Coworking and the Future of Work

Posted on by

To begin, don’t confuse this title with the workshop we did back in February with Steelcase and Clay Spinuzzi, although that was excellent.

Here’s a an excerpt from a Shareable blog entry titled “How Coworking Fits Into The Future Of Work“.

It’s an excerpt from a report by David Bollier called The Future of Work: What It Means for Individuals, Businesses, Markets and Governments (PDF).

The sections of Bollier’s report discussed … a few dense problems:

  • The old work model is outdated, inefficient, and lacks a value structure that today’s professionals want and need.
  • The old organizational structure is slow moving and mired in hierarchy, making it hard to adopt and adapt to new technology.
  • They old system of harnessing people “through full-time, exclusive employment relationships where people are paid for the amount of time they spend at a common location” harms organizations and limits their access to the right talented individuals.

It might seem overly simple, but I think coworking provides solutions to all three (and more) of these problems:

  • Coworking spaces are modern, uber efficient, and based on a core set of values, just like the location-independent workers that fill them.
  • Coworkers, most of whom are freelancers, tech nomads, or small business owners, thrive, if not depend, on new technologies that make it possible to market themselves and connect with customers and clients (and compete with much larger companies).
  • The collaborative nature of the coworking community embraces a project-based work model. The physical density of coworking spaces allows talented professionals to come together in mutually beneficial ways, and often spawns startups that bring this sharing mindset to the new global economy.

Not overly simple at all. And what’s wrong with simple anyway?

What do you think? Leave a comment!

Parallel Play and Coworking

Posted on by

This came from Angel Kwiatkowski at Cohere n Fort Collins, Colorado. She was responding to a discussion on the Coworking Google Groups titled “psych and coworking.” We thought we’d share.

Clyde Robinson, Ph.D., a professor of human development at Brigham Young University, discovered a few years ago that preschoolers use parallel play to ease into a group. Say a few kids are stacking blocks into a rocket ship, and a newcomer wants to join in. First he’ll inspect the group. Then he’ll pick up some blocks, not interacting but still keeping tabs on the kids. Are they friendly? Smiling? If the cues look good, he’ll transition from parallel to cooperative play, perhaps by asking, “Can I put a block on top?” “Parallel play is a bridge between onlooker and cooperative play,” says Robinson. “It’s a safe haven.”  (http://wondertime.go.com/learning/article/baby-parallel-play.html)

We’re all kids at heart, right? What do you think?

Moving: The Saga Continues

Posted on by

And a saga it is.

So we found a cool space at 1344 S. Flores St. It’s a very thoughtfully renovated old tractor suppl company. Upside is that it has ceilings! Downside is that it doesn’t have a bathroom but the real estate guys assured us that one one would be put in. Groovy!

We submitted our Letter of Intent (the first salvo in the leasing battle.) We didn’t hear, didn’t hear from the landlord and then…they countered with a long lease term and higher rent cuz “they have to put in a bathroom.” Meaning we would be paying for it. But, the space can’t be leased or get a Certificate of Occupancy with out it. So, limbo city.

On the bright side is that John and Stacy from the Filling Station will be the new leaseholders at 108 King William! The are looking forward to a larger operation. And they will let us stash some stuff here while they renovate.

And in between 108 King William and the new space our friend Gina at Madhatters has agreed to sublease a small building at the corner of Beauregard and S. Alamo St. It will be a smaller, temporary home until the(a) larger space becomes available.

That’s all for now!

Top 10 Tricks for Working While On-The-Go [Lifehacker]

Posted on by

Do you follow Lifehacker? If not, you should. This is a great list of tips for all you coworking, mobile, digital nomadic warriors. Check out the full post here.

