DISQUS

Todd Sundsted · 1 year ago

Alex, great post. I recently hosted an event where the question of paying open-source developers came up. At the surface, it seems reasonable. But it's prickly in the same way coworking and/or incubation is prickly, because while the ideas are really very different in their goals and values, there's enough obvious synergy and enough overlap in daily activity to 1) make the differences less obvious on the outside than they appear to the insiders, which 2) results in lots of questions about the two models, and potentially lots of confusion. I've recently noticed that searching for "coworking" on Google returns a lot of sponsored results for cube farms, executive suites, etc. Clearly commercial interests are playing on (preying on) the confusion to fatten their sales pipeline. I'll be very disappointed if the trend continues.

Todd

Alex Hillman · 1 year ago

Todd,
Being an open source developer, much like being on the more "altruistic" side of the spectrum when it comes to coworking, does NOT mean that one is casting themselves into poverty simply because of their decision!

William Hurley has a great post of over the BMC blog called "Welcome to Opensville" that outlines the necessary ecosystem that sounds very similar to what we need in order for coworking to continue to flourish while maintaining stability and remaining true to it's values.

There's nothing wrong with either decision. The more they coexist, the more symbiotic they can become. I'm actually extremely interested in how some of the "enterprise" style coworking can positively influence the movement. The fact of the matter is, in order for it to do so, there needs to be *consistent* guidance. I'm not bothered by the commercial interests, I'm bothered by the inconsistency in messaging that it generates.

Marc Nathan · 1 year ago

Alex,

I completely agree with you about the identity crisis regarding 'coworking' and 'incubating'. There is a similar semantic debate about the difference between 'incubator' and 'accelerator' - but the answer is the same in both cases. It's not what it's supposed to be, it's what the community makes it. I'm hoping to keep the coworking and incubator separate but very permeable at the new Katy Dock (www.katydock.com). I feel that they are symbiotic and collaborative entities - the coworking space is for getting stuff done, and maybe some peer collaboration where the incubator (Technology Center of West Houston) is much more top-down consulting and investment into early stage companies. Coworking is a good way for people to learn about the incubator and vice versa, but they are and should be very distinct from each other.

Alan Chamberlain · 1 year ago

Alex--

Great rant.

I guess my perspective is that it's pointless to get caught up in nomenclature. I'm less concerned with labels than outcomes. Which is why the function of incubation as one aspect of coworking (informed by the 5 values) is more important than people getting confused about whether it's an "incubator", a "small business development center", an "economic development strategy", or a clubhouse for nomadic workers. It can be all those things and still satisfy the value pillars, I believe.

What I'm finding in my conversations with traditional economic development organizations is that they are still fixated on the conventional approach to incubation, but only because they don't know anything else. When I introduce the Uptime concept as a new model for incubation, they embrace it enthusiastically. I believe there is great potential for public and private non-profit agencies to devote resources to proliferating this remarkable movement in their respective markets.

I also see great potential for mobility from sole proprietor to freelancer to entrepreneur as people who initially enrolled for the use of the wifi and the copy machine aspire to building more ambitious enterprises.

Anyway, I think the semantics of this are going to be confounded for awhile, but I expect the outcomes to more than compensate for that.

--Ax

Alex Hillman · 1 year ago

Ax,
I completely agree. The hardest issue to address is that education that you're doing well, from what it sounds like. Coworking is sorely missing consistent messaging materials, they'd make yours, my, and many others in our larger community's jobs MUCH easier. :)

If only I had some spare time to work on them...

Nate Westheimer · 1 year ago

Who has an identity crisis? Seriously?

I love coworking but run an incubator. That makes my incubator that much more community oriented. I'm sure if I ran a coworking space and loved deliberate business incubation as much as I do my coworking space would benefit from it was well.

Blake Jennelle · 1 year ago

Imagine if the coworking pitch looked more like the pitch to many incubators...

"You get free access to lawyers and accountants, introductions to possible clients, and a great community of like-minded people who will become your friends and peers."

Even with the same people involved, I think you'd have a whole different coworking culture. By diluting the focus on community, and by expecting to be given things just by virtue of being there, you'd encourage an entirely different way of engaging.

I say this as a happy veteran of the DreamIt Ventures incubator and a big fan of startup incubators in general.

My one suggestion to programs like these is to focus more of the pitch on the value of the community, and less on the transactional elements. It may be a harder sell, but it could pay off in terms of a much more collaborative culture between the teams.

James88 · 1 year ago

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Nathan Solomon · 1 year ago

While both are useful, co-working will be a more fertile ground, as Incubators are formed by investors who select projects based upon what they perceive to be the current market, and will invariably be a step behind. -This is especially true of regional incubators. There's also an aspect of incubators that seems distastefully like exploitation, as they tend to take a piece of a very young company for very little investment.

Alan Chamberlain · 1 year ago

Nathan--

I think some incubators certainly are guilty as charged. Others not so much, inasmuch as they are not-for-profit economic development efforts informed by good intentions (but little else).

I'd like to step back from definitions for a moment, since none of us has any authority to state unequivocally what an incubator or coworking is.

Coworking is a movement in its infancy, sezaxon. I think there may be as many different models for it as there are iterations of it. Some spaces are "resident desk" models, for example. Others are more ad hoc and cafe-styled. And pretty much everything in between. The one thing they seem to have in common is a shared set of values (that are still evolving, I might point out.) When I first started looking into it, I'd already created a model for my own iteration, even before I knew anyone else was doing something similar. By the time I'd written my business plan, I learned there were Four Value Pillars. Shortly thereafter, it was Five (add Accessibility). There seems to be a Sixth emerging (add Localism?) Who knows what may accrete to this.

In my strategic planning practice, I start with Vision, *then* Values. And I'm not persuaded that we all share the same vision, even if we pledge adherence to the value set. For me, the important question is *Purpose*. Once you have a clear and compelling vision of what you could be, you boil it down to the core purpose. Vision should be aspirational; Purpose is cardinal. Principles (or Values), are ordinal. I know this is doctrine, but stay with me.

My Purpose in creating a coworking space is to stimulate economic development through entrepreneurial initiative. I hope that early stage startups will see the value in coworking *as a community of interest*, not just the use of the internets and the copy machine. That's my strategic imperative.

Community for its own sake is a wonderful thing, but a community coalesced around a shared purpose has enormous potential to be a disruptive force for positive social change in the larger society it inhabits. A coworking scene that hosts a dozen independent workers who share risks and rewards, obligations and opportunities, can be a great springboard for those workers to achieve more, individually, and as a discrete community. No blame.

But my vision is to create a multifaceted community that can be a crucible for emerging innovation enterprises with the potential to become very large companies creating career-grade employment opportunities for knowledge workers, who in turn will stimulate economic activity, establish themselves in the civic deliberation, and contribute positively to regional prosperity. It's a lot to ask of a workplace, but I'm optimistic.

Earlier, Alex bemoaned the lack of consistent message materials, and Blake suggested that marketing should emphasize the community aspects, rather than the transactional (and presumably the infrastructure assets). From my one-sheet (feel free to plagiar-- er, repurpose to suit): "an ad hoc collaborative network of like minds, domain experts, private investors, coaches, and mentors available to help you achieve success; in person, on the phone, and on the web. It’s a professional social circle that shares your entrepreneurial passion and priorities. It’s regularly scheduled guest speakers, workshops, panel discussions, and networking events for executive development and strategic relationship building." This doesn't really address the feel-good aspects of community, but it does, I think, evoke a sense of communal intimacy.

Sorry for the long post; I don't have time to make it shorter...

--Ax