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!

Susan and Jacob went to the Coworking Unconference in Austin recently and left Office Nomads in the questionably capable hand of Alexandra and Charlie for three days.  In the past they have both often said that it would be great to prank a Resident who leaves for a couple days on vacation.  Well, with Jacob and Susan both out, Charlie and Alexandra took it upon themselves to get pranking.

Susan came home to find her entire desk and all her unattended belongings wrapped in wrapping paper.  No pencil was forgotten and even her sweater and slippers were lovingly wrapped.

Jacob returned to find his desk enclosed in a box.  It took a lot of tape and cardboard boxes but we were able to make him a nice little cubicle.

It was great fun having everyone in the office in on the prank, giving helpful hints on better construction or wrapping. Nobody leaking it out to the interwebs before Susan and Jacob returned and both had great reactions.  Now Alexandra and Charlie need to watch out if they ever leave ON for too many days…

We have a quiet week happening here at Office Nomads with just the usual yoga and Happy Hour on which to keep tabs.  Hopefully we’ll see you this week!

In the past we have done our best to keep you all updated on the news from Office Nomads. You’ve heard about our neighborhood campaign to start another coworking space in Seattle, when we are lucky enough to score some great press, and when we make changes to our membership offerings.

Well, that’s fun and all, but it barely scratches the surface of the great stuff that happens within the walls of our Capitol Hill coworking space. So welcome to the first of (hopefully) many posts featuring projects and happenings from our members. They are a hard-working bunch, and are usually working on something awesome:

• New part-time member Ryan Luce launched a free, comprehensive website that helps folks with Type 2 diabetes find clinical trials that are right for them. The site helps those who are interested in clinical trials sort through the huge number of available trials with ease, and find trials that are close to home. The website is called Corengi, and it’s pretty awesome.
• Long-time member Ariel Stallings added a new website to her Offbeat Empire called Offbeat Home. It’s the newest gem in her crown of beautiful, fun, and useful websites for folks who are looking to navigate their lives a little differently than the norm. Check out the sweet yurt drawing on the home page – it’s my favorite!
• Matt Davis is a local salesman for Rulon, a Florida-based company that manufactures and installs stunning acoustical wooden ceilings and walls. This week Rulon began producing these beautiful ceilings for the Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital in Portland OR. In just 4 months, the project will be done, and will hopefully have earned either a LEED gold or platinum certification. Go Matt!

Rendering of a children's hospital in Portland OR

• In the realm of amazing things that don’t happen every day, member George Divoky recently heard from an actor who was playing a part inspired by his arctic bird research at the National Theatre in London. Yes, you read that right. George had no idea that his life’s work had inspired a playwright to base a couple of characters off of him in a play about climate change. But apparently, they did. So off to London George went to go watch himself (as portrayed by two different actors) on stage. You can read all about it (and I’d highly recommend it) at the Adventures in Climate Change blog.

Pretty neat, eh? Stay tuned for more updates from the goings-on here at Office Nomads!

Thursday is our Winter Open House!  We are really excited to showcase the work of Cleo Peterson this quarter.  At our Open House on Thursday we’ll have the usual snacks and drinks and Cleo will be here.  It’s bound to be a good time!

Also noteworthy is the Brown Bag tomorrow which will be lead by Lisa.  The topic is “Searching for Exoplanets”.  It’s going to be a blast so make sure you’re here Tuesday at 12:30. In addition, we’ll have the usual Happy Hour, yoga and good times.  Hopefully see you this week!