I’m *Not* Outta Here: When Offices Adapt

I was reading portions of Richard Florida’s “The Rise of the Creative Class” yesterday, and it provided some great cultural and sociological perspective that overlaps in many ways with what we’re exploring here.

What I found interesting was his perspective on the workplace: Florida, too, acknowledges that a new generation of workers will be demanding a better workplace and a better relationship with employers, but he takes a slightly different angle– suggesting that employers will have to improve the layouts and management of their spaces to accommodate a more creative environment, as opposed to simply releasing people from the office altogether.

It’s important to keep in mind that the technological revolution we are in the early stages of is one that is going to transform life and work on lots of levels: while I’m Outta Here focuses on the people who have gotten out of the office (or never been in one), and the many who will follow, many companies will retain employees in central or satellite offices… and those offices will change too.

There will be a whole spectrum of shifts, from businesses that virtualize completely to ones that retain their offices and simply repurpose them.

And that’s a good thing too. The rise of coworking is proof that, when people are left to decide where they work, they often naturally choose to work along with each other, so many smart businesses will likely recognize that they must create an environment that people would *want* to work in, if getting employees together in the same place is important to them.

When I visited my friend Paul’s office, I was surprised at how social an environment it was for him. Just showing me around his floor, he said hello to ten or more people, each with a work area decorated to their own style. 

The point? People *like* some aspects of working in an office. 

What if a company focused on making the office a place you’d voluntarily want to work in? What if, one day, they announced, “OK, you don’t need to come into the office anymore! Work where you want!” And employees came in anyway?

The company will inevitably still save on office space and overhead, as many may choose to work elsewhere, but the space they retain will be used for good, useful, healthy, necessary gathering and collaboration.

And that’s a good thing. If the changes come to you, you may not have to say “I’m outta here” to be part of the revolution after all.

Hunter Gatherers Lead the Way

With roughly 600,000 people losing their jobs each month, it is getting difficult to imagine what all those people are going to do.  File for unemployment? Search Craig’s list for gigs? Refresh that database of contacts? Massage your LinkedIn profile?

Probably all of these at some point.  But increasingly, as Intuit’s “The Future of Small Business” Report (The New Artisan Economy) suggests, whole categories of accidental entrepreneurs are entering the ranks of the self employed.  This includes Boomers who un-retire, mompreneurs, and… the recently laid off.

Start a Business in a Recession?

Consider the story of Black Sheep Adventures, which began operations in the wake of the tech crash of 2001-2002.  A fragile jobs market combined with scarce capital made for a tough environment, but they have made it 7 years now, and are profitable.  To be sure, it is difficult, but there are opportunities out there.

In February 2009, Draper-Fisher-Jurvetson invested $1.1 million in World of Good, an online market place (that runs on an eBay platform) that sells artisanal goods made by artists in developing countries.  While the volume may be small, signs of entrepreneurial success are not necessarily about VCs and headline-making investments.  Rather, it is about bootstrapping and hard work and making due with very little.

Revenge of the Nomads

Independent entrepreneurs today are the new hunter gatherers, foraging on the margins of a traditional economy defined by single-source employment, job security, benefits, retirement plans, etc.  There is nothing wrong with these things, they just happen to be really scarce right now!

Like nomadic hunter-gatherers of old, this new breed of independent business owner recognizes that being successful in small business requires a symbiotic relationship with other institutions—companies, banks, non-profits, government, partnerships with other independents, etc.  This is the new ecology of trust, transparency, reputation, and authenticity, all qualities sadly lacking in many large firms.

Historically, there has often been an ebb and flow between the success of large organizations (Empires) and nomads surviving on the margins in symbiosis.  Occasionally, the relative power of nomads increases dramatically.  Recall the Mongols, who for countless generations were referred to by Imperial China simply as the ’savage hordes to the north’… Thus the Great Wall.

At some point in the early 14th century the Mongols made it around the Wall and sacked the Chinese government on their way to building the largest (by land mass controlled) empire in human history.  They controlled from Beijing to what is now eastern Austria!

