Pardon me while I toot the Office Nomads horn a lot but I have to because an excellent example of how great our community is has popped up in our bathroom this week, and I have to share it.

One of the Office Nomads’ bathroom doors has become a vehicle for the expression of a lot of smart, witty, fun people (not at the same time, thankfully) which directly correlates to how smart and fun the ON community as a whole is.

Check out the recent conglomeration of words on the door (painted with chalkboard paint) that started as a real-world version of a standard Internet meme and quickly morphed into something, well, much more unique.

We got from Blank to Acropolis in just a few short days.

Jacob first told me about Giraffe Labs back in early 2008 or maybe even late 2007 when it was just called Saturday House and we were looking around for communities we had a natural kinship with. Although I never personally met the people who were a part of Giraffe Labs/Saturday House, I loved their story and model and know that Jacob was very much a fan of them. So it was with great sadness that we read late yesterday that Giraffe Labs’ founders decided to close up shop and move on to other things.

According to TechFlash:

A dwindling membership base — not to mention a lack of windows and an expiring lease – sealed the fate of Giraffe Labs.

Apparently the founders had other things going on that demanded their attention more than building membership numbers and in this economy, realized that was not a sustainable model.

We congratulate Brian Dorsey and Anders Conbere (the founders) on their run as GL and wish them both all the luck in the world on future endeavors. We also hope the Giraffes who worked at GL land safely and happily in a new community. With a wealth of great coworking spaces in Seattle, we’re sure you will. To help, we’re extending the Office Nomads Pink Slip Special to any of them that want to come and try us ouf, since losing one’s workspace is akin to being laid off. We also know that StartPad is doing the same thing.

Good luck and Good bye Giraffe Labs!

I’ve probably said this here before, but when it rains, it pours coworking and Office Nomads coverage. This week already there are three articles on coworking in the blogosphere, and it’s only Tuesday!

First up is a fabulous overview of coworking and why businesses should try it over at TriangleB2B.com. It’s a long-ish piece that explores the origins, reasons and mechanics of coworking (though it does use the hyphen). It’s by far the best piece on coworking that I’ve seen yet and well worth the read if you’re new to the concept or if you’re well versed in coworking but still sometimes getting the “blank stare”  when you explain it. This piece will give you plenty of good, clear language that helps entreprenuers see the value in coworking.

The venerable Web Worker Daily posted another piece on coworking, this time focusing on the history of their coworking coverage. It’s a handy guide to stories describing coworking in general, covering unique business models in coworking and even one on some exotic coworking locales. Read up and join the ongoing discussion there. It’s lively and informative.

Finally, slightly West of us, Jennifer Hargrove at The Kitsap Sun (yes, an actual print newspaper) caught wind of the coworking movement. They published a short piece about coworking and used Office Nomads as the example. Thanks for the kind words and the shout out about the Pink Slip Special!

The image is appropriately titled “The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain” We used it under the Creative Commons license thanks to flickr user Krikit.

Have an iPhone? Looking for a way to keep Office Nomads (or at least a water cooler) with you at all times? Thanks to our very own Ryan Salva, principal of Capitol Media and stalwart Office Nomads member, now you can. Out of the blue, he created the following excellent wallpaper for you iPhone. Download and bask in its gloriousness!

The other night, I was walking back to my desk here at Office Nomads. It was a bit after 6 pm–later than I usually work–and the office was mostly empty except for a one or two other people. As I passed through the main room I glanced over at three pods of desks that fill the area there and was struck by how lived in they all looked. Office Nomads, I realized, has become a home office of a different breed.

The first time I came in here, way back in November 2007, it was just a day or two after Jacob and Susan opened the space for the first time. The space then was huge and empty. Clumps of desks were gathered around the few electric outlets and network drops while the front desk was just another able in a tangle of wires. There were no couches.

