Tag Archives: Texas

Coworking as an Investment

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Web Worker Daily put up this post afew days ago, Justifying Coworking As an Investment. It flashed across the coworkingverse like wildfire and it has some great points.

We’re always looking for information about coworking that we can share. But I thought it might be good to make this one relevant to C4 Workspace. So here goes.

Point by Point

WWD laid the post out in three points.

Step 1: Identify What You Have to Gain from Coworking
We like to think of these in terms of our name:

  • Collaboration
  • Cooperation
  • Community
  • Connection

Put those together and you have what we could call “opportunity investment.”

Step 2: Assess the Risks and Costs Associated with Coworking
WWD didn’t really address the “risk” part of that so we will. The biggest risk of coworking is that you will run into someone who isn’t about the community so much as about themselves. They could steal an idea or a client. This is a case of what I call the 99-1 rule. Don’t spend all you time planning and worrying about the 1% of worst case scenarios. Plan for the 99% you’ll run into and deal with the 1% when they come along. You are more likely to have an idea or client stolen at a coffee shop by someone you don’t know eavesdropping on your conversation. (We take the “Co-” in community seriously. If you need a private conversation speak more softly or use a one of the phone rooms.)

Costs always have to be considered. It was one of the first things we thought of when we stated to think about opening a space: will people pay for professional workspace? We answered it in one of our initial presentation slides titled “Whadya Nuts?”. The answer is that as a small business or a freelance or solo you have no choice but to grow your business, especially in a down economy. To grow you will need to attract new clients and appear more professional than the next guy. That requires an investment in time and money.

You also have to consider what operating out of your home costs you now. You’re driving to meet clients. If you work (ethically) in a coffee shop you’re buying drinks and food. You’re paying for WiFi in some fashion. So, add up those hard costs for gas, drive time, WiFi, food and drink. You probably spend about $20 a day for little to no privacy, no connection to others, noisy meeting space and overpriced WiFi and beverages.

Coworking at C4 Workspace starts at $20 a day and goes down from there. Last I checked Starbucks didn’t give you volume discounts on lattes.

Step 3: Make an Informed Decision

Absolutely. The best way to do that is to “try before you buy”. Drop in on the Second Thursday for Jelly San Antonio all day free coworking. Better yet, just drop in and sit down. Talk to us about what you need and we can work something out. Remember, it’s all about the community. Essentially, everyone is a customer, a participant, a contributor. Even us.

No Hard Sell

Because it’s not necessary. Try coworking one day and you’ll be hooked. Yes, it costs money and money is dear right now. But if you are serious about your business and want to be a player in our economic ecosystem we think it’s an investment worth making.

AAF San Antonio Board Retreat

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The San Antonio chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) held their annual board retreat in our community space. This is a great example of how the space at C4 Workspace can be used. The shared desks were rearranged to form a large “U” shaped meeting table and the group used the different spaces like the lounge and conference room for breakouts. Check out the pictures below.

What's the Deal with Parking?!

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I’m going to use a little Spidey sense here and guess that when you come downtown you dread the cost of parking. Is that you?

Well, one cool thing about C4 Workspace is that our parking is FREE! Not $10! Not $8! Not even $5! FREE!  How do we do it? Well, we have nothing to do with it actually.

We are out of the main downtown parking melee, thank goodness. But for you skeptics, here’s the deal.

We have four parking options:

  • Out in front – We have a free, non-metered, 2 hour zone on the street in front of us. We spoke to Camelia the Parking Enforcement agent for our area. Her main beat is the Courthouse and when she is here she is looking for scofflaws (3 or more tickets) not parking violations. (Her supervisor sends her over here just before her lunch break when things are slow at the Courthouse.) She is not in the area long enough to write parking tickets. She DOES have a cool Tricorder thingie that reads your VIN number; we think it has GPS (and maybe a phaser built in.) Debbie and I park in front everyday, all day and have never gotten a  ticket. So, don’t sweat it.
  • Around the park – There is both free 2 hour and no limit street parking around the King William Park triangle. The no limit spaces are occupied by 8 a.m. though by, we think, workers at the courthouse.
  • Around the corner – There is free, no limit street parking down the block on Turner Street.
  • In our parking lot – Yes, we have a FREE parking lot! We have limited spaces in the shared parking lot around the other corner at Madison and S. St. Mary’s. It’s a pleasant stroll past the storefronts on S. St. Mary’s. While you’re walking you can window shop for that perfect trinket at Blink or Tres Rebeccas. We would like to reserve the parking lot spaces for Full Time Desk residents but since most of us park in front there are spaces open.

