Hot officing
Simon and Nat were in town this weekend and just before lunch, while spending time in the Pavilion Gardens the topic of coworking came up. This lead to ‘hot officing’, which is something I’ve talked about for a while and recently started planning for myself. I started thinking about this a while ago as I was getting frustrated with working from home (it’s great, but sometimes lonely) and Brighton being the media/web hub it is the concept just works.
- I don’t want to rent a desk (I’ll go there once a week)
- I don’t want to be tied to a single office (friends, love you all but change of scenery and distractions is healthy)
- I want the flexibility to work from home, from a coffee shop, or any spot with wifi
- I want to met new people and companies
My first ideas around the topic were not in an “office”, but around a “home office”, i.e. There’s room for 4 others to work at my place. The flexibility of working from home, but in a room of people working. One rule, the attendees chip-in and get the host(s) lunch as a mid-working-day thank you (or drinks in the evening etc). A wiki could handle this well.
The same wiki could handle this for offices, with very similar rules. As I work my way around the few offices I’ve already asked, I’ll check if they’d mind being listed in a wiki and start compiling a list…
… anyone outside Brighton care to join? … anyone outside UK care to join?
How cool would it be to browse to a wiki, click Paris, and email checking that next Thursday isn’t booked. Next week I’m in town for two days, and now I have an office as well!
Tags: Coworking, Hot Officing, Productivity, Thoughts
June 4th, 2007 at 11:04 am
This is a really good idea. A couple of weeks ago I spent the day working out of an office in Brighton University and it really helped with productivity.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Danny - got room in your office?
June 4th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
There are a number of overhead costs associated with renting an office space, and if it doesn’t work, the organizers are stuck with a high cost lease and plenty of furniture. On the contrary, working in coffee shops, pubs, parks, and etc offers flexibility, with little cost to the coworkers. The former is traditional business and the latter appears to be more in line with the coworking movement.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I love this idea. I’m likely to be trying to move around quite a bit with work and this would be great - far more interesting than the alternatives.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Hi David,
I’m not suggesting that anyone goes and rents office space. I’m suggesting working from space that isn’t currently being used for anything, from an office, or home where the benefits are two ways, e.g. me working from a media company for a day:
* They can ask me questions if they want input on something and vice-versa
* I’m more productive and get out the house
* Networking, maybe they’ll become a client if they aren’t already
July 21st, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Dave,
I would like some feedback on a side project, what is the best way to get in touch?
David
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
@Dave: all my contact details are on my about/contact page.
http://www.builtbydave.co.uk/about-contact/
June 11th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Now we’ve nudged coworking in Brighton forward a little it would be great to find easy ways to hop into different places whilst having a common understanding and expectations from both the coworkers and the people who run the space.