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/

Thanks to all who were able to make it out to the first meetup about the opening of our second coworking space. It was great to see some new faces along with some current members, and to get to hear more about what folks are looking for when it comes to building our next coworking community.

Hosting meetups such as we did last night is an important step in the early days of any coworking space. Not only is it important for us to provide a space for members of the community to give recommendations and pose requests for how the space will work, but  there is huge value in creating a way for members to actually get involved in the process. As we’ve said before, people support what they help to create. We hope that folks who are interested in this earlier phase will join us to go visit spaces, continue to brainstorm with us as we develop the plans for the space, and get to know other members before we open the doors to the next space.

If you missed the event, never fear – the next one will be soon! And as always, if you have any suggestions, feedback, or recommendations to make, drop us an e-mail at grow AT officenomads DOT com so we can get you in the conversation.

Happy new year everyone! We are hitting the ground running in 2011 and are excited for the next steps towards opening another coworking space in Seattle.

We wanted to write with an update on the Neighborhood Campaign we launched in November. After hearing from approximately 120 potential members (whoa!), we can now confidently say that we are now focusing our efforts north of the shipping canal. The majority of our responses were for Ballard, Fremont, and Greenlake. We’re thrilled!

So what’s next? Well, we’d love to meet those of you who are really interested in our next space! We’d like to invite you to join us for a casual coworking meet up on Thursday, January 27th from 5-7pm at The Red Door in Fremont. We will give an update on our progress, and will talk about the future space and how it might work. Please RSVP by either adding yourself to the Facebook event or by e-mailing grow AT officenomads DOT com.

Hope to see you there!

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!

This time three years ago, Jacob and I were nervously working through the process of negotiating a great lease for our space here on Boylston Ave.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. All we had was a great idea, some fantastic friends to help us realize it, and finally, 5000 square feet to try and make it happen.

Three years later, we couldn’t be more excited about all that has happened at Office Nomads. Since that first day, more than 500 people have come through our doors – some staying for just a day, while others have been here nearly every day since we opened. We’ve seen new businesses hatched, clients wooed, friendships forged, and yoga habits begun. It has been an incredible journey thus far, and we are encouraged and bolstered by the energy and excitement that comes from our space each day. It is a dream come true.

With our sincerest gratitude to our members and friends, let us thank you (with beer and cake)!

Please join us at the office on Thursday, October 14th from 6-9pm for our next open house and anniversary party! It’ll be a special night and we’ll have some special announcements to make. Please RSVP here on Facebook. And feel free to invite a friend or two!

The summer open house is going to ROCK! Please join us this Thursday, July 8th from 6-9pm for an evening of photography, info on sharing resources in Capitol Hill, and all the usual shenanigans you find during our quarterly celebrations. RSVP here and let us know you’re coming! Here are all the details on the fun:

• New art! We are incredibly pleased to welcome Youth In Focus to the office walls for the next several months. Youth In Focus is a fantastic Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering urban teens, through photography, to experience their world in new ways and make positive changes in their lives.  As part of the Blitz! Capitol Hill Art Walk, we’re incredibly excited to host this new round of art!  You can read more about the featured show by clicking over to our Featured Artist page.
• Zipcar in the House! We’re not the only ones in town who think that sharing resources (like offices) is a great idea. We’ve teamed up with Zipcar to offer great discounts to our members, and hope to step forward even more to inspire our Capitol Hill neighbors to share with one another. Sharing resources like cars and offices means that we can each make less of an impact on the planet as an individual. Come and chat with the good folks at Zipcar at our event to learn more about what they’re doing in Seattle and in other great cities across the country!
• Coworking Seattle Meetup! If you’re interested in joining in for a great pre-event, please join us for the Coworking Seattle July meetup. Our group will be talking about great opportunities to share marketing costs, and how our little organization can help to promote coworking throughout our great city. You can RSVP via the Facebook Event if you’re up for joining us!

That’s about it!  If you’d like to join us, you can RSVP to let us know you’re coming (and help us determine how big the keg will be!).  All are most welcome, so bring a few friends along and make us a part of your summer Thursday night.

**Important PS: We’ve got A/C, so if you’re out there sweltering in the new-found Seattle heat, come on in for some relief and a cool refreshing drink.

Wow! The January Open House was a great time!  Thanks to everyone who stopped by.  It was great to see everyone and catch up.

For those of you who missed out, I understand the weather was rather terrible that evening.  But, you missed out on some pretty spectacular fun.  Josh, from Bluebird Ice Cream, scooped out some incredible ice cream for everyone to try.  He very quickly ran out of the vegan coconut mint chocolate chip and there was a good reason why.  I had no idea vegan ice cream could be so fantastic!  The Stumptown ice cream and the snickerdoodle were also really delicious and it was all finished off by the time the night came to a close.    Mychal Richardson’s photography was a great conversation piece and had many people quietly going from one photo to the next reading about how each individual pictured fought for their rights.  I think we all came away inspired.  See more of his work on his website or stop by and check them out!

A big thanks must also go to Andy Aupperlee of Explosion 5000.  He took over the Green Room and shot portraits of our Open House attendees and their New Years Resolutions.  The results are rather amazing and you should make sure to read about it on his website and look at his Flickr page.

A big thanks to all of you who could come out.  Hopefully see you all at our next Open House!

Thanks to Flickr user Sukanto Debnath for use of the above photo through the Creative Commons License

It’s January so that means it’s time for our January Open House!  Fitting, right?  Well, we are really excited for this month’s open house on January 14th from 6 PM to 9 PM when we’ll open our doors to the wholecommunity to celebrate art, coworking and each other.

What: January Open House

When: Thursday, January 14th from 6 PM-9 PM

Where: Office Nomads- 1617 Boylston Ave, Second Floor

Food and Drink: We’ve got the goods, just bring your pint glass!

We are proud to be part of Capitol Hill Art Walk again this month and are featuring the beautiful photography of Mychal Richardson of Lost Photography.  His show, “Faces of Washington” was created for the ACLU and includes seventeen 36″ by 36″ black and white portraits of courageous individuals from all across Washington State who fought for their rights and the rights of others.  It is an inspiring show and one not to be missed.

Something we are very excited about is the opportunity to be part of the art!  Andy Aupperlee of Explosion 5000 will be here taking photos of you and your New Years Resolutions.  Andy is really excited to have some fun with these photography so bring a big smile and your creativity to be expressed in the photobooth.  At the same time, we have partnered with a couple local businesses in an effort to tempt you away from some of those New Years Resolutions. Ice cream from Bluebird Ice Cream and beer from Elysian Brewing always are incredibly delicious and will both be here.  Make sure your bring a sweet tooth and your pint glass!

The only thing that could make the Open House any greater would be you!  We hope you can join us and bring along your great friends and family.  What better way to celebrate winter, photography and the neighborhood than with our community?  We look forward to seeing you!