This is something I've been looking at for a long time. It seems coworking spaces tend to start off with a lot of momentum, with members really engaged and excited, but then over time culture erodes into a state where people tend to just walk in, put on their headphones, and go to work.
Getting members to participate becomes an increasingly challenging slog. One solution, as has been discussed here in the past, is to develop a culture of empowerment and encouragement, whereby all community members feel like the space is theirs to build together. Alex writes well about it here <http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2014/04/community-management-tummling-a-tale-of-two-mindsets/> . To build on that, I have been experimenting with adding a layer of intention to the average workday, harkening back to Brad Neuberg's original vision. Part of what members look for in coworking is a sense of structure and accountability, two critical things that you have in a typical office but don't get when you work for yourself from home. Coworking spaces satisfy these needs, but only implicitly and partially. When I've worked with spaces to provide that more explicitly, through some simple group goal-setting and accountability programs, the results have been spectacular. For people who don't actually work for the same company to act more like a team, they need a shared context in which they can feel like they're helping each other succeed and grow. I discovered that people sometimes just need clear boundaries and a safe space to open up about what they're doing. Once they have a chance to build genuine connections and a sense of shared mission within that framework, good things start happening fast. Happy to discuss more about this topic if you'd like! Tony *---* *Projects: New Work Cities <http://nwc.co/consulting> • Open Coworking <http://opencoworking.org/>* *eBook: No More Sink Full of Mugs <http://nwc.co/mugs>* *Connect: Personal site <http://tonybacigalupo.com/> • Twitter <http://twitter.com/tonybgoode> • Facebook <http://facebook.com/tonybacigalupo>* *New: Preorder the Ultimate Coworking Toolkit <http://nwc.co/consulting/toolkit>* On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 9:29 PM, Elizabeth Trice <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm interested in building higher level engagement of members, and have > been thinking about more team-building, orientation training, and other > systems to help individuals work more like a team. What are the best > practices ou > t there? > > -- > 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. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
