2011. What a wonderful year for coworking at Office Nomads! Here are 10 highlights of a fabulous year on Capitol Hill:

1. We searched and searched for a great place to open a Northend Office Nomads. While we didn’t find the perfect fit, we did connect with a great community of coworkers, and are continuing to keep our eyes open for an opportunity for a Northend space.
2. From building bikes that can survive in harsh rural African conditions to helping folks find clinical trials they can take part in, our members accomplished great things this year. They also contributed some fantastic things to the office, including fancy-shmancy signage. Office Nomads members, you guys rule.
3. There were pranks. Many pranks.
4. We geeked out on our own member data.
5. We celebrated Coworking Day on August 9th in Seattle, alongside of celebrations happening worldwide.
6. Jacob made us a Twitter Box!
7. We all got to work in different ways.
8. Nomads shared all the different ways they worked to negotiate their memberships with their bosses. This not only was really interesting to hear about, but has helped other Nomads (and coworkers around the world) negotiate coworking memberships of their own.
9. We got our travel on! Office Nomads represented at a variety of events around the country and the world, including Austin, Berlin, and LA.
10. Most importantly, we rounded out our awesome team with the addition of the absolutely fabulous Chelsea McClain. We could not be more excited to have her as a part of the Office Nomads team!

And that just about rounds it out. What an incredible year! Thanks to all of the Nomads, our friends, and our families for making Office Nomads all that it is.

Chelsea & Alex, community cultivating rockstars

See you all in 2012!

Last week I got back from traveling in Europe again starting in Berlin where I attended the 2011 Coworking Europe conference. I wasn’t a speaker this year like I was last year so the pressure was off – I got to enjoy this year’s conference as an attendee. I enjoyed seeing everyone I met last year and really liked spending time in Berlin.

The first day of the conference was at Club Office and the second day was at Betahaus. Everything was well organized and it seemed like there were a lot more attendees this year than in 2010. I discussed a wide verity of topics with fellow coworking folk, but mostly I enjoyed geeking out about coworking as I love to do. Conferences like this are a place for making connections rather then getting anything specific done so it’s hard to list out my accomplishments on this trip. Success will be measured by the ongoing relationships I’ve built; to that end I can say that last years trip has been hugely successful. This years conference provided a nice anniversary for reflection and I’m excited to see where coworking is, and where it is going.

At Office Nomads, we like to suggest coworking as an alternative when “working from home isn’t working.”  Too often though, individuals find themselves feeling as if there is no alternative from the isolation they feel in a home office or when working out of cafes because they can’t afford the cost of membership on their own.  These folks are part of the growing number of remote workers who want to join a coworking community but don’t have the support from their employers to do it.  So what do they do?

In May, Shareable.net had a great blog post on this very topic.  A few of our Nomads chimed in and shared some fantastic insight.  We decided to then pose the question to all our Nomads and see how they did it.

One idea that came from multiple people was based on simple math. Nancy Ward explained it well: “For anyone working from their home where the rest of their colleagues work in an office in another city, the answer is obvious.  They pay for office space for those employees, why not you?”

Other people crunched the numbers for their own office space and presented their managers with the final tally of space, printer, internet access, furniture, etc.  As a few Nomads put it, “It’s hard to argue with that math and makes it a “no-brainer.”

Colin Monaghan said that he used the diverse community as a negotiating point.  “I mentioned all the different types of people working here, representing different skill sets and industries,” he said. With over 90 members in professions ranging from software to astrology, there’s always somebody in the space who can be a benefit to you and your work.  “My employer saw this as an additional resource for the company as a whole, as I could learn and possibly even partner with some of these people.”

The most important and positive element that people gain from their time at coworking spaces though, is the productivity.  Over and over again members said that was their number one negotiating point.  For many in the at-home workforce there is a loss of definition between work time and home time.  One employer understood the trouble one encounters when working from the couch. “The blurring of work hours and personal life usually start out benefitting work but ends up hurting it. … If the alternative is home-working then [employers] should recognize that the discipline required to work from home for extended periods is extremely rare.”