10. Coil Your Cables Properly
9. Keep Your Bag Organized
8. Learn to Be Productive at Coffee Shops
7. Try Using an Ultra-Portable Tablet Instead of Your Laptop
6. Turn a Flash Drive into a Portable Privacy Toolkit
5. Keep Your Workflow in Sync Across Computers
4. Get the Most Out of Your Batteries
3. Anything Can Be Used as Extra Storage
2. Make Sure You’re Never Without Internet
1. Keep Your Stuff From Getting Stolen (And Know How to Get it Back if it Does)

I carry a 6 foot extension cord I bought from a Walgreen’s in San Francisco a few years ago. I cut off the little nub above the plug so my three prong cord would plug in. (You do not have to go to San Francisco to get one, although I highly recommend it.) Oh, and my Kensington cable lock so I don’t have to carry my laptop into the bathroom with me.

Fundraising Continues

Posted on by

We are so thankful to all of our past contributors! Their $1917 have gotten us off to good start toward our goal of $7400.

Donald Wilcox

Marc Toppel

Martin Medina

Shelley Cook

Brian Dopp

Leticia Callanen

Ricardo Reyna

Erik Bosse

Joy-Marie Scott

Joseph Lopez

 Brian Dopp

Jennifer Gregorcyk

Shari Biediger

Kimberly Hubbeling

Kathy Swanson

Patricia Porter

Crystal Darby

Beverly Engle

Kathy Babb

Susan Price

 Gylon Jackson

Jennifer Navarette

Lettie Ozuna

Sophia Para

Angelina Pilego

Maxine Greco

Regina Villalobos

Alan Weinkrantz

Angela Hartsell

Why Are We Doing This?

Here’s the backstory. We have operated in the red for all but one of our 15 months. We had a great deal on our rent, a graduated scale that got us through our first year. Last spring and early summer we ran into problems paying the full rent. We paid rent each month but not the full amount. That got us behind and added late payment fees on top of it all. And in January we got a lock out notice that would have closed us but we dodged the bullet from our personal savings.

We believe coworking is a great concept and opportunity for independents and start ups. We think it’s vital and important to helping San Antonio reach its aspirations for a revitalized urban core and vibrant business culture. So, that’s why.

How Can You Help?

  • Come out and cowork with us.
  • Tell your friends and contacts (especially in the business community) about coworking and C4 Workspace.
  • Use the Chip In widget below and in the righthand column or on our Facebook Page

Thanks again for supporting C4 Workspace!

Potential New “Homes”

Posted on by

[ADDED Finesilver Building pictures - 3/7/2011]

We’ve been looking around for new spaces and we have set a moving day — April 2. Mark your calendars! We’ll be looking for many good coworkers to get us moved out and moved in, all in exchange for pizza and beverages.

Calley, Stacey, Todd and Debbie went out this morning and looked at four possibilities. (We nixed one because of the work involved to get it up to coworking speed.)

  • 1344 S. Flores
  • 1617 E Commerce (The Friedrich Building)
  • 107 Blue Star

And earlier in the month we looked at…

  • 707 E. Quincy

We may also looked at the Finesilver Building. (Todd, Debbie, Calley, Stacey, Deanne, Becca, Andrew, Manny, Patti). See photos below.

We need to whittle these down to two choices so we can make a decision by the end of next week. That will give us enough time to get the paperwork and logisitics for the move out of the way.

Check out the photo sets below and let us know what you think.

1344 S. Flores

1617 E Commerce (The Friedrich Building)

107 Blue Star

707 E. Quincy

816 Camaron, STE 208 (Finesilver Building)

Leave your comments please!

We’re On The Move

Posted on by

Well, it’s official – we’re moving! We weren’t able to come to an agreement with our landlord about our monthly rent. The rent right now is $3123 a month and our current lease has it scheduled to go up to $3600 if we were to renew in April. The revenue for the space, as it stands right now, can afford rent of about $2000 a month. So, as of the beginning of April, our address will no longer be 108 King William Street. We’ll be moving to a new space with a new address. Both of those things depend on you.

