Co Working spaces Yay or Nay ?

[ Deleted ]

I’ve always wondered about these.

[ Deleted ]

Oh yeah. There are tons of them here. Literally one 200 feet from my house at the corner called bloc.

I have used one in Milwaukee and really liked it. the one issue i had was that they didn’t really have a “private” section. most of the rooms had some type of full window which in turn would not allow me to have any confidential material out or i would risk “public discloses”
As for the distractions i found it some what nice because it gave me a chance to “chat” and interact with various people. but then again i can be a social butterfly and that has helped me in my career.

The only one I knew shut down after less than a year.

On that tip, just came across this:

[ Deleted ]

I would love to open a place like that in Montreal. My favorite offices were always those that were heterogeneous and busy.

[ Deleted ]

I would think Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” would be perfect.

For your observations…

I have a space at this place:

It definitely falls more on the makerspace on steroids than a co-working space. Though I think a bit of co-working space’s dna are from makerspaces and clearly there are overlaps. Artisan’s has multi-purpose rooms, computer cluster with some high-end software, social space, kitchen, in addition to ‘labs’ and shop spaces.

I use it more as my workshop to get personal, hopefully one day, million dollar, world changing, projects done.

Skipping new comments and descriptions at the moment, to reply to somethings mentioned already.

Music: There’s no global music. Folks can play stuff in their spaces (if you have one) but you have to be respectful of your neighbors, I believe to the point that if it bugs me and I tell you I want it off, it has to be turned off (or switch to headphones.)

I joined for many reasons, one was to be around other creative folks. Though I have meet a few people, I haven’t meet as many as I feel I should. This is completely my fault. I suck at networking and most of the time I’m there, I’m there to work on a project so I basically have blinders on and time scheduled on equipment. Got to get things done!!!

Don’t think there’s a hierarchy, but groups of members that:
-Run the place - various volunteers, paid employees and those that help in operations to one degree or another. All of these folks also are creating something when not ‘working’.
-Are there to get a something done: start-ups, kickstarter, crafts-people and such that need a space and the equipment that’s available (when it’s working. I’m looking at you laser cutter). They do their thing and that’s about it
-Are members of scul the local ‘friendly biker gang’.
-Want to be in a creative space doing what seem like random creative projects.

The main tension that I see and hear about, rotates around how the place is being run, how things are abused, and ‘it’s not like the good old days…’

-Peter

[ Deleted ]

This thread came to mind when I read this article today.

We spent about 12 months in a co-working space as a ~25 person company and it was horrendous. It certainly has the appeal for individuals or small teams, but conference room booking was always a nightmare, you’d never have a dedicated space that made it easy to hold brainstorming meetings without annoying everyone, and any facilities upgrades (network, phone, even heat) took months to get done.

Yay. I have only worked in co-working spaces for about 7 years. You learn to concentrate and get to business even in the midst of distractions. At the end of the day, it is not the cubicle nor the open office paradigm idea that works - it is a mix. Also, workspaces need to be as specialized as possible. Ideally it contains not only desks but a variety of work stations - one for sitting work, one for standing, one for sketching, one for making, one for 3D printing, sewing, conversing, having lunch etc.

Anyone else following the WeWork saga?

On that subject, here’s an interesting read;

Nice read. It’s like it’s 1999 again. pets.com

Why are investors so dumb? I mean, I remember 20 years ago. It’s not that hard.

I’m with you. The entire time I’ve been thinking that this doesn’t seem to add up. Turns out it doesn’t.

How in the hell is a dispatch service (uber, lyft) worth billions? In reality, none of these services are new, just digitized. And what is most funny, it seems that digitizing actually increases costs over the old way. Go figure (wait, we did, didn’t turn out well then either).