Most Nomads talked about distractions in the home or in the cafes where they used to work.  It wasn’t a good fit because they needed a space that was dedicated to getting work done.  Trevor Smith said that he pitched it to his employer by saying, “It’s a good idea because I can usually be more productive in my job when I’m not doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen.”

A few Nomads offered the approach of convincing your employer to try a trial period.  Nancy said, “If the employer … thinks that working in front of the TV with cats all around you is good for productivity, suggest a Part Time 15 membership for a couple of months to prove how great the value proposition is.”

Whatever your tactic, remember that as each person gains something different from his or her membership with a coworking space the same goes for your company. So before you approach your boss about the potential of getting a membership, or even just part of one, paid for, take the time to think about how your it will also benefit the company. Will it increase your motivation? Would it give you a more stable connection to the Internet?

When it’s all said and done, this is just a business decision for your boss to make. Make sure you can provide all the facts and data and then ask. After all, it never hurts to ask.

Have you negotiated your membership? How did you do it?

Before I worked at Office Nomads I worked down in SeaTac.  My morning commute involved leaving my house at 5:45 AM to walk 25 minutes to downtown where I would grab my bus for the 45 minute ride.  The end of my day usually involved a delayed bus and traffic, stretching the commute to close to 2 hours. The only thing I miss about that commute is the speed at which I was able to fly through books.

Now I work 11 blocks from home. Usually less than 30 minutes elapses from the time my alarm clock goes off and I’m walking in the door at Office Nomads.  Working at Office Nomads has eliminated my horrendous commute.

Thinking about this, I became curious about the commutes that members have to Office Nomads.  How are people getting here? How long does it take them?  Are we really a neighborhood location?

Not surprisingly, people either walk, bike, drive or take the bus.  Turns out, nobody drops in via parachute.  What was surprising was that cars and bikes came out as the top modes of transport with each being used by 29% of Nomads.   Seattle likes to talk about its growing bike culture.  Seattle Bike Blog put it, “Of the 25 largest US cities, Seattle has the largest share of people commuting by bicycle.”  That huge number of bike commuters? 3.6%. With 29% of our Nomads commuting by pedal power, our small community is acting as an example for others to follow.

Indeed, 29% do drive in.  The neighborhoods from which these Nomads are coming are not easily connected to Capitol Hill via buses.  While our neighborhood seems to be arranged to discourage cars, some of these Nomads have found well-priced parking lots and or ‘secret’ spots that make it easier for them.  This then allows them the ability to pick up their kids or run those important errands on the way home.

When Susan first thought of opening a coworking space, she envisioned places to work within each of our neighborhoods.  Stroll a few blocks from your front door and find yourself at work.  It appears that 24% of our community is doing just that. One Nomad said, “It’s the perfect 20 minute walk: too short to be taxing even in the rain but long enough to let me stretch my legs. Also, good for both me and the environment.”

18% of the Nomads use the bus to come to Capitol Hill.  Most of the bussing Nomads said it was easier to bus than drive.  Many said they have the ability to drive in but have decided that the bus is the best option.  William Do said, “It’s most convenient for me.  I could drive but parking is expensive.  I could bike, but I’m not into biking.  I also walk part of the way, sometimes depending on how I feel, I’ll walk 3 to 4 miles at least part of the way from Office Nomads to get home.”

We may not be right around the corner from most of our Nomads but the majority take twenty minutes or less to be part of our community.  That’s less time commuting than the national average of 25 minutes.

These sorts of numbers make me more excited about coworking.  If more of us are biking or walking, does that mean we’re healthier?  And if we are driving but our time in the car is less than the national average, are we happier?  I think so.  It’s evident in the way people talk about coming to Office Nomads or any other coworking community.  And it all starts with how we get there.

