Alex, Thank you for the feedback. I have been reading your post for sometime now and appreciate your opinions. Yes, I am a coworking google group follower, and feel the same way about developing a community of coworkers and not a drive thru' environment. I encourage you and the others to continue with your extremely helpful information for us who are in the infant stages of building a coworking community. The information that I have gained here from all over the world is priceless.
Thank you again, CJay On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 8:11 AM, Alex Hillman <[email protected]> wrote: > Especially when just getting started, there's a lot of power in "keeping it > simple". It's tempting and easy to create a membership to fit every person, > down to half days and hourly. The problem I've seen with this is that it > creates overhead both for you (in the fact that you need some way to keep > track), as well as your members (they are always watching a clock to make > sure they don't go over). > > Having spoken to people who've been members of both models, membership is > preferred to be as simple as possible. The only thing that people really, > really appreciate in granular hourly pricing is meeting space - which > totally makes sense, it's rare to have half and full day meetings. > > I also like to think about this in terms of membership vs. renter. It's hard > to become a community member an hour at a time - within that hour you need > to do what you're there to do AND start to get to know people. Inside of a > full day, there's far more opportunity for serendipity and social > interactions to happen in addition to a productive work day. The people who > have that full spectrum of experiences are the ones who tend to fall into > the camp of community member. The ones who ONLY want a place to work and > have no interest in community participation are welcome, of course, but tend > to stick around for shorter durations. This also means lower retention, > which means more resources spent on recruiting new butts into seats, and > draining your time and money from focusing on the members you DO have. > > No right or wrong here, of course. As Rachel suggested - having people to > ask how THEY would use the space is really helpful. The trick here is to > ask, but not necessarily do exactly what they say. Sometimes people think > they know what they want, but when it comes down to it, they have no clue > because they've never had it before. The IDEA of hourly usage sounds great > to somebody, but they end up not being the one who uses it. > > The Henry Ford quote "if I'd have giving people what they asked for, I > would've built a faster horse" comes to mind. You have to have people who > you can not only speak to, but who you can actually understand and develop > your model around their needs, not just what they say their needs are. > > -Alex > > > /ah > indyhall.org > coworking in philadelphia > > > > On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 1:42 AM, CAJ <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Rachel, >> There are a four of us, which is where the discussion comes from. >> There are diffrent ideas on the subject. So I thought I would bring >> the topic here for feedback. Since this is a new concept that we are >> just begining to push. We have the space which we consider phase one, >> with two workstaions and 12 basically "hot seats" Phase two is a 3000 >> sq ft renivated warehouse. We began by consideing a daily rate as well >> as monthly memberships, but thought that people might be more >> comfortable with hourly or even half day rate. >> CJay >> >> On Jan 13, 4:43 am, rachel young <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Do you have some existing folks from your community that are interested >> > in >> > joining together to form a space? If so, ask them and average out their >> > responses. They are the ones that will be paying after all. >> > r. >> > On Jan 13, 2012 12:03 AM, "CAJ" <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > >> > >> > > Coworking Group, >> > >> > > Planning coworking space.....Need feedback on hourly vs daily rates. >> > > We are in a rural/suburban area outside St.Louis and this is indeed a >> > > new concept for most businesses. The concept of coworking is needed in >> > > this community. Any suggestions? >> > >> > > -- >> > > 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. >> >> -- >> 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. >> > > -- > 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. -- Cheryl Jaycox Community Manager Micro Office Suites & Business Center The HIVE@44,Business Coworking Communty Phone: 636-405-3130 Cell: 314-800-4305 -- 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.