Coworking is About Community

C4 Workspace needs our community to inform our location search and selection. Two factors are really important: reign in our overhead costs so we [finally] break even; and sustainability, meaning keeping our revenue level at or above where it is now. Keeping these search parameters in mind…

Must Haves:

  • Rent at or below $2000 a month
  • 1500 to 2000 square feet of space
  • Little or no finish out or construction needed
  • Some enclosed spaces for conference room, office(s) and storage
  • Room for lounge or break area/kitchen
  • Easy access from freeways

Like to Haves:

  • Accessible bathroom
  • Outdoor seating
  • Nearby (walkable) restaurants

Where?

Ah, good question. This gets to the sustainability factors we need to consider. Here’s the situation. The community with the first priority is our Residents. They’ve made a commitment to this coworking space by making their business home here. Our second priority community is our Coworkers. They’ve chosen to use C4 Workspace as their primary place to work and do business. That’s about 10 people with first dibs on where we move. They are the people that have voted with their wallets to keep C4 Workspace afloat until now.

The Residents would like a location just south or just north of downtown, definitely not further north than 410. We ignore that preference at our own peril. Ignore it and our established community bails and our sustainability model disappears. C4 Workspace would close and coworking in San Antonio would be limited to the Dominion Business Center outside of Loop 1604..

Why Not Outside 410?

Well, first, current Residents won’t go. But more importantly, C4 Workspace hasn’t ever received a commitment from Northsiders to work in a coworking environment. The research and outreach we’ve done hasn’t amounted to a hill of beans. Our survey last spring brought forth a lot of “Yes!” but the followup from people was a lot of “no.” We held four Jelly coworking days at La Taza Coffee House last fall with invitations to come and talk about opening a Northside coworking space. No one showed up. No one.

Coworking depends on community support for sustainability. C4 Workspace has survived to date by incrementally increasing community support (and a whole bunch of personal savings.) Theres is  community support in place to sustain a smaller space. But there hasn’t been community support for moving the space away from downtown to the northern suburbs. Wish there was because a majority of the  people who have joined as members live north of 410. But it takes more than “joining” to keep this thing afloat. It takes between $2500 and $3000 of revenue (in a smaller space) to break even. As soon as we get that level of commitment from a community of people we could consider moving north. There’s nothing stopping anyone from venturing to open another coworking space. We would love to help build this concept across the city.

So keep your eyes and ears open for us as we search for C4 Workspace’s next incarnation.

Coworking and Lawyers

Posted on by

We’ve had good intentions of stalking new lawyers coming out of St. Mary’s Law. Yeah, yeah, road to hell and all…

Anyway, snagged this interesting post, “Coworking for Lawyers: First Impressions” from the Coworking Google group. It was created by a lawyer who was working out of Indy Hall, Philly’s premier coworking space. Indy Hall was co-founded by Alex Hillman, who could be described somewhat accurately as a coworking godfather. (Hey, yo! Jersey’s just across the river!)

And now…the gratuitous lawyer joke. (I grew up in NJ and spent a while in California.)

Why does California have the most attorneys, and New Jersey have the most toxic waste dumps?

New Jersey got first pick.

(from http://www.lawyer-jokes.us/)

And fuhgeddaboutit. I’m from Jersey, I make the Jersey jokes.

Collaborative Consumption?

Posted on by

C4 Workspace member Deanne Cuellar passed along this article form Change Observer blog. The Age of Coworking: Collaborative Consumption for the Creative Community looks at coworking as  a component of the “shift from an ownership economy to an economy of sharing.” Hmm. A movement as part of a movement. Check out this quote.

The shift from an ownership economy to an economy of sharing has been one of the most important movements of the past few years – a concept most eloquently captured in Rachel Botsman’s notion of collaborative consumption. From car- and bike-sharing to bookcycling reading clubs, the decentralization of resources is enabling us to have more by owning less — because, as Kevin Kelly puts it, “access trumps possession.” So far, however, the majority of this resource-sharing has been experienced on the individual level: though enabled by a community of car-sharers, your ride in a ZipCar is no different and no less solitary than a ride in any other car. But an emerging groundswell is bridging shared resources and shared experience by taking collaborative consumption to a promising new frontier: The workplace.

So, what do you think? Leave a comment whydoncha?