On a daily basis, other than the typical chores (clean up little things, trash, coffee pot clean out, etc), most of my time is spent on interacting with members, answering emails/calls from potential members, giving tour to drop-ins, organizing and promoting events, and if there's time left, I will tweet a little bit :-) For us, we are very young, and still trying hard to grow, so my focus is more on outreach and community building. Sometimes half the day is gone before I get to sit down to do my "normal" job.
As mentioned, I am actually having a LOT OF FUN doing all these, and don't mind the chores at all. And it's good to be busy fielding questions, and meeting interesting people. But as this was not intended to be a source of income, I just wanted to get a realistic sense for labor resource budgeting. I've visited a few awesome coworking spaces, and talked to a few veterans. I get the sense that this is a solid part-time job. Hearing the idea that "the place should run itself", I just thought I may have missed something, or been doing too much? Have a great week everyone! Miguel On May 2, 3:38 am, Jeannine <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, Miguel, > > I think this depends on what kind of a community you have. > Particularly in large cities, I think the DIY mindset does prevail. I > have a space in a smallish city (50K) which is attached to my house. > So this space is all about the personal. My members are not asked to > do much of anything; but I note that when they really feel a part of > it this is marked by their starting to do things themselves -- they > clean up, they buy stuff for the space, they set coffee for somebody > else. It's at that point that they have made the transition to > feeling that it is really theirs. > > I will say that nobody volunteers to clean the bathroom but other than > that..... > > This is also the basis of my theory of parenting, so it pleases me to > see that it works for adults also, right down to (not) cleaning the > bathrooms now that I think of it. :-) > > Anyway, just as within my family, I don't delegate things to my > members because I am ultimately responsible for it and I see no sense > in pretending that is not true. If your workload is uncomfortably > high then it's time to have a look at that, what is it that is taking > up most of your time? > > Laters, > > Jeannine > > On May 2, 1:55 am, Miguel <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > I am one of the founders/managers at Coworking Evanston. Happy to > > report that things are going well since we opened 3 months ago - > > steady membership growth, members have started to "collaborate", > > organizing meetups and other events, etc :-) I am having a great > > deal of fun managing the space, but find that the workload is higher > > than I originally expected. > > > I started talking to a few coworking managers about ways to more > > efficiently manage the space. One person mentioned that a coworking > > space should really "run itself", and that the founders/managers are > > just "members who moved desks in, and pays the rent". The theory is > > that most of the work, if any, can/should be delegated to members. > > Personally I do not agree with this, but wanted to see what the group > > thinks > > > Cheers, > > > Miguelwww.coworkingevanston.com -- 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.
