Re: [Coworking] building the community

[Alejandro Moreno]

How have you been building your community? Is it via a Meetup? If so, then
you don't have their actual email addresses yet (yes your messages do go
directly to their email inboxes, but Meetup will not give you their email
addresses per se). So have a sign-in list ready asking people for their
email addresses if you don't have them already.

One of the first questions to ask *yourself* is, how much do you want the
community setting the culture vs *you *setting the culture? If you want to
set the culture, then don't ask the group about such things.

Culture can be things like:

- Casual dress or business casual

- Communal fridge or not

- Quiet space (where normal conversations but no phone calls are allowed),
or are phone calls in the shared space ok? Phone calls get loud, and some
people tend to talk really loud in cell phone conversations and video chats
(I'm not sure why but some people feel they need to raise their voice
during these conversations and they seem to do so unconsciously). They are
so loud that even when doing so in a meeting room with the door closed, the
sound will still travel throughout the space (and this may serve as a note
to think upon when building your space out, how soundproofed do you want
your meeting rooms/private offices/phone booths to be...)

 - Background music or no background music? If yes, then a more neutral
ambient music, or louder style like wework spaces in big cities? (super
obnoxious imho). This is a sticky topic because all kinds of people will
want different kinds of music and you'll probably never get an agreement,
so I would not leave this up to the group and instead be draconian and
don't even bring it up, just choose a ''safe'' neutral ambient music, there
are plenty of free ambient channels streaming online, or just pay for
pandora or spotify or what not...

- Do people want one of those snack services, or fridges that come
pre-stocked with snacks? If so, then that means adding those charges to
their membership fees.

- Free printing *within reason* (add basic charges to each member's fees),
or a pay per copy fee for the printer?

- Seafood or no seafood allowed in the microwave? (gets really stinky, we
had to establish a no-seafood-in-the-nuker rule at our space)

- Gender neutral bathrooms or not? We have 2 and anyone can use one or the
other. No special signs needed, just indicate ''bathroom'' on each door. We
tell everyone in their initial tour ''here are the bathrooms, use either
one''. Keeps it simple yet accommodating to all.

 - Do you want your phone booths to be on a booking-only basis, or first
come first serve? If the latter, make sure you establish a ''no camping
out'' rule for your phone booths (i.e. as soon as people are done with
their phone call or video chat, get out).

These are just a few of the things that you may *or may not *want to ask
your group about.

Alejandro Moreno S. 
Cofounder/VP VenturePad 
SEC Marin  Organizer
415-488-6069
LinkedIn  Twitter



On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 1:46 AM  wrote:

> Hey Guys!
>
> Tomorrow is my first meet and greets for my coworking community.  I am
> building the community before acquiring the actual space.  What are some
> topics or processes I should cover tomorrow during the meet and greet?  Any
> advice for topics to be discussed? Ice breaker techniques?
>
> Thanks,
> Trey
>
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Re: [Coworking] Building the community

[Alex Hillman]

Hey Tiffani! Oh, this is near and dear to my heart. My fiancé is a chef and
I've had so much joy watching her get involved in our local food
community...and learning how the approaches that helped get Indy Hall off
the ground apply in her (and your!) industry as well. I plan to have her on
my podcast soon to talk about some of her work...most recently using our
community building process to build a very successful Hallal program within
the university she works at.

ANYWAY, back to your "how do you actually do it" question!

I summarized some of the most important early steps here
.
You can check out another amazing example of the getting-started process in
action in this story from Chicago

.

Bottom line is to start by looking to the communities that you're already a
part of, and already exist, but aren't perfect. That's where you'll find
the most amazing clues for what kinds of needs you can serve...and from
there, figure out how coworking (which, at the end of the day, is more
about the act of helping people come together than providing a physical
space) can help solve those problems.

The exact steps vary a bit depending on who's in that community, how people
are already convening, and how they *want* to convene. Don't feel like you
need to invent things from scratch...down that path lies madness. Instead,
focus on helping out things that are already in motion...or things that
just need a tiny OOMPH of encouragement to get going.

Make sense? :)

-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 Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 1:33 AM, Chef Tiffani Rozier <
tiffani.roz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I want to start a coworking space in Phoenix, Arizona..with a focus on
> food and hospitality. All the research I've done strongly recommends
> building the community first. My question is simple, how do you start that
> community??
>
> --
> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
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Re: [Coworking] Building a community

[Frauke Godat]

And here some processes to build community (the global The Hub network uses
hosting as an operating system to build, support and innovate with the
community): http://www.deskmag.com/en/how-to-be-a-good-host-165

Best,
Frauke

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Alex Hillman
dangerouslyawes...@gmail.comwrote:

  Deskmag just published a piece on this topic:
 http://www.deskmag.com/en/community-building-tips-before-opening-a-space

 -Alex

 --
 /ah
 indyhall.org
 coworking in philadelphia

 On Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 12:23 AM, Alex Sante wrote:

 Hello everyone,

 I'm new to the group, and I am fascinated by the co-working movement.  I
 am also interested in starting one locally in South Florida.  I've read
 numerous articles, and most of them suggest building a community before
 attempting to open a location, which makes sense of course, but how exactly
 does one go about doing that?
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-- 
Frauke Godat
--
Art of Hosting Training im Allgäu, 22.-24. Juni 2012
http://tinyurl.com/bvzp4yw
-
phone (mobile): +49 (0)176 50 47 88 06
Twitter: @futureatschool @fraukeatschool
-

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Re: [Coworking] Building a community

[Alex Hillman]

Deskmag just published a piece on this topic:  
http://www.deskmag.com/en/community-building-tips-before-opening-a-space

-Alex

-- 
/ah
indyhall.org
coworking in philadelphia


On Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 12:23 AM, Alex Sante wrote:

 Hello everyone,
 
 I'm new to the group, and I am fascinated by the co-working movement.  I am 
 also interested in starting one locally in South Florida.  I've read numerous 
 articles, and most of them suggest building a community before attempting to 
 open a location, which makes sense of course, but how exactly does one go 
 about doing that? 
 -- 
 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
 Coworking group.
 To view this discussion on the web visit 
 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/-/h_6fUfiMILgJ.
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 To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
 coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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 http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.

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Re: [Coworking] Building a community

[Tony Bacigalupo]

Short answer: Start making lots of friends. 

Medium answer: Go to places where people gather and get to know them as people. 
Organize events of your own around things you are interested in. Ensure there 
is beer nearby.

Long answer: 
http://deskmag.com/en/community-building-tips-before-opening-a-space



On Jul 6, 2012, at 10:23 AM, Alex Sante alexandersa...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello everyone,
 
 I'm new to the group, and I am fascinated by the co-working movement.  I am 
 also interested in starting one locally in South Florida.  I've read numerous 
 articles, and most of them suggest building a community before attempting to 
 open a location, which makes sense of course, but how exactly does one go 
 about doing that? 
 -- 
 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
 Coworking group.
 To view this discussion on the web visit 
 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/coworking/-/h_6fUfiMILgJ.
 To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com.
 To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
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Re: [Coworking] Building a community

[Alex Sante]

Thanks for the link.  I just finished reading the article, and it was full 
of nuggets of information.  

On Friday, July 6, 2012 10:38:17 AM UTC-4, Alex Hillman wrote:

  Deskmag just published a piece on this topic:  
 http://www.deskmag.com/en/community-building-tips-before-opening-a-space

 -Alex

 -- 
 /ah
 indyhall.org
 coworking in philadelphia


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