Locus Workspace

FREE coworking around the world for Locus members and other independent workers in Prague

2012-08-07T08:19:00.000+02:00

One of the cool things about coworking is that a lot of people who decide to get involved in it really care about the idea and the value it has to offer, and not just about the business as a business. Sam Spurlin's several recent posts on this blog attest to this. Another sign of it comes from the grass roots cooperation across thousands of coworking spaces around the world that have contributed to coworking.com. The particular example I want to write about now are four options for free office sharing options across coworking spaces around the world: (1) the Coworking Visa, (2) The Prague Coworking Visa, (3) Loosecubes, and (4) Jelly.

1. The Coworking Visa.

The coworking visa is one of the greatest largely-unknown sources of added value to participating coworking spaces, and also one of the most impressive examples of value-added cooperation across competing businesses I know of in any industry. If you're a member of Locus or of another coworking space that participates in the visa program, you may know about it already. This is an informal group of about 500 coworking spaces around the world that have agreed to let members of other "Visa"-participant coworking spaces use their space for free (usually for up to 3 days, but the terms depend on the space; Locus is free for up to a month, but limited by the terms of the other coworking space). Here's a link for details with the list of participating spaces and their terms, organized geographically.

The coworking visa was the fortunate brain-child of two of the women leaders of the coworking movement, Julie Duryea of Souk in Portland, Oregon (now run by someone else and maybe under a different name) and Susan Evans of Office Nomads in Seattle, Washington. They proposed it on a google group to a network of people running coworking spaces around the world, and it was almost immediately successful.

2. The Prague Coworking Visa.
A group of coworking spaces in Prague (including Locus) were inspired by this visa program to create a Prague version of the visa that allows members of each space to use the other spaces for up to 25% of their membership time. See details here.

3. Loosecubes

Loosecubes is a corporate alternative to the Coworking Visa and it remains to be seen whether their intentions are pure and how well the system will work, but as it stands it looks very promising. It is an invite-only workspace-sharing network of about a thousand coworking spaces and other shared offices around the world. Right now (and from what they've told me, this is their permanent business model), their system is absolutely free for members of the network (including Locus Workspace members). This means you can use any of the other spaces on the Loosecubes network for free, though each space has its terms in terms of number of free days. So if you're traveling abroad and want to cowork in most major cities around the world (though biased towards Western Europe and North America), you'll have a coworking space to work at for free. Loosecubes also provides a software backend and a user-interface that make it easy to use and (it seems at least) perhaps more reliable than the Coworking Visa.

4. Jelly

Jelly is informal coworking that started around the same time as the coworking movement itself with a group of freelancers in New York City who decided they'd rather work alongside other people than alone in their home office or at a cafe. They starting meeting as a group at each other's homes or cafes, they created a wiki, and Jelly grew into a movement, with groups meeting to work together rather than alone around the world. Here's a sample list of Jellies around the world on Meetup.com.

The group of collaborating coworking spaces in Prague mentioned earlier hosts a rotating series of jellies across their three spaces, which means people who don't work in a coworking space (and may not want to) can experience some of the benefits of coworking for free every two weeks, and get to know a few of the coworking spaces in the city in the process.

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To me the added value that comes from sharing membership across coworking spaces (and with the public)--not just for independent workers and coworking space members, but also for the coworking spaces themselves--is immense. For the members, of course, it means they can literally work their way around the world (as long as they stick to major cities), for the price of the coworking space membership they already have at their home city. For coworking space owners, it means a wonderful influx of interesting visitors who add spice to the host spaces and use resources that were mostly available and going unused anyway!

Coworking in Prague | Coworking v Praze

2012-02-15T18:53:00.000+01:00

Recently Locus Workspace has teamed up with a group of other coworking spaces in Prague to see how we can work together to do things we can't do as individual spaces.

The project was largely inspired by Coworking Seattle's collaboration, so we owe a big thanks to their positive example.

Central to the collaboration is a recognition from all of us that there are many ways in which we all gain by focusing on how we can collaborate as well as on how we can co-promote the idea of coworking, coming together as coworking spaces much as individual space members might come together to facilitate something greater than the collection of individuals. We all believe the potential future size of the coworking community in Prague is much larger than the capacity of our combined spaces, and that at least for now the more options out there the better for the success of coworking more genreally. For now--I think--the biggest barrier to our collective success is not one another, but the extent to which the public and media are unaware of the coworking option, and how valuable it can be.

