As a quick reminder, tonight is the Office Nomads Spring Open House and it’s gonna be a good one. Those of us in the space regularly have been loving Andrea Huysing’s photos that are on display. We’re also all excited to show off the brand new library conference room.

We’re cohosting tonight with BALLE Seattle, an excellent local business support organization, so in addition to the usual gathering of good people to celebrate new art and enjoy some yummy snacks and beer, there will be some lightly facilitated talks about local business issues for those that want to take part.

So come on by and say hi, check out the new art and find out a bit more about Office Nomads.

WHEN: 6:30 – 9pm (lightly programmed portion of the event to begin at 7pm)
WHERE: Office Nomads – 1617 Boylston Ave, Second Floor
WHY: Our spring open house & BALLE Seattle networking event!
FOOD/DRINK: Provided. Please don’t forget to bring your own cup!

Andrea Huysing's "xxx Rootbeer." Happily, I get to look at it all day long at Office Nomads right now.

Spring is in the air and it’s time for another open house at Office Nomads!

WHEN: Monday, April 27th, 6:30 – 9pm (lightly programmed portion of the event to begin at 7pm)
WHERE: Office Nomads – 1617 Boylston Ave, Second Floor
WHY: Our spring open house & BALLE Seattle networking event!
FOOD/DRINK: Provided.  Please don’t forget to bring your own cup!

There’s a ton of great stuff going on at the Spring Office Nomads Open House, we hardly know where to begin:

• We have room for new members and want people who have been curious about ON to see the changes in our space, including the new library! Since our Pink Slip Special is still going on, now’s a great time to check us out.
• It’s time for new art from photographer Andrea Huysing, who says she’s “been capturing shapes, pieces & parts and color for as long as I can remember” in “photography [that] is not specifically complex,” but she hopes, “create curiosity and emotion.”
• We’re co-hosting with BALLE Seattle, a networking group that aims to connect, educate and promote King County businesses supporting local living economies. They’re adding a new spice to our regular Open House format: the opportunity to take part in a few short breakout discussions about building the local economy from a business and consumer perspective. BALLE Seattle + Office Nomads =

For more detailed information, read on, or just come by on Monday, April 27th from 6:30 – 9 and remember to bring your own glass for beverages!

BALLE Seattle + ON =
We are incredibly excited to co-host this open house with BALLE Seattle, who is teaming up with us to run their quarterly networking event.  Never heard of BALLE Seattle?  Well, it’s about time you did – these guys are awesome.  BALLE Seattle is the local Seattle chapter of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.  BALLE Seattle’s mission is to connect, educate and promote King County businesses supporting local living economies.  Pretty great, right?  They achieve their mission by hosting educational events, connecting local businesses to support one another, and promoting local businesses through their network.  They are an incredible partner of ours, and will create an incredibly dynamic addition to our classic open house model.

Along with plenty of networking, there will be a chance to delve into the challenges of building the local economy from both the business and consumer perspectives during short breakout discussions.  These are a new addition to our open house model, and should provide for some great, relevant conversations to independent business folk in the neighborhood. These conversations are meant to be casual, and are a great time to connect with others on the topics that impact you the most.

Spring featured artist: Andrea Huysing
We are excited to open our doors to show off the space and the new artwork by Andrea Huysing! A little bit about Andrea:

I’ve been capturing shapes, pieces & parts and color for as long as I can remember.  My friends and family know me as the shutterbug, always with camera in hand, finding beauty in the simplest things.  I find so much happiness in charming and bold moments of everyday life.

My photography is not specifically complex, however if it can create curiosity and emotion, I have succeeded in relating to each person.

I hope you find even one photo that seizes your attention, creating feeling and thought that you enjoy experiencing, sharing and revisiting.

To view the rest of my work, please visit http://www.andreadesigns.com.

Support ON!
Please come and join us, and bring a friend or two!  We have room for more members at the office and are excited to have interesting, fun indie workers join the office community.

Additionally, we are still running our Pink Slip Special for anyone who has recently been laid off.  So if you’ve just gotten your pink slip handed to you, come on over to the office for a free month of coworking with us!  We like to think of it as our own little economic stimulus package.

Hope to see you on Monday the 27th!

