Jacob Sayles

Member Since: Inception

Type of Member: Co-Owner

Website: http://www.officenomads.com

We’ve started seeing Jacob at Office Nomads a lot more.  In the past he had perfected the juggling act of a full time job elsewhere in the city and being a co-owner of Office Nomads.  It was all fairly impressive.  But January saw an end to the back and forth and he has taken up at Office Nomads full time.  “How cool is it that I can walk away from 15 years in software and have this community around me?  I didn’t even bat an eye about it,” he said.  When Office Nomads started in 2007, building a community he could count on was not the plan.  “[Starting Office Nomads] seemed like the right thing to do.  I just wanted to jump into a big project I believed in.”

Jacob is all about big projects, and that is one of the reasons we love having him around. Big ideas come to him and he strolls to the front and informs us he wants to build a Wall of Achievement, tear down the wall in the Green Room, install new lighting, make a Big Idea Board, or make a trebuchet out of office supplies.  His great energy inspires the rest of us and, just maybe, we’ll harness all of it and take down that big green wall.

Jacob is a bit of a Swiss Army Knife of talents.  No tech problem is too big for him.  Every construction or maintenance project is something he can easily tackle, as is evidence by his awesome house.  Apparently he has ‘mad yo-yo skills’ and holds Steve Brown up as his hero.   At the same time, he has mastered the title of Nomad.  Starting at the age of 17 with a trip to Japan, he has hopped around to all different parts of the world.  Most recently he found himself in Brazil for two weeks enjoy sun and paradise while the rest of us put on our rain jackets and galoshes to fight the Seattle rain.

Come on by the space and see if you can notice the positive changes that have occurred since Jacob came back full time.  If you can find them all, you get a free cup of coffee!  Wait, coffee is always free?  Eh…

I’ve been terribly remiss in posting this and for that, I’m sorry, but it’s worth the wait, I promise.

Awhile back, the Not An MBA blog started working on a book about coworking. The fodder for that book is a series on the blog called Your Story where they are collecting and posting the stories of many coworking pioneers (and coworkers). The first installment on the site was Susan’s story about the start of Office Nomads. It’s a really nice read because Susan’s writing sounds just like she is: authentic, excited and ready for the next thing that comes at her.

The second installment was Jacob’s story about the start of Office Nomads. Like Susan, his telling of the tale gives you a taste of what it’s like to know Jacob. He is excited, willing to try new things and also ready for the next thing to come at him.

Since I am posting about Not An MBA (a great site, by the way), they have a newer post up there right now about the impact of coworking spaces on the design of in-house offices. According to the original article on Business Week:

As part of the project, between 25% and 50% of Intel’s 1,150 lawyers, marketers, and engineers working in these buildings will give up their assigned cubes. Instead, they will store their personal belongings in lockers and grab desks, whiteboards, and overstuffed armchairs in more colorful, Starbucks-like common areas on a first-come-first-gets-the-space basis.

It’s really interesting to think that these disparate, independent coworking spaces are infiltrating the minds designing spaces for corporate behemoths. Who wants to bet it’s because those designers are probably contractors who work in coworking spaces?