We do things such as:

Co-sponsor a Jelly (free, informal coworking open to the public) that meets every two weeks and rotates across 7 different coworking spaces in Prague.
Participate in a "Coworking in Prague visa program" (inspired by the international Coworking Visa) that allows members of any one of 5 coworking spaces in Prague use the other spaces for free for up to 25% of one's membership time.
Share a common website and Facebook page (please join it, we just started up) for promoting the idea of coworking and communicating options for coworking in Prague to the public and to the media.
Help organize cross-space events that can bring our members together as well as bring awareness about coworking and what it has to offer to the public.

I'm really excited about the collaboration and the support for it that has come from the other participants in the Coworking in Prague program!

Death at Locus Workspace, or Coworking is Awesome

2011-10-14T18:13:00.002+02:00

I recently got back to Prague and Locus Workspace after more than 2 weeks in Santa Monica, California. We didn't get in until about 22:00 and the time difference is 9 hours. I couldn't sleep. Finally gave up trying and went to Locus at about 7am, Wednesday morning. There was what appeared to be police tape on the entrance to the space, with the sign, ZÁKAZ VSTUPU (DO NOT ENTER).

I went in anyway, with my heart pounding a little with fear about what I might find. Nothing looked weird until I got to my desk.

There was police chalk outlining a body on the floor. My mind started racing.

There was a sheet of paper on my desk from the police.

The last line in big letters says, "This property is closed."

Huge adrenalin rush as my mind started racing. Can this be real? Wouldn't someone have called me!? Did it just happen? Should I call the police and ask? Should I call my wife and get a clear headed opinion? Shouldn't I get the h*ll out of here? Am I going to have to close the business? Was someone killed? Who? (Yes, it's a little disturbing that concern about who might have been killed didn't occur to me until all the petty self-interested thoughts had worn themselves out.)

I decided to read the small print on the paper. Each line was a different legal code violation.

The first violation was for keeping farm animals on the premises and the second for food violations. Okay, this cannot be real. Wouldn't someone being killed top the list. But what if it is real!! A four leaf clover cannot be part of the Czech Police logo, can it (we're not in Ireland after all)?

I decided the reasons listed for closing the space were absurd enough (farm animals!?) that I would at least be justified in ignoring it all and getting to work even if someone was murdered there. So I cleaned up the chalk and turned on my computer, adrenalin still rushing and heart still pounding, until about 1/2 hour later when there was a key in the door. It's too early for members. Are the police here?

A Locus member! And no hesitation going right to a desk. "You just walked right in?"

"Sure, why not."

"The police tape on the front door!?"

"I don't know anything about it." Smile.

Finally, I could relax. Clearly a prank on Will.

A little bit later and another member came in and showed me the "bloody" steak knife I hadn't discovered under the desk next to the body.

More than two weeks away with the members managing the workspace themselves, no calamities, no calls with complaints, and energy left over to put in some hard work to "welcome" me home!

You have to love coworking!

Thanks, Locus Workspace Members, for the warmest welcome I've had in a long time (and I mean that)!

PS: The "police tape" was basic construction tape, the "bloody" knife was covered with dried ketchup, the Czech Police logo really does look like that, and the "police chalk" was your basic sidewalk chalk and cleaned right up.

2011-09-22T21:14:00.001+02:00

Loosecubes, an outstanding coworking-space listing service, has a nice blog post about Locus: http://bit.ly/oiCv3O

2011-07-05T09:15:00.001+02:00

Locus Workspace EXPANSION! Here are some pictures of the new floor: http://bit.ly/kTtR6a locusws coworking

GREAT coworking testimonial!

2011-06-01T08:51:00.000+02:00

The following post to the coworking Google email list by Campbell McKellar of Loosecubes (www.loosecubes.com) serves as a GREAT testimonial to one of the most important and least recognized values of coworking: the gained value from extensive knowledge and expertise one is surrounded by in a coworking space, has instant access to, and usually gets for free

... I'd like to offer another perspective (as a coworker).

For some background, I'm working on Loosecubes, a website meant to connect independents and travelers to the right coworking spaces and desk shares, and to facilitate connections between spaces and the people working in them. We have a basic prototype out and are working hard on the second phase (thanks to the many of you who've been beta testers and provided feedback!). So in some ways, I am not the typical coworker; however, in many ways I am (if there is such a thing).

