This week at Office Nomads we have a great workshop on Bike Commuting happening.  Tuesday at 12:30 we’ll be chatting about the laws, how to commute safely, and tips we should all know about.

Hopefully see you soon!

I was honored to be invited to speak at the first Coworking Europe conference in Brussels. The conference was amazing. I love talking about coworking and how great was it to be in a room with 120 other coworking enthusiasts. There were a number of folks from the US but I was the only space owner. I met people from all over including Brussels of course, England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Russia, The Netherlands, lots of people from Germany and as far away as Latvia and the Ukraine. There were folks opening up spaces, established space owners, researchers, government officials, as well as representatives from Cisco, Medusa, and Steelcase.

The event was at The Hub Brussels which I have to say is an impressive coworking space. They have 5 very gracious hosts that work hard to make everything go smoothly for all their guests. The setup they have is a little different then how we do it at Office Nomads. For one, there are no resident desks. This leaves the room pretty flexible and everything is on wheels to make it even more so. We showed up on a Thursday morning and the office was in full swing. The next day, the first day of the conference, they had transformed everything into a large event space. Saturday, after everything was wrapped up, we watched as the hosts put it all back in a period of less then 15 minutes.

I talked fellow nomad Trevor into coming along so we could talk to folks about Nadine, the open source coworking software project we are working on. We also talked quite a bit about the CoworkingDB project and the topic of coworking affiliations and networks came up quite a bit. I’m still processing all the conversations so I’m not sure what to report on at this time.

After Brussels we went on to Amsterdam. We were stuck in our hotel for the first day due to stomach sickness but the second day we made it over to The Hub Amsterdam. From the Coworker.NL site, and from what we were told at The Hub, it seems there is quite a bit of coworking. I was not able to find anything on the coworking wiki and couldn’t get in touch with the folks behind coworker.nl. I would have liked to have more time to visit smaller independent spaces and make more connections in Amsterdam. It’s a great city and I would love to spend more time there.

Next stop was Berlin, where I am now. Alex Lang, one of the bright minds behind Cobot, put us up at his apartment which is quite nice. He’s traveling in Istanbul so we don’t get to hang out with him more. Today we are hanging out in Co.Up, his coworking space and there is a great atmosphere here. Lots of natural light and it didn’t take long before we were engaged in some great conversations with Thilo, Alex’s partner, and Jan, a member and developer for CouchDB. Yesterday I spent the day at Betahaus and had lunch with founders Christoph and Tonia. In the evening I went out to dinner with the team behind Club-Office. Between Co.Up, Betahaus, and Club-Office I’ve seen quite a spectrum of coworking here. If I lived in Berlin I’d have a hard time choosing between Betahaus and Co.Up since they both feel like home. Perhaps I wouldn’t choose.

We have a little more time here in Berlin and then Trevor flies back to Seattle and I fly to London on my own. I have plans to check out The Hubs and The Cube as well as Hub Culture, and Tech Hub which have nothing to do with The Hub. Also meeting with Richard from WorkSnug, an iPhone app that helps folks find a place to work.

It’s a short week here but it’s loaded with fun. Well, at least Wednesday is.  Yoga, pies and beer, and then a farewell/congrats/good luck Happy Hour for Ryan Salva.

Remember, Thursday and Friday we will be closed.  Hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

Today’s current standings from our Neighborhood Campaign are as follows:

1. Ballard
2. Fremont
3. Greenlake / U-District (a tie!)
4. Columbia City
5. West Seattle

Thanks to all who have sent us their feedback thus far! If you wish your neighborhood was in the #1 place, be sure to get your vote in!  We’ll be keeping the polls open through the end of the  year, and are excited to hear where it is you’d love to see our next coworking space.

Oh and hey! Did you see the piece the Seattle Times did on coworking in Seattle? It’s a great article – you should read it!

Here’s what’s happening in our neck of the woods this week.  We decided to have Happy Hour in-house on Wednesday unless we have sun and warmth.  In that case we’ll go find a deck or patio for drinks, food and good ol’ socialization.

If you aren’t joining us for Night Owl on Thursday, a nomad has let us know about a great event raising money for NW Weather and Avalanche Center.  The event is at the Tractor Tavern and features great music, drinks, raffles and good fun.  More info about the organization here: http://www.nwac.us/.

Then on Saturday, The Thoughts are playing at the Moore Theater.  Ryan Salva says “Well… next Saturday (11/13) they have an awesome opportunity to play with a full backing orchestra at The Moore in downtown. They’ll be opening for Seattle Rock Orchestra who will be covering The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds in it’s entirety.”  Check ‘em out!

Have you heard? Office Nomads is looking to open another coworking space in Seattle!  At our three year anniversary party, we took the opportunity to let folks know about our plans, and even created a fancy-shmancy web page to go along with it.

We’re incredibly excited about the opportunity of opening another space, and bringing coworking to another one of Seattle’s great neighborhoods. We’ve had an incredible time creating Office Nomads for the last three years, and are eager to kick-start another platform on which another incredible coworking community can grow.

You can read a whole bunch about our intentions around the second space by heading to the Grow Page and downloading one or both PDFs which overview our business and financial plans. We are in the beginning phases of the process, and are working hard to gather the necessary funds to open as well as reaching out to various communities to hear more about what they’d like to see in a coworking space.

For a couple of weeks now, we’ve been asking for community feedback on where we should open said second space. Here are some initial results in order of popularity:

1. Ballard
2. Fremont
3. University District
4. Green Lake
5. Belltown / Columbia City / West Seattle
6. Uptown (Lower Queen Anne)
7. Queen Anne
8. Georgetown
9. Magnolia
10. Wallingford

Wish you saw your neighborhood higher on the list? Well get your voice heard by heading over to the Grow Page and submitting your preference. Be sure to drop your e-mail address in the contact field so we can keep you posted on our progress.

Have other feedback for us?  Drop us an email via grow AT officenomads DOT com and we’ll be happy to start a conversation with you.

Here’s the good word on all the excitement at the office this week. We’ll determine the location of Happy Hour on Wednesday…check our Twitter feed for the location once it’s announced!