I’m not saying that today’s entrepreneurs are on the verge of a revolution; however, they are filling a niche and providing jobs, gigs, and money in an environment when the corporate empires are reeling.  Nomads are not totally independent, they never have been; but they serve a useful, even necessary, function, in the allocation of resources and the maintenance of social continuity and stability.

So, while this too will change eventually, for the time being look to small businesses and would-be entrepreneurs as part of the solution to the current economic crisis.  Heck, you might even have a go yourself!

Big Changes Coming: IndyHall Raises the Bar Again

Scaling Coworking

It’s been fascinating to watch the coworking concept evolve over time. When I first learned about coworking, there were only a handful of coworking spaces in existence, and few of those had been open for very long.

Now, as coworking approaches its fourth year, we have dozens of spaces in dozens of cities- and many of them are succeeding. Some spaces have waiting lists. A handful are now actively exploring something as yet unprecedented in the coworking era: expansion.

Cubes & Crayons, the wildly successful Menlo Park space which combines coworking space with daycare services, is building its second location and has publicly stated its intent to expand to cities across the country.

Just today, Alex Hillman of sold-out Indy Hall announced a meeting for people interested in building a media-focused coworking space in Philadelphia. 

Here at New Work City, after riding a wave of interest following our opening, several people have already asked whether we intend to expand.

Here’s where coworking takes another step. Once-fledgling businesses, built on a budding need for community workspace, are now successful, established businesses, and the need for them has only continued to grow.

More than just a space

To date, we’ve described entities like Cubes and Crayons as “coworking spaces”, but this phrase is no longer accurate. They’re coworking companies, and they can have more than one location. 

Point of fact, the phrase “coworking space” was never an accurate way to describe one of these entities. A good coworking space is, first and foremost, a coworking community. And a community is not tied to a specific space.

Now, those communities are foraying into uncharted territory: what happens when a coworking community hits the point where it could have two spaces to call home?

Alex’s exploration into an industry-specific coworking space also advances coworking’s evolution. Coworking started out with an extremely open attitude: if you can show up at the space and do your work with whatever you carried in with you, you can cowork.

But now, as the coworking populace grows, the growth gives way to the more specific needs of particular sub-groups. Independent media folks, for instance, may need equipment and sound-proofed rooms. 

As the year comes to a close, we get a chance to reflect on 2008 and look forward to 2009. 2008 saw the continued growth and spreading of coworking to cities across the globe. 2009 will see that spread continue, but will also witness the rise of larger, more mature coworking companies.

Coworking Trends in 2009

• Continued growth of number and size of spaces around the world
• Emergence of more mature, more successful, multiple-location coworking companies
• Beginnings of coworking spaces focused on specific specialties

This growth will be fueled by a growing population of laid-off former employees who will increasingly be turning to independent and virtual work. 

It goes without saying that coworking is an awesome concept. Its success to date has been fascinating to witness, and in 2009 we’ll see how it looks when it scales and matures.

Hey Manager Guy!

1.       Not all of your employees do very much when they are ‘at work.’

2.       You probably employee many more people than you need to.

3.       You can innovate with fewer people if you have the right people.

4.       If most of your employees still come ‘into’ work on a regular basis, you are needlessly wasting (probably lots of) money on real estate.

5.       Your ‘face time’ will be much more effective and productive if your work spaces are open and designed for collaboration and real-time communication.

6.       Your company culture- as you are seeing it- is a fiction.

7.       White collar workers spend over $350M per day on gas and tolls commuting to work.

8.       The Gross Corporate Footprint (i.e. the daily commute) is a massive blight on the environment (to the tune of 1.67 billion tons of carbon dioxide daily, not to mention the daily CO2 belch from half empty office buildings.

9.        Benefits for ‘full-time’ employees are costly and unnecessary.

10.   Flexibility/Autonomy/Respect/Trust and work-life balance are a sustainable substitute for the security offered up by ‘full-time’ status and expensive benefits.

Good luck with that…