Photo credit: Trina Gadsden 2012

Photo credit: Trina Gadsden 2012

And so, we introduce you to a new blog series: Nomads Favorite Things! We’ll regularly update simply a photo, captioned with what the favorite thing was all about. We hope you dig ‘em. And we hope that it inspires you to write to us and tell us your favorite thing about Office Nomads. We’d love to hear from you!

So without further ado, our first Favorite Thing:

“I have a place outside of my home where I can work in comfort but without the distractions and politics which come with an office full of coworkers.” – Trevor

Photo Credit: Trina Gadsden 2012

After our discussion, we made up a quick chart of the threads of our coworking culture:

Do you run a coworking space? Are you a part of a coworking space? What do you think contributes to the culture of your space? Share your thoughts here!

• 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.

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 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…

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.