In my experience, the exact timing matters a lot less than being consistent. Pick a schedule where it's often enough that people don't forget about it, but not too often that it gets overwhelming. Weekly or every other week is where I usually suggest people start, and then adjust accordingly.
A bigger issue than the timing is the communication. A lot of "open coworking" sessions I see people promote are written with the assumption that the reader already knows what to expect...and most people have never experienced anything like coworking. It's your job to set those expectations! The three most important facets of promoting something like this are: *1 - Keeping it low-impact and casual.* Make sure you communicate what's going to happen. Should people bring work with them? Or is it just hanging out? Different variations are going to appeal to different audiences (and some will convert into members better than others). Pick, focus, and communicate. *2 - Write like you're writing to a person.* This sounds obvious but SO many invites I read are just carelessly written to nobody. When you're writing your invite (for meetup.com, a facebook event, email blast, whatever) imagine that you're writing to a specific person who you'd ACTUALLY invite. In fact, maybe start you draft that way, by picking someone you hope will attend and write a personal invite to them. Just make sure you've been specific (vs assuming they know things), as per step 1. *3 - Small is better, especially to start. *Lots of meetups go for "max audience" or "fill the room." Adjust your goal - maybe even put a cap on sign-ups to start - to make it easier for the people who show up to actually get to know each other. THAT is the part that most meetups actually miss, and why attendance drops off quickly...without relationships, there's not much reason to return. I specifically dove into three of the best practices for open coworking meet-ups in this post, with a REALLY good example of well-crafted communication: https://medium.com/@alexknowshtml/ive-been-going-to-this-coworking-space-but-e3befd6cbf6b#.icqzippms Whatever you pick, my #1 tip is to focus and give yourself some time for it to catch on. Even when you do everything right, it can take between several weeks to a few months for things to REALLY feel like you've hit a stride <http://dangerouslyawesome.com/2011/10/the-importance-of-rhythm-rituals-for-coworking-communities/> ! -Alex ------------------ *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* Better Coworkers: http://indyhall.org Weekly Coworking Tips: http://coworkingweekly.com My Audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 8:22 AM, Bernie J Mitchell < [email protected]> wrote: > We do "Write Club #DeepWork" here @WorkHubs - https://goo.gl/yIcUYo ;-) > > Have a remarkable day > > Bernie J Mitchell > 0777 204 2012 > > Do you use Trello? <http://berniejmitchell.com/blog/> > www.berniejmitchell.com <http://berniejmitchell.com/> > > Sent from my mobile device > > *Unless we agree otherwise, this email conversation is confidential. > > > > On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 9:56 AM, Matt G [email protected] wrote: > >> Are you a physical cowork space or someone arranging a weekly cowork >> meet? Just curious to hear if people do this kind of thing in their cowork >> space for the public to come and try it out all at one time? Sounds like >> (at least for us) it could pack us out, and could be abused? >> >> >> On Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 10:32:57 PM UTC, [email protected] >> wrote: >> >> What days & hours are best to have open coworking. I am in a college town >> of 150k (including students). I was thinking weekly friday evening after >> 6pm. >> >> -- >> 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. > -- 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.