See. No couches

The other night though, as I walked through it, the space looked and felt lived in, and I mean that in the best of ways. Those of us who spend our days here have made it our own. Desks, which now share the space with couches, tables and shelving, are filled with decorations and work tools. People have their own favorite desk chairs and for some reason, one chair is adorned with a sideways smiley face. In short, we’ve all become so comfortable here and with each other that an office–something that is generally thought of as a sterile environment–has become a home for us all in a relatively short amount of time.

Interestingly, I think this means that the physical manifestation of the coworker’s desire not to work from home is fast becoming a new breed of home office.

No magnets needed

What the heck is that? Good question. It is a CoCollage screen and it is the newest addition to the Office Nomads space. A CoCollage is a basically a virtual refrigerator door. A local company puts a large flat-panel screen in community gathering spots such as ours visitors (or residents) a place to post, well virtual detritus of the sort that, if it were real, you’d stick on a refrgerator door with a magnet. According to the company, they want to help people mix their virtual and “real” worlds. They were pretty excited to hang it here since all their other installations are in coffee shops. This is the first one with a stable, recurring user base.

To be honest, it’s kind of strange right now, but I think that’s because it’s so new and we’re all not really sure what to put up there. During the testing/seeding phase, Jacob put a bunch of pictures up there from his house remodel and Susan added shots of our last Open House. Ol’ #2 (Tim) loves to send cranky quotes to the screen and Suzi is putting up some of the more interesting science pictures she has in her store. Tim also likes to mess with people who walk by his desk on the way to the kitchen where the screen is. The other day I passed him only to be ordered back to work by the screen. Creepy.

Anyway, we’re definitely guinea pigs for this new company so the sky’s the limit with what can be put up there and how we use it. All CoCollage wants back is our feedback and you can be a part of it by checking out and adding to the stream from the office or online. So if you’re in the neighborhood and looking for some place to display your latest macaroni art or witty thought, stop by and log on! Actually, you don’t even have to be here to add our ongoing mash-up. Just create an account and start uploading (though, your stuff shows up faster and more often if you’re actually in the space).

With so many coworking spaces out there now–not to mention all the coworkers–it’s hard enough to keep up with the big picture of coworking these days, let alone the day-to-day activities of your favorite coworking space. Enter Twitter. The other day on the Google group, someone asked which spaces and workers twitter. Lo and behold, a lot of us do (including Office Nomads).

So if you’re interested in following the day-to-day goings-on of coworking the world over, head over to the coworking wiki twitter page, and follow away. While your at it, send us a tweet or two.

While the rest of the world quivers in fear of our shared economic doom, a stalwart group of entreprenurs the world over is quivering a bit less. Coworkers are less fearful of the recession because recessions can be powerful incubators for innovativon. As more and more people lose their jobs, more finally try out the unique ideas they’ve been baking in their heads for years. In this scenario, not only does innovation (and innovators) thrive, but so do coworking spaces. It’s a concept I’ve written about before here (thanks to a post I read on the Launchpad Cowworking blog). Now that idea is starting to gain currency in the mainstream media too.

Yesterday, Reuters ran a piece called “Co-working [sic] has a wider appeal in recession.” The thesis is that people are flocking to coworking spaces (note the lack of a hyphen in “coworking” Reuters!) as they lose their jobs in search of community.

But the recession has made the idea of working amongst strangers appealing to a broader range of people, from those that recently lost their jobs to consultants eager to stay in the loop.

Sound familiar? Anyway, it’s a good piece and worth a read in these bleak economic times. If nothing else, it’ll help ease the mind of anyone who might be thinking of launching their own space in these strange times.

Oh, and it mentions our Pink Slip Special at the very end, so there’s that too!

I couldn’t help re-use this image I originally found when searching Flickr for “Looking Up.” Orange kitties just rock. Thanks to Flickr user ex.libris for putting it there under the Creative Commons license.

Seems like interest in a our very own Capitol Hill Stimulus package is high. Before I could even get a post up on the blog about our just-launched Pink Slip Special, it got picked up by both Seattlest and Slog.

