little like you would be open to participating in launching a new space close to home. While this is no task for the faint of heart, I believe that demand would be strong for a space in a central Marin location, and if you choose to explore that path, I'd love to help you on the journey, in a way that brings in the right partners to make lasting, sustainable change without disrupting your core business or burning yourself out. I've got a (non-coworking) client over that way, so I'd be happy to try to dovetail a visit and have a conversation about options, or make some introductions on this side of the Bay. Raines Cohen, Coworking Coach <http://www.CoworkingCoach.com/> Planning for Sustainable Communities (Berkeley, CA) On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Coach Shera <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Community, > > I am a communications consultant (director of internal and client- > facing training and marketing initiatives). I spend a lot of my time > writing, editing, leading editorial teams for info products, > researching, and communicating and developing content on the web. I > am looking to move my "work" out of my home and into a Co-Working > situation. I occasionally see clients at my office, or hold a > workshop, but right now I am primarily looking for a place to call > "work" that is not in my home. Ideally would love to be in a "space" > where we are creating together (web developers, event planners, > community builders, non-profit, digital publishers, start-ups) > > I am a networker, creator, catalyst. Happy to collaborate on how to > make this work for us all. > > You can contact me directly at [email protected] or call > 415.713.7727 > > Happy New Era! > -- 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.
