Category: Community Leadership

Community Leadership, Coworking, Coworking Communities

Alex Hillman On How to Start a Coworking Space

Sensei Alex Hillman is an ancient grey headed sage, dating back to the dawn of coworking. Famous for founding and sustaining Indy Hall in Philadelphia, he continues to teach and consult in the theme of “community”.  Or as Chapter 3 of my book puts it, “Community, Community, Community”.

Sensei Alex tags himself as a “community builder”, and he teaches that this is what really matters.  In recent weeks, he has snarked to the effect that he neither knows nor cares what is going on with WeWork or other “industry news”.  What they are doing is simply not coworking, or at least not the kind that matters.

This month Hillman pointed readers to a piece he wrote in 2016, giving advice on how to start a coworking space [1].  It is quintessential Hillman, and highlights just how non-WeWorky his world view is.

His tips for starting a coworking space is basically, “forget the workspace, find your community first”.

His four tips are:

1 – Start by finding a few places where people are already gathering.
2 – Look for patterns in what people have in common.
3 – Look for ways to bring those people together.
4 – Lead by example.

The first two sound like anthropology, which they are.  (And that’s part of why Coworking is so interesting.)  But this is, of course, the essence of “bottom up” organizing. No matter what you think people do and want to do, you’ll be better off finding out what real people really do.

Item 3 gets into “community organizing” territory. It also cuts right to Sensei Alex’s core value:  “bringing people together” makes things better.  Period.

Underlying these tips is the understanding that the right way to do coworking is to meet the needs of the community of workers that participate.  There is no one right way for everyone, you need to find your community and do what is right for all of you.

Item 4 is, of course, the essence of leadership in any context.  (The US Infantry School develops officers whose hard duty will be to lead troops into the teeth of enemy fire.  Their motto: “Follow me”.)

But this is more than just being a good example. Alex is famous for leading from within, being part of the community. “Of the workers, for the workers, by the workers” could be his motto.

“The best way to create a collaborative space is, well, collaboratively.”

I can’t resist drawing the obvious contrasts with the splashy saga of WeWork.  This company and others like it are in the workspace business.  Alex is in the community business.  As he says, “You can do this literally anywhere”.

Furthermore, Sensei Alex tells that if you take the time to find and cultivate your community, to pull together “people who would be upset if the space couldn’t open”, then

“You might open later, but you’ll stay in business longer”

This point is even more telling as we watch WeWork megafail.  Indy Hall is still in business after more than a decade, WeWork will not last out this year.  Indy Hall makes enough money to stay healthy.  WeWork is setting worlds records for getting rid of money.

Why did WeWork fail?

Well, they definitley didn’t follow Sensei Alex’s advice, did they?

And the bottom line is:

“The biggest mistake you could make right now is opening an empty space without a community.”

I’d say that the biggest mistake you could make, period, is trying to run a workspace without a community.

  1. Alex Hillman, Wanna start a coworking space? Start here. , in Alex Hillman: better coworking, better business, and better communities. 2016. https://dangerouslyawesome.com/2016/04/the-first-advice-i-give-to-almost-everyone-starting-a-new-coworking-space/

 

Community Leadership, Coworking, Coworking Communities

What is Coworking? It Can Be Out In The Country

Living out here in the flyover states, I have been watching how coworking might happen outside cities.

This month Sensei Cat Johnson interviewed Torill Bye Wilhelmsen about her coworking space Fjellflyt (“mountain flow”), in the Norwegian countryside [1].

In a small town (pop 3500), “there are not a lot of entrepreneurs to recruit”.  There actually was shared office space available, but Wilhelmsen wanted to create a community of coworkers, not just offices.

How did she do it?  She spent a year getting to know here neighbors.  The coworking space opened only after she created the community.

“We invited people for dinner in our home, we’ve had wine and cheese evenings, we’ve gone on trips together, we’ve taken our families on outdoor adventures, we make dinner in the evenings, the adults have gone on mountain biking or kayaking trips, or other social activities.”

Now that’s what I call “community leadership”!

Her coworking space is also kind of “destination” coworking.  Located in a wonderful area of National Parks, many of her community have moved out from the city to find a nice life.  Obviously, not every rural area is as attractive to refugees from the smoke.

Her community is also focused on “creatives”, including actors, writers, designers, programmers, and, she says, one “ecological, small-scale” farmer.  With the exception of the farmer and mountain lodge business, this is not that different from many urban coworking communities, is it?

Wilhelmsen also says that her coworkers were remote working from home.  This is the classic use case for coworking:  a respite from the loneliness and isolation of working at home.  This, too, is pretty much the same as urban coworking.

Special challenges, aside from low population?  Connectivity cannot be taken for granted, and is actually an important asset for the workers.

Special advantages?  Well, most coworking communities are not recruited one by one over the dinner table, are they?

One open question is how this fits with the “native” residents and the long term health of the rural communities.

Reading between the lines of the interview, it seems that most of the interest is from “immigrants” up from the city.  The locals are involved in their own businesses, such as tourism.  I suspect that young people who want to be “creatives” probably leave town to go to the bigger city.  So, with a local coworking community, will more local kids stay home, or maybe come back home?  If so, that would be a huge benefit to the rural area.