Jacob and I just returned from my first-ever and Jacob’s second South By Southwest Interactive (SXSWi).  Most people know about SXSW’s amazing music portion, its independent film festival, and all of the parties associated with both.  Admittedly, those were the only pieces of the festival that I’d ever known about.  Well, let me tell you, if you think the music and film portion is fun, you’d agree with me: the interactive is AWESOME.  Not only did we get to see some amazing speakers, but we got to soak up the energy of Austin while we were there – it was teeming with ideas, music, films, and of course, excellent social events to connect us all.

We went to several panels over the 3 days we were there, all of which were informative, exciting, and thought-provoking.  Topics ranged from “Tips for Making Ideas Happen” to “Open Source Disability Tech” to Keynotes from the likes of Nate Silver, James Powderly, Chris Anderson and Guy Kawasaki.

Most exciting for me was participating on a panel titled “Regional Whuffie Building: Attracting Innovation to your City.”  I got to sit alongside four of my excellent coworking colleagues to discuss how coworking spaces around the country are helping to attract innovations and innovators in their cities.  The panel was organized and moderated by Tony Bacigalupo of New Work City in NYC, and also included Matthew Wettergreen of Caroline Collective, Geoff DiMasi of Independents Hall in Philadephia, and Julie Duryea of souk in Portland.  The five of us were able to quickly connect the ideas of Whuffie, coworking, and innovation, then move along to some examples of how we are working toward building centers of innovation (aka coworking spaces and the projects that are launched from them) in our own cities. (If you’re interested in what Whuffie is, please check out the variety of info Tara Hunt has put out on the subject – her slideshow from SXSW lives here.).

Discussing coworking at BarCamp Austin, happening in conjunction with SXSWi.

If there is one thing I can draw out from participating on this panel, it is that coworking spaces and the people who use them are officially on to something.  Work as we know it and as we have been doing it for years (centuries really) is changing for the good, and coworking spaces are a wonderful example of that.  There is so much beauty in idea of coworking:

• Individual workers get to work along side other smart, motivated folks and therefore be more productive.
• Ideas are generated faster and more wholly than when individuals sit in their private offices or homes.  Interesting things happen more often and faster when you put interesting people together. It’s the concept Tara Hunt and Chris Messina at Citizen Space coined “accelerated serendipity.” It might sound woo-woo, but if you’ve ever seen it happen, it’s incredible.
• The noticeable effect that by working next to folks who you don’t work with or for can actually make your work better.
• The local-nature of each space and how they reflect the cities they are in, the neighborhoods they are in, and the individuals who work in them.  Add to that the benefit (in most spaces) of being able to walk, bike, or bus to work – it really beats having to drive through horrifyingly bad traffic every day.

Whatever your reason for coming to a coworking space (or for even thinking to join one), let me tell you this right now: You’re a part of something big.  It is clear that all around us the nature of business is changing.  And alongside that change we as communities (of workers, of neighbors, or of businesses) need to change and adapt the way we work together to be more successful.  Coworking is just one example of how the shape of work is shifting, and shifting for the better.

So rock on, fellow coworkers, and I look forward to seeing more of you in Austin next year.

Austin, here we come!

You all know we love a good field trip here at Office Nomads.  Well, this time Jacob and I are hopping a plane and heading to Austin for the field trip of all field trips – South By Southwest Interactive in Austin!  And what’s more? Tony Bacigalupo (New Work City), Geoff DiMasi (P’unk Ave, Independents Hall), Julie Duryea (Souk Portland), Matthew Wettergreen (Caroline Collective), and I are on a panel called Regional Whuffie Building: Attracting Innovation to Your City. It should be pretty awesome! If you’re going to SXSWi, please come and join us at the panel.

Um, what the heck is Whuffie, you ask? Well, let me quote by Tara Hunt, maven of Whuffiedom.  Whuffie is:

1. A word coined by Cory Doctorow in his book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom as the currency of the future.
2. Roughly equivalent to social capital
3. Is the culmination of reputation, influence, bridging and bonding capital, access to ideas and talent, access to resources, potential access to further resources, saved up favors, accomplishments and the Whuffie of those you have relationships with.

As a panel, we are tasked with discussing how to inspire a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as what it takes to run successful startup or a successful technology career no matter where you’re from. We’ll be discussing why regional Whuffie building can help your region, and giving some some success stories resulting from what each of us has been up to in our own cities.

