> We at Cowork Frederick have invested a lot of time and words and pages > explaining what coworking is and how it works (on our home page, FAQ, etc.). > The new Indy Hall website doesn't. Given that the site is an invitation, I'd > expect more about what people are being invite to. Is that because the > concept is well-known in the Philly area and you no longer need to explain, > because you want them to come in to learn more, or some other reason?
In all of the explanations and descriptions of coworking I've seen and tried myself, there's no substitute for the experience. When people read the word coworking, one of two things happens: 1) They have no idea what it means and need an explanation that won't do it justice or 2) They have their own preconception of what it is, based on what they've read or maybe what they've experienced before. In both cases, it's not until they walk in the door and actually see it/try it for themselves that they understand what coworking is going to be to them. This leaves the door open for coworking to be a multitude of things, far beyond definitions and explanations. We make sure that our job is to make sure that they have an amazing experience, and let them choose to associate that with coworking. So the "invitation" is to walk in the door, meet us, meet our members, and learn what coworking is based on their experience and participation. > Also like the floorplan. I see other coworking sites also have them, so we > now plan to add one to our website as well. It's worth pointing out that this comes with the a similar risk to the logo problem that Jerome mentioned before: when we make layout changes, we'll need to update those drawings. That's a pain. In fact, since we did these drawings last month at least 4 things are inaccurate on the drawings. My suspicion is that they'll end up being simplified even more to make them more reference, less detail. Time will tell. > One thing that immediately caught my eye is the picture on the home page. As > I recall, the old website had pictures of lots of people in a fairly crowded > room. I don't recall if they work working or socializing, but, in my mind, it > painted a picture of a flexible space akin to grabbing a spot at a coffee > shop (but in a better work environment and community). This new picture shows > a few people using what look like permanent desks with a fairly generous > amount of room. That, to me, paints a picture of serious workers, coming in > every day to do their jobs at their desks, more like going into the office > (but cooler of course). Is there an intential image change in the works? How > much desk space does an Indy Hall coworker get to work? What percentage of > your members are full-time members with permanent desks? You're not the first to point this out, and it's actually at the top of our list to update. We've got another photo shoot very soon, but decided that we wanted to ship and iterate the website for other reasons and swap in more photos once they're ready. That top photo is an awesome angle and lighting, but my #1 complaint about it is that it doesn't show any interaction between people. When we prioritized "value" for the photos we wanted to shoot, it was: Good: has a person in it Better: has multiple people in it Best: has multiple people interacting in it This is another challenge with photos of our space - every "zone" has a slightly different density and vibe, and we've only managed to capture a couple of the variations so far. More photos to come, and I'm confident that this will improve :) > Long post from me, I know. In conclusion, just want to say congratulations on > the new website. Here's to the continued evolution of it, Indy Hall, and > coworking overall. Thanks Julia!! -Alex -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
