Jeanine, I remember this woman who was familiar with Cohere but was working in a regular job in the next town. She showed up on our doorstep one day after lunch and proclaimed, "I just got laid off. I didn't want to go home so I came here instead."
A On Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 3:37:30 AM UTC-6, Jeannine van der Linden wrote: > > This right here. > > I opened my first space just as the last recession was hitting -- though > it was a slower, shallower curve here in Europe, the sudden shift to > mandatory entrepreneurship came in like a bomb. Suddenly people were being > confronted with doing the same job they always had done as an employee, as > a freelancer. They were nervous and worried and not at all sure they were > up for this Brave New World. > > I intentionally made that space homey and personal and intimate. A shiny, > corporate environment was exactly what they did not want. We had a guy > from the tax office come in and give lessons on how to keep books and > records as a freelancer, we had intentional freelancers come in and talk > about what it's like to freelance, we had folks come in and talk about how > to manage your retirement now you are a freelancer. > > We are now two cycles away from that and have changed a lot of things > since then. I sort of miss it sometimes, though I am glad those folks are > settled now mostly. > > Tip for Coworking in a recession: keep your costs low and your powder > dry. :-) > > On Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 6:09:25 PM UTC+1, Alex Hillman wrote: >> >> >> >> Another thing is that when we opened (at the beginning of the last >> recession) we had an INFLUX of people who were "newly independent" - some >> by choice, many by force. They weren't looking for an office, they were >> *looking >> for people* who were already independent and they might be able to learn >> from. That was literally the foundation of our first wave of growth. >> >> In our next economic downturn, I expect we're going to see something >> similar except that a decade later the physical and social infrastructure >> to support a newly minted independent is WAY better. I think this will >> likely be a good thing for coworking spaces, with a caveat that people see >> and feel a sense of connection to the other members. If not, the coworking >> space is simply a cost that can be removed/reduced. And I think *that's* >> going to hurt a lot of spaces, especially the larger ones. >> >> >>> -- 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.