I’ll start by admitting outright that the “real” reason for building this is that A) I found this really cool box at The RE Store in Ballard, and B) I wanted to make something with my new Arduino. For those of you unfamiliar, but curious what an Arduino is, you should come to my brown bag talk on September 27th. I’m going to talk about the project and geek out with other nomads about fun electrical projects we’ve done or would like to do.

So what does it do?!?

The Twitter Box searches twitter for mentions of @officenomads and each time it finds something new it activates the big red light for 10 seconds.  The LCD I used isn’t big enough to show the actual tweet (I only have 16 chars to work with) but it does shout out the twitter handle of the tweet if found.  It takes a few seconds to pull up the newest tweet and this is by design.  Twitter has a lot of people hitting it at all times and doesn’t want you to send too many searches over and over again.  I pass the time by displaying fun statistics on the LCD like the number of tweets and the number of loops it’s made since it was powered up.

Watch this fun video and see it in action!

Twitter Box: Social Media Instigation Device from Office Nomads on Vimeo.

As August 9th approaches, we are getting ready to celebrate yet another fabulous year of coworking – both here in Seattle and across the globe. That’s right, August 9th is Coworking Day!

That's where we'll be on August 9th!

We waxed poetic about it a bit last year, and now this year we are excited to do a little bit more than just talk about what coworking means. We’re going to show Seattle what coworking IS. Teaming up with our coworkers as a part of Coworking Seattle, we’re participating in Seattle’s first-ever Coworking Day celebration. Coworkers from all over the city will converge on beautiful Gasworks Park from 3-7pm for a little bit of working and then a lot of celebrating. We’ll have WiFi provided by Clear, picnic benches to sit upon, and even a little grill provided by Ryan of Coworking Eastlake.

So come August 9, pack up your laptop (and maybe a drink and something to throw on the grill), get yourself on down to Gasworks (either on your own or at one of the coordinated pickup spots with rides from our friends at Uber), and come celebrate coworking. We hope to see you there!

Event details: http://coworkingseattle.org/Coworking_Day.html
RSVP page: http://coworkingdayseattle.eventbrite.com/

Jacob and I regularly survey our members so we can learn more about their experiences at Office Nomads and with coworking. We analyze this data to help us create a coworking space that truly works for our members, and to ensure that we have our finger on the pulse of what makes our space work. We recognize there is a lot of value in sharing this information, so today we thought we’d post some interesting tidbits we’ve learned from our experience creating Office Nomads! Here are a few points we’ve pulled from two of our surveys: a Coworking Survey completed by members who have been with us for two months or more, and an Exit Survey of members who choose to end their membership at Office Nomads. Both of these are ongoing so the data changes over time and requires regular analysis. Each survey, as of June 2011, has been filled out by approximately 45 individuals.

Why do members come to Office Nomads?
It is a common misconception that individuals seek out membership at a coworking space because they need to share resources like the internet, coffee, or a fax machine. Through our experience starting Office Nomads, we’ve learned that individuals come to a coworking space as more of a lifestyle (or perhaps “workstyle”) choice as opposed to a services choice. Here’s a chart taken from our Coworking Survey results:

We think this makes it pretty clear that independent and mobile workers today don’t need more places just to plop down their laptops and get to work. What they need is a simple platform that enables an in-person connection with others during their workdays.

Some ideas about why they stay
What brings new members to our doors is not necessarily what is going to encourage them to maintain their membership at Office Nomads. We try to get a sense of what benefits our members experience by being a part of Office Nomads.

• 2/3 of surveyed members report they have seen an increase in their productivity since joining Office Nomads.
• 81% of surveyed members think of Office Nomads as a place where they “can meet and connect with potential collaborators for work.”
• 83% of surveyed members report their “work/life balance is healthier than it was before [they] joined Office Nomads.”
• 72% of surveyed members tell us their familiarity and knowledge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood (where Office Nomads is located) has increased since becoming a member of Office Nomads.

