Some of my experiences with this question:
- There's a cat cafe near our coworking space (teaming with cats). It's
NOT a great cafe and there's huge competition in the cafe market here, but
the cafe IS a great success. If every cafe had cats, I think this cafe
would be out of business (and the No Cats Cafe would thrive).
* The point*: whether pets are a positive or negative depends on what else
is out there. If there are a lot of coworking spaces and yours is the only
one to allow dogs (or vice versa), it might be a great selling point.
Coworking with childcare is a real negative for most people without kids
who they need to be near when they're working ("I go to a coworking space
to get AWAY from my kids" was one strong response when I brought up the
idea of childcare to our members), but it's often the ONLY solution for
people with kids.
- This topic (of allowing dogs) came up three times at our space far
enough apart that it was worth asking existing members each time. All three
times there were a few ABSOLUTE voices against pets (even though more
people said they'd be happy with a cute dog around). The same thing
happened when we asked about having music in the space (after seeing the
results of some survey suggesting the vast majority of coworking space
members prefer music in their space): a few strong voices against it
without any voices nearly as strong in favor of the change. That said, I am
confident that if we had started with a dog-friendly space (or a space with
music, or... name your option with both pros and cons for members) and
tried to change it, we would have had the same kind of reaction but in
support of the opposite decision: overall preference for the status quo
(see "status quo bias <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias>").
* The point*: The norms a coworking space starts with are essential to how
that space's community feels about those norms, so...
1. Take our advice with a strong dose of skepticism: our experience
with our members is inherently biased by what our spaces began with,
2. It's really hard to change something full of pros & cons
mid-stride, so if you don't have a community already, give strong weight
to
the choice that fits the community you'd like to be a part of (imagine if
I
had started with a "coworking & childcare space" and then polled my
members
about dropping the child care option),
3. There is more than one right answer, depending on the community
you have built (or want to build). I'm guessing none of us would
recommend
a heavy-metal blasting coworking space and if any of us introduced that
feature our existing members would leave in droves. That said, if you
started a heavy-metal coworking space in the right location, you might
find
yourself with a packed community of heavy-metal loving (and difficult to
distract) coworkers and an incredibly dedicated community.
- We were able to get around our "dog problem" (a few strong voices
against with a majority of weak voices in support) because we have two
floors. So we made one floor dog friendly. I don't actually recommend this
if you're starting from scratch (there are so many other ways to divide
floors), but for us with an existing norm, it was the only way we could
have introduced the change.
My 2 cents...
Will
On Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 5:13:04 AM UTC+1, Jamie Russo wrote:
>
> Hi Geoff,
> Alex always has great responses.
> I thought I'd chime in with another perspective. We are pet-friendly in
> both locations. One concrete floor, one carpet. No peeing yet :-) I was
> worried about all of the concerns Alex outlined but when we opened our Palo
> Alto space, we found we really had to follow the local culture of being
> pet-friendly.
>
> What I've found is that generally, people perceive this to be a huge
> benefit but not many actually take advantage of it. In general, people with
> pets (mostly dogs), know whether or not their dog can handle being in a
> coworking space without peeing or growling or breaking something.
>
> In Chicago, we had a very small dog that used to greet all of our members
> and visitors at the door and I'm pretty sure he was a major selling point.
> He is no longer a member and I consider him to be one of our biggest
> losses. He added a lot of personality and helped to trigger those
> serendipitous interactions with his random wanderings :-)
>
> On Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 11:32:10 AM UTC-7, [email protected]
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> We're opening up a coworking space in Burnaby, BC, Canada. We're talking
>> about whether to have the space as pet-friendly or not. I'm pro having
>> friendly well behaved pets in the space, but what have you guys found?
>>
>> Geoff
>>
>
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