Do you know someone who is an independent freelancer, working at home or otherwise in need of some space to work and some company? If so they may be interested in Coworking. What is coworking? Here is one person’s elevator pitch:
“Tired of fighting for desk space at coffee shops like Ritual House Coffee Roasters?
Are you self-employed and miss community and structure in your work life?
If so, then it’s time to start the New Year right and give coworking a try!
What is Coworking? Coworking is cafe-like community and collaboration space for developers, writers and independents. Grassroots coworking spaces are popping up all over the world, from New York City, to Paris, to… San Francisco.”
And now, there is a coworking space coming together in the Lowertown area of Saint Paul called The A Place. They are looking for people who are interested to sign up so that they have some idea of possible members.
Therefore, if you are interested, or know anyone who may be, point them here to get involved. Personally, I have been a big fan of coworking for a long time. So much so that, even though I have a full time job with an office, I still plan on signing up for a night and weekend hot desk membership just to support that cause.
I *really* like this idea. It’s a shame it’s waaaaay over in St. Paul.
Maybe we should start something like that in MPLS, Tim.
If we’re successful in Saint Paul, we’d certainly be looking to do something similar in Minneapolis starting Sept ’08. When we started, though, we had 1) a lot of demand for Lowertown, and 2) a lot of vacant space whose management was willing to cut us a deal on the start-up costs.
Check out the Wiki for a link to another place that has offices available in Minneapolis. It’s not exactly what I consider “coworking”, but it’s at least a place where you could drop something like it.
At this point, we’re taking founding memberships for the Lowertown space. As soon as we get 25 founding memberships, we’re going to get the furniture and everything else in and open the doors.
This is the kind of thing I was thinking about doing at Red Square after Tim Eian’s announcement about the space.
As some of you may remember I structured mine differently; it was centered around being totally ad-hoc. No “monthly minimums” or time of day restrictions or guarantees. It would be the kinko’s of office spaces.
It came from not being able to fill a need. Sometimes I just want a quiet space to write that isn’t at may day job and isn’t at home or a coffee shop, mostly to cut down on outside distractions. If all I have is my writing implements, internet access for research, and a couple bottles of water, I couldn’t help but get some writing projects done.
The Part-Time Membership at The A Place (5pm to midnight shift in my case) is interesting. Unfortunately I’d only be using the hot-desk once or twice per week, so $200-250/mo seems too expensive. If it were $50-75/mo for my usage pattern, I’d almost certainly sign up.
If four people with similar needs could share one Part-Time Membership, that might also be doable.
We’ve talked about having a “daily pass”: after a one-time membership fee, you could come and go as you pleased, paying only for the days you used. Unfortunately (as you probably discovered), that increases overhead substantially: we need a way to guaranty that there is space available for the regular members, which means there is some kind of “sign up sheet”, with some kind of access restriction and enforcement. This overhead kills the financial feasibility of that kind of plan.
That said, we could be sold on the idea of splitting memberships: the single membership would only get rights to one space, but it’d allow people with distinct schedules to work things out amongst themselves.