Hi everybody, after blogging on coworking for nearly three years now (www.coworking-news.com), I finally find the way to the Coworking Google Group. I am very happy to see that the Group is very active!!! Excellent!!! Congratulations !!!
Some of you might have read about the "Free Coworking" Campaign I started 4 weeks ago: http://www.coworking-news.de/2012/01/coworking-evolution-coworking-goes-free-coworking/ I started the campaign because I believe "Free Coworking" is going to be more effective in developing the coworking core values (Collaboration, Openness, Community, Accessibility and Sustainability) than "Paid Coworking" because it focusses on common projects and more collaboration. As I wrote in various articles in the campaign I believe that "Free Coworking" is going to evolve from "Paid Coworking" and that there will be many spaces that will experiment and develop "Free Coworking" alongside "Paid Coworking". To develop and spread "Free Coworking" I set up a Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/329893250367925/ In this group we developed (as I believe) a very nice logo (Design: Mark Goldsworthy). http://on.fb.me/xfCQbG The idea of the group is to gather a critical amount (morphogenetic field, social capital) of people to produce a global breakthrough for coworking. I estimated that this number is about 10,000 active coworkers collaborating in a common network or group. The number might turn out to be lower or even much higher. To support the growth of the group and to start collaborating straight away, I set up a skill sharing list. The list has now developed into a GoogleDocs Input Form http://bit.ly/yBk4nf and Speadsheet Output http://bit.ly/SkillSharingOutput . The system is simple but very effective, transparent and open. In using this system (for example) by using the city column filter function you can quickly find coworkers in your city or area of interest. The idea is to transfer the system into a proper database one day, but for the time being, I think it is perfect, because it is open. Personally I am a big fan of local activities, and by starting local and developing from there, growing into a larger network. We have done this with CoWorking News in German and the German Coworking Directory. We developed this into the European Coworking Directory and now publish most articles in English. With "Free Coworking" we started to address the global community, but I believe for the group to grow in a sustainable way, it needs local campaigns. We set up a "Free Coworking Resource" page http://bit.ly/wxYUXm for anybody new to "Free Coworking" to give a quick overview and tools to support local campaigns. I hope that this gives you all some idea of my person and the "Free Coworking" Campaign. I am very much looking forward to develop and discuss the campaign with you. Greetings from Munich (Germany), Felix Schürholz -- 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.