So, that’s the deal. Parking is FREE. And most spaces are closer to the front door than you’ll ever be at the mall or at a downtown office.

Did we mention we have FREE parking?

Notes from the Member Meeting

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We had out first Member Meeting last Thursday. The turnout was small but the output was big! We did intros of everyone and then an overview of how desk plans work and the role of the partners.

Patti Porter from Conflict Connections (@txconflictcoach) facilitated the main portion of the meeting which was to gather up some shared principles. It’s a great start but there will be more to come. These principles (or norms as Patti calls them) are what ties us all together as a community. They’ll grow and change as we do.

Here’s a Flickr set of photos of the flip chart sheets. (Thanks Erik Bosse for capturing the sheets to pics.)

Take a look and leave a comment.

Check Out the Events Calendar

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We found a cool WordPress plugin, wpng-calendar, to display a feed of the C4 Workspace Events Calendar from Google Calendar in WordPress. Except it hasn’t worked for a few weeks. That was a bummer. Until I found the problem. (It doesn’t play well with WP-Hashcash plugin.) So now it works!

You can check the site for the calendar in the sidebar. Or on the Calendar page under Events.

And if you would like to subscribe to the C4 Workspace Events Calendar directly just use the following address:

http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/c4workspace.com_800hl443rfo8252rkg5fihutj0%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

More (events) to come!

Day 55-59: The Home Stretch

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[I'm writing this post Grand Opening+6 days and so my memory of the facts may be a bit fuzzy. But you'll get the gist of it.]

I never thought it would take this long. I always thought it would be more incremental and less Big Bang. But there you have it.

Will It Ever Be Finished???

The drywall I mean. It seems to go on forever but Monday it finally wrapped up. And we can pull out the stops on the color painting. And there is lots. So the color scheme for the Conference Room, Office/Flex Rooms and Phone Rooms is Benjamin Moore Pool Party Blue. The outer color for the Kitchen is Benjamin Moore Yosemite Blue. And we got that painting mojo working! We had members and friends come out in force. It felt a little dicey early in the week as we put out the call for help and got crickets. But by Thursday the painting machine was really rolling.

window-sign4Happy Dance!

Preston came by to install our window signs on Wednesday. OMG! To see, to actually see, the logo and words go up were amazing! I was happy dancing in the street. C4 Workspace was no longer an idea, it was a real, live, actual place! (On Friday morning Dan Hong  did some magic and applied some frosted material behind the logo graphics on the doorss. We’ll do the same frosted material behind our slogan words.)

Meanwhile, Over at the Miter Saw

I escaped the painting aspect of the finish out pretty much. But I did have carpentry duty. We had the bar top to install and window trim for the Conference Room and Flex/Office Room to install. On Thursday I was pretty much left to my own devices as I finished those projects. The window trim was mighty fun. Our floor has character, which is to say it is not level — anywhere. We did a fairly reasonable job of getting the walls level. So I followed our member, and semipro painter, Steve’s advice: “It doesn’t have to be good it just has to look good.” (This is also an old TV set design axiom.) So trimming out the windows was less an act of precision and more an act of persuasion which would lead to a perception of perfection. They look good and they’re done!

“Your Moving and Storage Specialist!”

We tapped our buddies at UHaul again. We didn’t really move anything. We kind of just relocated some stuff temporarily. Grand Opening on Friday was approaching quickly. The drywallers had left a veritable mountain of trash. And we had paint cans and old furniture and tools and what have you. And no place to put it. Debbie came up with the idea of renting a small UHaul truck and tucking it away for a day or two while had the grand opening. Brilliant! The truck got packed and then tucked away behind the building neat as a pin!

Laurel scrapping

Laurel scraping

Cathy scrubbing

Cathy scrubbing

Andrew and Dan "Is this level yet?"

Andrew and Dan "Is this level yet?"

Friday was a day of cleanup. Sweeping, scraping floors on hands and knees, then mopping. (The floors really need to be buffed. Mmmm – floor machine!)

Deep breaths. Inhale. Exhale. Grand Opening here we come!

Day 49 – 54: Getting Stuck in the Mud

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Heavy Lifting

So, Tuesday came and so did LOTS of drywall and lumber. LOTS of drywall. Like 96 sheets of drywall. Mostly 5/8″ thick. If you’ve never worked with drywall you may not know it comes in thicknesses starting with 1/4″ and up to 5/8″. We chose the thicker stuff for the sound deadening qualities. It will go on our Conference Room, Flex Rooms and Phone Rooms.