I am incredibly excited to represent Office Nomads as a Seattle coworking space on this panel, and am even more jazzed to be sitting amongst the coworkng rockstars who will be at my side. Speaking of some of them, I’m going to steal a little thought that my co-panelist Matthew Wettergreen sent out to the coworking group earlier this morning…

Since coworking plays such a large role in rallying the troops of any region, we’d like input from all of you about Regional Whuffie Building. If you’re able, could you answer some questions?

1. What are some of your success stories of regional whuffie building or inspiring a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship?
2. How have you embraced the mix of face-to-face interaction and technology?
3. What are some individual strategies towards this end goal that you have attempted?

Shout out, and let us know what you’re thinking…

Like most of the rest of the nation yesterday, the Office Nomads community celebrated the inauguration of President Barack Obama. (I still like writing that.) As we did on election night, we invited our extended communities to share this historic moment together. After all, as Jacob said through tears the night Obama won, the kind of change President Obama is leading us toward is the kind that starts with small groups of people, “and that’s exactly what we have here: a community.”

When I walked in, shortly before 9 am our time, there was a crowd of about 30 people gathered in the cafe space in the back of the office watching the proceedings and celebrating with mimosas, donuts and various breakfast noshes. I hurried out of my bike clothes, not wanting to miss the moment and made it out in time to sit at the front of the group to watch the swearing in followed by his speech. Looking out over the relatively small group around me, I was struck by how tightly knit it was. On one couch was Gabriel cuddled with his wife Jill. On the L-shaped leather couch, a crowd of Nomads sat near each other, sharing the moment. On the floor at the foot of the TV was Piper who has done some design work with Jacob and Susan–and her four-year old daughter, sharing an occasion that will likely change the world her daughter will grow up in.

It was the warmest moment I’d had in a long time.

For much of the rest of the day, there was a sense of excitement and optimism in the office. A group of people I don’t know camped out on the floor of the kitchen and held an impromptu meeting. I’m not sure what it was about, but it sounded like a new venture with some social change aspect to it. Throughout the day, various Nomads plopped down in front of the TV to watch the parade or the news and chat about it all. Connections were formed and strengthened as the festivities in Washington. D.C carried on and I think President Obama would have been pleased to see it all. Those of us in the coworking movement, those of us who are independent workers and entreprenuers, we are a huige part of the change that America is going to go through, and I think President Obama recognizes that. It was a thrill to celebrate for him, and with him, yesterday with such a strong and positive community.

What a crowd we had!

Our fifth open house was a wonderful success!  As we mentioned before, this was a highly co-sponsored event with several groups involved:

• It was the Capitol Hill Greendrinks event, bringing together the Capitol Hill environmental community
• Sustainable Capitol Hill was also a co-host, raising funds and getting more folks in the know about their presence on Capitol Hill
• Expeditionary Art showed us that watercolors are not for wimps – Maria’s art created a big buzz around the event and drew lots of well-deserved attention
• Out for Sustainability stepped onto the scene as a new organization at this event.  This awesome crew is committed to connecting LGBT individuals who are committed to sustainability.
• Other fantastic sponsors included Sierra Nevada, Snoqualmie Wines, Pizza Fusion, and Madison Market.  We were so thankful for this excellent team who kept us well hydrated and well fed!

There were a thousand reasons why this event rocked, but one important lesson we were reminded of was how great it is for us to co-host our open houses.  In October we did our first co-sponsored open house and took it to a whole new level in January.  Co-sponsoring events with our open houses create a win for everyone involved – we get to mix communities of folks who may not have met up otherwise and to forge new partnerships in our neighborhood.  We are humbled by the organizations we’ve teamed with so far, and look forward to seeing what will happen at our next open house.  Any suggestions?  Let us know – our next open house will be in April!

Thanks to Maria at Expedtionary art for the image. More of her paintings will be on display at Office Nomads starting Jan. 13.

It’s time for an Open House at Office Nomads again. As with our past events, it’ll be an art opening with some yummy food and drink. Starting next Tuesday, January 13, from 5:30 pm to 8 pm, exquisitely thoughtful watercolors by Seattle artist Maria Coryell-Martin will be on display for the next few months. Her work is really something else. She’s traveled the world (all seven continents) and brought back many visions of landscapes. This show will be focused largely on winter scenes and include, I hope since I’ve been there too, scenes from her travels to Antarctica.

