Cubicles, be gone!
What you won’t find at co-working spaces!
Today our Third Place Meetup group had their first co-working event.
Well, it was our first experience of HOW co-working works and we had the privilege to experience it at Inspire9 in Richmond, just outside of Melbourne.
Katrina, our Community Space Captain was there to welcome us when the elevator took us to the first floor of this renovated warehouse, sign us into the Inspire9 online community and then show us around the space.
Inspire9 is a community that supports startups and freelancers in the growth of their business and its value comes from creating a community where people share ideas and responsibilities. While there, I spied a whiteboard with various events occurring in the week that included tax advice, mindfulness activities and also a bike maintenance service for its members.
To me it felt like a “workplace away from home in a home within a workplace“.
Six members of our meetup gathered and we were given a short tour of the various work spaces which cater for ‘drop ins’ or ‘residents’. The residents are all paid up subscription members who have access to the space and meeting rooms. Drop ins can come in once every two weeks for free and use the space to work and learn. There are various knowledge sharing events where members can talk about their businesses and pitches so they get to know what each other is doing.
Once you sign in, you have access to ‘Tribes” their online member community where you can find out more on what people are working on and connect with them.
Third Placers pose for a photo…as you do. Certainly the trestle table was different to that cubicle.
We sat at the main table and introduced ourselves to each other and commented about what we thought about the space and how we can use it in our own respective line of work. Although we didn’t do any of our own actual work per se, to many of the people there today, the concept of co-working spaces were new and many had come along to learn more about them.
The overall impression was that the space provided an informal area where peers could learn, work and collaborate – and yes even play (there was a billiard table, ping pong table and Play Station plus a well-stocked kitchen).
The lines between work, play and learning are easily blurred here.
We all agreed that we could easily work together in this space and was totally different to many of our workplaces. The other thoughts we had was about having this “third place” to bring along and meet clients because there were meeting rooms that could be hired out or booked.
Tanya Lau in the middle of an explanation.
When I looked at my watch I couldn’t believe that we had been there for 3 hours already and it was lunchtime! Our animated discussions of all things training, learning and performance – talking about our work and our projects – and showing each other various websites and online places that we learn from meant that time zipped by.
We wandered over to a nearby coffee shop and had lunch finally ending the day at about 1:30 pm.
So for our first “experience of co-working“, it was an eye opener as we saw how our work and our lives melded seamlessly and through this we were networking and learning from each other. We shared ideas of how we can use this space and concept back in our own organisation – or in new roles – as well as talk about what this new way of work means to challenge and work with other’s reactions, fears and anxieties as we agreed that there was impact on what it means for us individually, for our teams and organisations.
The new networked way of work and learning will challenge many people and organisations.
The paradox was not lost on us.
On the plus side, there are no cubicles in this world.
Photo Credit:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubicle
- Carousel (Home Page) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Photograph_of_the_Division_of_Classification_and_Cataloging,_1937.tif
Good on you for organising that, Helen. Always the pioneer!
It sounds like Inspire9 are bringing co-working to life the right way. Any companies that are considering a transition to this type of working would do well do experience it with them first.
Thanks for the reply Ryan. It was a great space. Going to try me some more!
Ohh so I wish they had Inspire9 here in California! What a lovely place to work, share and be inspired! Thanks for sharing Helen!
Thanks for the reply Debbie, I’m sure they would do. Looks like there’s one in San Diego? http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/top-coworking-spaces-usa/
Ohh That is great! Thanks Helen. I will check it out, even though it’s a bit far, I will drop in for a tour and see if there might be an option for getting one going out here closer to where I live which is nearer to Los Angeles. Thanks to much Helen for finding this for me! 🙂
I work in a corporate and can see benefit in co-working with peers from other corporates periodically to discuss challenges and opportunities – draw on each other’s experience and maybe collaborate on some projects. I wonder if there is interest on thi – shall raise at Sydney 3PL Meetup mid May. Thanks for inspiration Helen
Thanks Michelle, good luck with this. Tanya had come to our first co-working event in Richmond and will be looking into it as well. Our first event was at Inspire9 and I’m sure there are various co-working hubs in your city. Really, sometimes even a good cafe, a public library or some space like a gallery or other venue sometimes just also works. The trick is to get people working, sharing and learning from each other in an informal space which equalises the relationships and opens the talk for ideas and possibilities – outside of a formal classroom!
Yikes! I can’t believe I’m only reading and responding to this now! (A month after the event…!!). Thank you for posting on this, I loved seeing you and the Melbourne crew, and it was a great opportunity to see a coworking space which was a first for me too.
Great to have the opportunity to check it out – as, I hadn’t really been aware of the phenomenon prior.
Katrina was awesome – so so friendly, and loved the tour. What I was interested in finding out more about after checking out their webste was how inspire9 supports community building. Talking to Katrina as she took me around it was instantly clear that this claim of wasn’t just rhetoric or a marketing spiel on their website. I was impressed that she knew the names and areas of expertise of almost everyone working in the space. And now that I’m registered to their community and have seen some of the postings to the online Inspre9 community, there is clear evidence of a very supportive and close knit environment.
Michelle – yes, I was inspired to consider how it might work for Sydney third place. Think the challenge may be that we’re mostly employees rather than consultants or freelancers so it may be more difficult for us to get away during the day – coworking places tend to be open 9-5 ,primarily. Definitely worth having a chat about the logistics and what we want to get out of it. As Helen said, we could still share / show work in an alternative space (e.g. libraries etc…)
Thanks for the comment Tanya, yes, it’s really dependent on the background of the members of Third Place. Here in Melbourne, we have some freelancers but also people who have flexible work arrangements to be able to attend the events. I would just say gauge it because the whole idea of Third Place is to provide ‘a place’ – no matter where or how to get people talking, learning, sharing with each other.