Yeah, it’s pretty great, and the iffiest aspect in the abstract–the “community”–is the most impressive part in reality. All my fears about “Community!” were patiently dispelled by a roomful of individuals with shit to do, who nevertheless come together momentarily throughout the day to make small talk or big talk or laugh at videos of cats running into sliding glass doors. From what I can tell, the natural ebb and flow of the socializing is just about perfect. (Meaning, not once did I ever have to remind someone I was there to work, not communitize.)

With coverage like that, who needs a press release?

What’s the Pink Slip Special you ask?

For a limited time, first-time visitors to Office Nomads who show proof they were laid off can get a free one month daily-drop-in membership – a $375 value! You’ll get a desk and free high-speed Internet access, and be a part of a strong, fun office community again. And even if you’re not ready to commit to a month, your first day is always free. So come down, meet the other Nomads, and get started on your next big thing.

In short, we all thought that this recession is a bummer of an event to be living through and being laid off is one of the worst things that can happen to a person so we wanted to do something to help folks not feel so adrift. We’re all here for the community that we missed when we willingly left our jobs with offices, so it just seems that the loss of that community would be felt even more by those forced to leave it.

So if you or someone you know is feeling adrift during the “normal” workday and is sick of sitting in coffee shops while looking for jobs, c’mon on down and bring your pink slip. We’ve got a place for you!

The image is called Goodbye Party Work and is by Flickr user snofla who gave it a Creative Commons license. Check out the pink slip in the hand of the guy on the left. This recession sucks!

When I tell people I’m a journalist for a magazine with offices in Portland and San Francisco leaving just me in Seattle, the assumption is that I work at home. I then explain Office Nomads and coworking. More and more,  people realize they’ve heard of us or at least the concept of coworking. Rarely, I think, do they really get what coworking is. If you’re involved in coworking at all, you know how badly I want the questioners to understand that coworking is more than shared office space. That it’s community, incubation, colloboration, happy hours and zombie plans (more on that later).

Patrick from The Movement in Toronto has put together a podcast that is his attempt to explain coworking to the world. Actually, through a podcast he runs called Prototype, he’s letting some of the players in the movement explain it themselves. I just listened to the first two episodes and absolutely adored it. The show is a collection of voices from across the globe (literally) explaining the different feelings, set-ups, members, designs, business plans and other features of their coworking spaces. The result is an amazing cornucopia of the coworking possibilities that are out there. As different as each space and person sounds, they also all sound alike. As Patrick says on the Prototype blog:

In speaking with a friend about the podcast, I explained the amazing lesson was that all of these people sound like they’re describing the same place. In his subtle and knowing way, he responded: What I hear is that they are the same people.

Each episode is just a collection of the voices from different spaces explaining their space seemingly without prompting. That tight juxtaposition is what makes the differences and similarities so apparent. Butted up against each other, you hear statements such as:

“It’s shared office space.”

“We have a hot-desking policy…there’s no set desks.”

“It’s like a mobile phone tariff across the month.”

“You can be a tenant here if you can tell me why you’re a social innovator.”

or

“The space is a great loft.”

“We built a board room/library/kitchen that people can get some privacy in.”

“When we moved in, it was a bad looking, 80′s sort of of office.”

“The front door and the back door are both steel doors and they are zombie safe. They’re rated up to 50 zombies. We also have a zombie attack plan.”

“We’ve got  nice open plan kitchen and just behind that we have got a library area. It’s sort of cushions. People sleep in there, meditate in there.

It’s all so different, so unique. We are, after all, hearing from Colab, Office Nomads, Citizen Space, Station-C, Workspace, The Hub, and The Center of Social Innovation. And yet, they’re all similar in a way because wherever you go, coworking is obviously needed in a variety of different formats. I’m looking forward to learning more about the other spaces around the world, and to using this podcast to help explain the varieties of coworking  when I’m asked about it again in the future.