But because we like to keep things interesting here at ON, this Open House is something else altogether. For the first time, we’re partnering with Seattle Greendrinks to host the Capitol Hill Greendrinks. For those not in the know, Seattle Greendrinks is a monthly gathering of sustainability professionals. Normally, it is a city-wide event full of a couple of hundred folks all chatting, drinking and eating and raising money for a different nonprofit. But once every few months, they break the event out into smaller based in neighborhoods around the city and raise money for themselves.

We’ve been feverishly planning this event and it promises to be a great one. We’ll have donated beer from Sierra Nevada and Snoqualmie wine as well as pizza from Pizza Fusion and some other snacks. There’s also going to be some crafty opportunities thanks to Sustainable Capitol Hill and, of course, opportunities to help support Seattle Greendrinks by buying a commemartive Seattle Greendrinks pint glass. (They’re super cool and work well for beer!) Best part, if this neighborhood raises the most money, the next time Seattle Greendrinks breaks out into neighborhoods, it gets the free beer again!

So come on down, check out some amazing art, celebrate the start of 2009 with Office Nomads, have a drink, eat some food and get to know the movers and shakers in Capitol Hill’s sustainability scene.

  

Greenwood Collective

It was an amazing weekend despite the crazy weather.  On Friday, Caroline and I went to the Greenwood Art Walk starting at The Greenwood Collective.  GC is a beautiful space and we were both very impressed.  I got to talk with Brett Schwagger, about the new expansion into the basement and how the year has been going (they opened the same time we did).    I am very excited by what they have going on over there and I will be keeping a keen eye on their event calendar.  

Saturday Arcania Wellness treated the nomads to a spa day complete with massage, facials, ionic foot baths, and energy work.  The space is so peaceful and the practitioners were so pleasant.  They fed us and took care of us all day.  I would like to extend a special thank you to Jacob Caldwell who runs the space.  It was wonderful way to spend a Saturday and I’m grateful we were invited.

They will control the world, or have a few drinks together.

Last night there was a meeting of Seattle’s coworking illuminati, according to my sources. Okay, actually, Jacob and Susan told me that last night the owners of all five of Seattle’s coworking spaces went out for drinks together, but I thought the first lede was way more exciting to write.

Anyway, Jacob and Susan, co-owners of Office Nomads, knocked back a few stiff ones with Brian from Giraffe Labs, Brett from Greenwood Collective, Mike and Zachary from StartPad (where we’ve been before), and Nick from Seattle’s newest entry into coworking, Whitespace. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there so I can’t give you the uber-secret scoop on the sit-down. But I can tell you that the group had a good time and began to hatch some plans to help spread the gospel here in town.

Central to this plan, Jacob tells me, is to put together a group Web site that will act as a central resource for all those nomadic, upstart, collected, spacy or long-necked(?!) potential coworkers in the Emerald City. He’s not sure what will be on it yet, so neither am I, but you can rest assured, when I know, you’ll know.

In the meantime, with the Seattle coworking scene hopping this much, I feel like I am completely out of touch and here I am working in the center of it. Over the next few weeks I hope to make a visit myself to the other spaces I haven’t seen yet, and maybe even a repeat visit to StartPad just to say hi. I’ll make sure you know it’s going on so you can follow my coworking travels!

A side note: I’ve been on vacation which is why I haven’t written lately. But there’s a ton going on in the world of coworking right now so I have a ton of posts saved up that I want to write. More to come soon.

Words are mostly failing me today. What else is there to say about last night’s amazing, historic and wonderful result? Just say it: President-elect Barack Obama. Wow.

I guess the only thing I can really tell you is that it was an honor and a privelage to witness and celebrate history in the making with a group of 30 or so wonderful members of the Office Nomads community here in our space. Although I didn’t know everyone personally, the love and cooperation and willingness to work for change that was brought to the space last night was palpable and there is nowhere on Earth I would have rather been.

For me, the night was summed up perfectly by Jacob who told me, teary eyed, that it all made him so happy because it is a kind of change that starts with small groups of people, “and that’s exactly what we have here: a community.” It was beautiful, heartfelt and succinct. We in the world of coworking helped start this change and thankfully we will have each other to lean on to help us see it all the way through.

Now, enough waxing poetic. Here are the pics from a truly awesome party!