Why do they leave?
Part of being responsible coworking space owners is figuring out not only what brings new members to our doors, but trying to understand why members walk away. Attrition rates can only tell us how many people walk out the door, so we appreciate getting candid feedback when members depart.

The exit survey has been an invaluable tool because we can keep an eye out for red flags that do require our attention. But not every member who joins finds coworking to be the solution for them.  In fact, the exit survey process gives us an opportunity to make recommendations about where people might find a better fit. I’d recommend any coworking space operator to survey the folks who end their membership.

And now a few questions: If you own/operate a coworking space, does this data jive with what you’ve learned from your members? If you’re a coworking space user, does our membership data resonate with the reasons you’ve chosen to work out of a coworking space? Let us know – we’re curious! We’re taking all we’ve learned here in Capitol Hill and are trying to apply it to creating another space – you can read more about that process on our grow page.

We really can’t love our Nomads anymore than we already do.  They always have fantastic projects brewing and are pretty inspiring folks.  We previously posted about some how awesome they are and here are a few more great examples.

• Andy Hieb says that his company DTEK is always doing cool things. Of late, they built the new site for the World Affairs Council.  The site looks fantastic and the DTEK team is calling it their favorite. It’s loaded with great features and will be a great tool for The World Affairs Council to use to connect to the community.

• Mike Kollins is the Chief Operating Officer for World Bicycle Relief.  He has just relocated from Kenya to Seattle and is one of our newest Resident members.  I’ll let Mike tell us about the great mission of WBR. “We are a large non-profit social enterprise.   We have distributed over 75,000 bicycles in the last 6 years and trained over 700 bicycle mechanics.  Instead of using recycled bicycles (which tend to break down given terrain and loads, and have no spare parts in rural Africa), we have designed a bicycle specifically for the markets we are active in.  We have three assembly factories in Africa (Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia) currently with over 60 local employees.   We produce between 1,000 and 3,000 bicycles per month.  Our current project is focussed on improving academic performance and attendance of girl students in rural Zambia, where drop-out rates, especially amongst girls, are extraordinary high.  One of the primary reason for dropping out is transport due to safety and time issues.   Given the importance of having educated girls in society, we are using bicycles to help out.  We will distribute 50,000 to 500 schools over the five year period of the program. We have already distributed about 10,000 bicycles to date in this program.” Check out this Youtube video to get a better idea of what WBR does:  http://www.youtube.com/user/WorldBicycleRelief#p/a/u/1/sVdb5bl5z2s

• Something people at Office Nomads seem to always be discussing are TED events.  TED is all about “ideas worth spreading” and has an eye on changing the world.  Greg Bamford is excited to curate a TEDxOverlake event entitled “How People Learn: At Work, At Play, At School”.  This will take place June 18th at the Overlake School. Under TED rules, they are limited to 100 attendees but the event will be streamed online.  For more information and the latest news on speakers and their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Well, now you’re smitten with our Nomads, too, aren’t you?  We completely understand.

Imagine you are in the middle of a large project which you need to have emailed to a client in 30 minutes.  You’ve been up all night and have had 13 cups of coffee in an equal number of hours.  Suddenly you really have to go to the bathroom.  That’s fine, you can spare two minutes.  You get up, head to the bathrooms but (curses!) they are both in use! Now you have to wait, and wait, and watch those minutes till deadline tick away.

Well, this might not be your life.  But here at ON we have two bathrooms and a lot of busy folks.  One particular Nomad was tired of hearing folks complain about waiting for the bathroom and he decided to do something about it.  Wouldn’t it be great if there was some way he and everyone else could know when a bathroom was open?

Andrew had a brilliant idea and made signs that light up when both bathrooms are in use.  The signs are situated so that every desk in the space can see.  No more standing around waiting.  Before you even get up, you know if there’s a bathroom free.  Yeah, we agree that this was genius.

Probably the best part about this was that it was completely Nomad initiated and completed.  It’s not hard to see why we love our Nomads, is it?  Thanks Andrew for your great ingenuity!