In the last two weeks, working at New Work City, I have:

- sat next to a publicist for startups who gave me some incredibly valuable advice for about a half hour

- had a successful facebook application builder review our wireframes and offer feedback

- been introduced to a NY Times tech reporter and numerous bloggers

- had my blackberry fixed by a handset expert who was able to talk me off the ledge after mine exploded

All this for the price of a basic part time membership!

If coworking spaces are able to communicate these types of experiences to people - using community members to do so - any business person is going to come to the same conclusion I have: the economic benefit to my business is 10x what I pay to come to New Work City. If you added up the cost to me (as a understaffed startup entrepreneur) to track down a publicist, developer, reporters, and tech support on an ad hoc basis (not to mention the cost and time of engaging these services or spending time to meet with them and develop trusting relationships outside the workplace), it would be astronomical. In fact, I probably just wouldn't do it, and my business would suffer because of it.

I think if people are considering business centers, staying home, or not willing to pay for memberships, it's because we're not 1) building communities that collaborate or 2) our members are not communicating clearly to the outside world the incredible economic opportunity coworking creates for them.

Maybe the next wave of adopters needs to be recruited on economic, not strictly personal/lifestyle terms.

(Just my two cents!)

Campbell McKellar www.loosecubes.com

Today, August 9th, "Interational Coworking Day"

2010-08-09T11:18:00.001+02:00

Five years ago today Brad Neuberg publicly blogged about "coworking"--a term he coined--for the first time, announcing the first regular "coworking" get together: http://bit.ly/6LacQX. As of this weekend, with some great footwork by Rio de Janeiro coworking space owner Cadu de Castro Alves (www.beesoffice.com), August 9th has been marked International Coworking Day.

Though there wasn't much advanced notice this time around, spread the word if you can!

Tara Hunt, one of coworking's original advocates and a master or making movements happen, made some suggestions for what to post about coworking today, using the #coworkingday tag:

   1. how you first heard about the movement
   2. why you decided to get involved
   3. when your space opened up or you started working out of a coworking
   space
   4. why coworking is better than working alone (or in another situation,
   like a coffee shop)
   5. etc.

Hopefully with some advanced planning for 2011, International Coworking Day will be a more raucous event. :)

As online communities grow, offline communities shrink, and we need the latter for psychological health

2010-06-12T12:43:00.001+02:00

There's a short New York Times op-ed by Charles Blow out June 11th about the importance of "real live" social connectedness for healthy psychological development, and in turn about the longitudinal changes that have made such social connections less common. The op-ed itself isn't that interesting, but it points the reader to some scientific research and reports that are, including two studies by Pew documenting the increase in (live) social isolation alongside the increase in Internet and social networking websites (1, 2), and one study by researchers at U. Michigan showing a drop in empathy among college students increasing most dramatically as of the year 2000.

This isn't convincing proof to me of Blow's main argument (that we'll be healthier with more live, in person social connections). After all, the two Pew studies are simply documenting the decreasing social connectedness that has been going on for a long time. Consider Robert Putnam's famous *Bowling Alone*, which documented America's decreasing social connectedness since the 1950s. A lot of reasonable and compelling arguments could be made that the Internet is actually providing a solution to the societal problem of growing individualism and shrinking community that long preceded it: the Internet (and associated social networking tools) allows people to connect once again and to the kinds of people we'd really want to connect to in a way you can't when you're largely constrained by social proximity as in the non-virtual world (for an extended argument on this point, see Seth Godin's book Tribes). The study by U. Mich. researchers lends support to the idea that growing virtual connectedness might be associated with less psychological health, given the year of the most profound drop in empathy (2000) and its coincidental timing with the rise of virtual social networks. But that could easily be a chance correlation or just indicate biases in the study authors' own measurement standards from one time to the other.

All that said, the growth of such movements like jellies and coworking, but also many other movements in the urban/mobile/anonymous worlds many of us live in to increase live social connectedness (meetups, barcamps, reading groups, etc.) suggests, anecdotally at least, that physical human connections are essential to psychological well-being. And this isn't news to psychologists. Harry Harlow's famous research on Rhesus monkeys demonstrated relatively unambiguously the need for physical connectedness to something even slightly nurturing. Jim Coan and colleagues more recent research (here's the friendlier New York Times version) on the decreased stress response that comes from merely holding a loved one's hand, and John Cacioppo's ongoing work on the association between loneliness and physiological health (e.g., here) provide more compelling examples.

Whether we realize it or not, most of us need real-world physical connectedness for both psychological and physical well being. In my view that's no small part of the reason coworking spaces are popping up all over the place serving the independent worker community.