  1. Cat Johnson, Bringing Coworking To A Norwegian Mountain Town: A Q&A With Torill Bye Wilhelmsen, in AllWork. 2019. https://allwork.space/2019/07/bringing-coworking-to-a-norwegian-mountain-town-a-qa-with-torill-bye-wilhelmsen/

 

Community Leadership, Coworking Communities, The Future of Work

The “Coworking Code of Conduct”

Sensei Cat Johnson calls attention this month to the “Coworking Code of Conduct”, which is a template policy document intended to be used as a model for coworking spaces to use.

The document is undated and unsigned, but is promulgated by Cobot and other coworking operators (and CJ).  The document cites other similar templates that inspired this particular template.

The main thrust of the template is the kind of workplace code of conduct that many conventional organizations promulgate.  Anyone who has worked or gone to school anywhere should already be familiar with these policies.  (This document doesn’t consider kidful environments, which would have additional wrinkles involving interactions between adults with children, and the rights and needs of parents.)

The thing is, of course, that in a conventional office, the employer is in charge of both the space and the workers, so responsibility for the policy and its enforcement are clear. (In many cases, there are legal obligations for employers to enforce such policies.)  In a coworking space, the workers don’t work for the space, so it isn’t necessarily clear who sets and enforces the rules of the workplace.

This policy template essentially encourages the workspace operator to take up this aspect of running the space, even though there isn’t a clear legal requirement to do so.

Yet another important responsibility for community leaders….

What effect would such a policy have?

Obviously, a well-functioning community of coworkers probably doesn’t need any such a formal policy, because they’ll be treating each other with respect already.  But not all communities work smoothly all the time, and workers come and go all the time, so things can change at any moment. In addition, there will inevitably be differences of opinion, such as what is or isn’t “appropriate” talk or touching, so conflict resolution may be needed.  Notably, the code calls for the workspace operator to create mechanisms for mediation, which are probably a good idea anyway.

This document is intended as a template to be adapted for specific workplaces. It will be interesting to see how it might be used by coworking spaces serving specific communities, such as women or first peoples or whatever.  These spaces are balancing the goals of being congenial and/or safe for specific communities, with a desire to be open to everyone.  The generic template about incusion might be too little or totally off target for these communities, I dunno.

If nothing else, this document should make coworking operators and community leaders think about this issue in their own community.  Even if a community is functioning fine, there may be improvements to make.

Coworking Code of Conduct

Community Leadership, Coworking Communities, The Future of Work

What is Coworking? It Definitely Can Be Feminine

Senssei Cat Johnson is an enthusiastic supporter of ”Women Who Cowork”, a new “alliance” that is “a growing network of supporters and allies and a beautiful vision to transform the way we work.”

As I document in my 2018 book, one of the key features of contemporary coworking is that it is whatever the workers want it to be.  And it surely can be what female workers want it to be.  A woman who is her own boss has a woman for a boss!

So what, specifically is this “beautiful vision” which Sensei Cat eloquently invokes?

First of all, this is clearly coming from the perspective of women who lead and operate coworking spaces.  Individual workers may benefit and enjoy participation, but WWCO invites you to “Join the professional community of women who create, inspire and lead coworking businesses.”

There is nothing wrong with that, and, of course, community leadership is the make or break element of any successful coworking community, so this is certainly at the heart of things.

These women are also founders of the GCUC conferences, and are deeply involved in the evolution of the “industry”.  In fact, their manifesto has the telling sentence, “We believe coworking is the industry best positioned to achieve the goal of 100% gender parity in leadership and funding accessibility.”

There is lots of talk of gender equity everywhere, but it is interesting to see what the WWCO think are the crucial facets:  leadership and funding accessibility.  Power and money.  Yup. I can’t disagree with that.

Of course, WWCO is going to be about more than that, but, hey, give me money and power and I can make stuff happen!

Inevitably, part of the mission of WWCO will be advocating for women coworkers, recognizing success, busting myths, and generally promoting the “beautiful mission” of “Yes, We Can.”

As I have written many times, coworking is all about community, and community all about being “us, together”—for pretty much any value of “us”.  We see coworking communities that serve geographical neighborhoods, vocational categories, and of course all kinds of social and lifestyle groupings.

But I must be quick to say that across all demographic, geographic, and identity slices, coworkers share a broad base of common needs, goals, and working life.  Everyone is using the same technological base, navigating similar career paths, and struggling with the same life-work challenges.  Truly, we’re all in this together, even though we may “clump” into relatively homogeneous “us” groups sometimes.

Women have always had a strong role in coworking, even if some of the “clumps” are pretty masculine.  Since freelance workers are free to choose their workspace and coworkers, many women and men (and whatever other gender self-identifications) are happy to find a community with women leaders, and will choose to join.

While it may be a stereotype to think that women are “better” at community than men, it is certainly true that women can create and sustain community very well.  There have always been successful female leaders, and there certainly should continue to be so.

From this perspective, WWCO is basically playing a game that has already been won.

But I’m sure that for those who a playing the “shared workspace industry” game, WWCO could have an important role, demanding “100% gender parity in leadership and funding accessibility.”  I personally am not interested in that game, but I want to make sure that “girls get to play, too”.

How will “femme-identified coworking entrepreneurs and community managers” do things different?  I don’t know.  Let’s see what happens.

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