So 5/8″ drywall (Sheetrock to you Northern types) is pretty heavy. On Sunday I figured I would get a start on the offices. So we trucked down to the BOHS and picked up 12 sheets. It comes doubled up with two sheets attached together. Just to load it on the roof of our little Honda CRV the sheets had to be separted. I’m pretty good with a tie down so we lashed it down and drove away. Thought I was gonna DIE! The drywall is heavy. My CRV gets sand kicked in it’s face by most SUV guzzlers. “Maybe we should take the surface streets” Deb says. “Yeah, maybe, but I’ll probably get lost. Let’s take the freeway – it’s just two exits.” Did I mention I Thought I Was Gonna DIE??? I can feel the center of gravity of the car at about my neck level. We accelerate. Cruising speed and the front of the top sheet breaks off. And I slow down. Hanging it was a B**CH! So I ordered a delivery for Tuesday.

Did I mention this stuff is heavy? Dan Hong came down and we started loading it in. We had Allan, a nephew of a friend, come down as a utility player and he started hauling in the 1/2″ (for the kitchen.) This was about a 2 hour process. Maybe less but it felt like more.

cimg1135I had made a call to Manuel who had done our texturing to have him hang, tape and float the drywall but never heard back from him. As we’re loading in a truck pulls up. “You need tape and float?” Uh, yeah! “Can you hang this stuff?” “Sure.” And so we began a business relation with Edgar. he was working a remodel down the street and had a crew nearby. They started Wednesday. Thought they would be done Thursday night. As of Sunday they were still working. Looks great though. Check it out.

The Chase is On!

So the drywall is here and the drywallers are here and…not all the walls are framed. I stayed VERY late Wednesday and Thursday to get walls built for the Phone Rooms. I got the divider walls done and the rear closet door wall. And I fixed our kitchen doors on either side. We had worked them last Saturday but they needed some finessing. So I finessed.

With Allan’s help I assembled the door wall of the Phone Rooms. I did some layout on the upper kitchen wall and had Allan assemble those. That’s 18 feet of wall that is 8 feet off the ground. As we assemble walls and get them in place the drywallers come behind us in an hour or two and start to hang drywall.

Love of Craft

I love carpentry and woodworking. Number one, it’s a craft. It feels good to be good at a craft (Als Ik Kan: As best as I can – motto of Gustav Stickley.) Number two, when you you finish a project you have a complete, tangible thing. You can touch it. And you can look at it later; days, months, years after; and know that You Did That. There’s also this aspect of being so intimate with it that you see all the blemishes or know all the shortcuts you may have taken to make it look good. You see this EVERY time you look at it. Kind of bittersweet.

Digital media lets us make changes easily and constantly. Just not the same as creating a “thing.”

Meeting the Landlord

Andrew is pretty insistent on our fire door. So we met with the landlord on Wednesday. Turns out I had met him the week before at the Solar San Antonio Birthday Luncheon and he remebered me from that. He is on the board of the Downtown Alliance, a developer’s group in the city. He likes our concept; doesn’t hurt to have folks like that on your side! Door issues are resolved; we just need funds to put it in. Negotiations continue.

Meatballs Anyone?

cimg1136

Shelly and Craig

cimg1140

Matt Belvins and Perla Escobar

desk-chairSwedish of course. We trekked to IKEA for the big purchase. Furniture will the bulk of our tangible assets. We spent a little more time than I would have liked hemming and hawing but we came out the other end of of it pretty well. We bought desks, chairs and a sofa. We have most of our desk chairs but have many on back order. Here’s a pic of the shared and full time desk chairs. Cloth cushion, mesh back, swivel and tilt. Just 23 more to go.

Saturday we had an assembly party. Beth Beaty and family came down. Beth is an old friend and brought me to San Antonio by hiring me at USAA. Shelly Davenport, By All Accounts, and her S.O. Craig came down and put together the aforementioned desk chair. And Erik Bosse and Perla got down to desk assembly. Everything we brought home in the U-Haul big rig got put together.

Next week we close in on the Grand Opening. Drywall WILL be done on Monday, painting will begin, electrical will be done.

Really, it’ll all be done. Mark your calendar. In ink.

(Drywall compound is called “mud” in the trade.)