HI. Alex, We are at five locations now, and we have the same vision as you describe: the separate locations are very much particular to their cities. This is partly because around here the identity of a city is a firmly established fact for the Dutch and is important to the identity of the people and businesses located there. It is also partly due to my own belief that every place has a sort of energy, almost a soul, which ought to be respected. :-) Each of our locations has a speciallty and each is a differnt kind of space with different sectors involved in its community as well.
It is important to be clear in communication abotu what they all share, and in how they all are different. I made a great bollocks of this in the beginning and found it very tricky to get right. In the end I settled on what we guarantee and why people should go with us instead of somebody else as what we share, which seems to work well. To answer your quesitons: : *- the pros and cons of members of each location having membership at all the locations. (Most members at the main location will not want to switch, and all will want the ability to come to our main location, but about 1 in 10 people are interested in mainly being at the third location.)* After some fooling around we settled on everyone being a coworker in a home space and letting them use the facilities and attend events at the others "as if they were" or "on the same basis as" members in the other spaces. Very few people are able it turns out to think of themselves as being members of a network coworking space and they are more comfortable having a home place and being welcome in the others like a cousin or something. Everything int he other spaces is still organized by the one point of contact, usually the Community Manager in the home space. SOme of my long term coworkers still have me do it even knowing that it isn';t really my job. I don't mind it, it really is just an excuse to touch base I think. . *- the pros and cons of having multiple web pages, one for each location.* We are just in development on one web page for all the locations, because it was a pain int he butt to have separate ones. Probably if you are better organized than I am you can manage it; but if you are doing it you shoudl probably link them to each other to encourage the free flow of communicatiuon and information. - *local experimentation: the best ways to try new policies at one location, and when to try something and when to not try something.* We try new things out in whichever location dreams it up or has most need of it, and then we let the folsk in the other locations know anbotu it as it develops. If it works well we then offer it to all the locations when it is out of beta as it were. *- pros and cons of local parties vs combining locations for parties? Do you rotate locations sometimes, and combine sometimes?* We have one monthly gathering to which everyone is invitied and it rolls from location to location, from north to south in the country actually, so nobody has it more than once every couple of months. Coworkers have the option of inviting coworkers to their events/workshops/courses/what have you or only inviting members of their own space. Each space is free to arrange anything other than the monthly gathering and invite whomever they wish. *- local governance: including, when applicable, what benefits have your members said they've had from being involved in governance? Do any places have local representatives from each location get together to talk governance for the organization overall?* The 80-20 rule applies here. Though I have found that the people interested in governance also often want to run their own space. This has happenned so far twice adn is in the process of happening for one more. I am considering creating a formal process to encourage this as it is a good deal of fun. Let me know if you have any more questions, it's an inexhaustible source of conversation! Best, Jeannine On Saturday, June 25, 2016 at 4:37:25 AM UTC+2, Alex Linsker wrote: > > Hi all, > > Other than searching the Google Group for "multiple locations", what would > you recommend searching for, for info on coworking places with multiple > locations? Collective Agency is almost signed on our third location in > Portland and I'm curious to see what questions have come up for people > who've done this before. > > The vision is for each location to be slightly different, with locally > influenced community and different amenities, but a similar overall feel. > This will be our second location for members (the other location is just > for event rentals right now, but could become for members in the future). > > Questions I have: > - the pros and cons of members of each location having membership at all > the locations. (Most members at the main location will not want to switch, > and all will want the ability to come to our main location, but about 1 in > 10 people are interested in mainly being at the third location.) > - the pros and cons of having multiple web pages, one for each location. > - local experimentation: the best ways to try new policies at one > location, and when to try something and when to not try something. > - pros and cons of local parties vs combining locations for parties? Do > you rotate locations sometimes, and combine sometimes? > - local governance: including, when applicable, what benefits have your > members said they've had from being involved in governance? Do any places > have local representatives from each location get together to talk > governance for the organization overall? > > Thanks, > > Alex Linsker http://CollectiveAgency.co/ > -- 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.
