That’s right folks! GCUC, short for Global Coworking Unconference Conference and pronounced “juicy”, is the biggest coworking event of the year and it’s coming to the place where coworking was born: the Bay Area. The event attracts coworkers from all over the planet to come together in one place for three full days of panel discussions, high-energy breakout sessions, high-fiving team building activities and hella shenanigans. As a result, attendees always leave with a whole slew of new concepts and… Read More »
Last week 5 NextSpace teamsters, 1 baby, and one daddy of the baby, attended GCUC, the Global Coworking Unconference Conference. There were close to 300 people, and over 100 spaces represented. The conversation moved from Steve King (not THAT Steve King), sharing that coworking has crossed the chasm and is now a mainstream workplace option around the globe, to Benjamin Dyett from the Grind sharing that coworking is not just for the startup crowd, but for established professionals and can,… Read More »
At the beginning of the month I flew to Austin to attend the Global Coworking Unconference Conference, GCUC. This year’s event was my first and it was a great week during I got to learn a lot and meet many of people. Liz Elam is the magician behind GCUC. She runs Link Coworking in Austin, organizes GCUC, and even drives a coworking car. She is really into it, and GCUC is filled with all of her high energy and passion.… Read More »
Many people in the coworking community are already familiar with The Global Coworking Unconference Conference kicking off its second year in Austin, Texas March 5th-6th. Rayann and I have been gearing up for this event for a few months now. We teamed up with Liz Elm, the Executive Producer of GCUC, and owner of Link Coworking to help spread the word via the web of this awesome event. We are proud to be a part of the GCUC social media team and we are looking… Read More »
Coworking is about the community we create. Members from all walks of life - who share openness, curiosity, creative drive, entrepreneurship and perhaps even an elevated level of social consciousness - come together to spend their days (and nights) working and enjoying each others' company. It seems only natural that we cross-polliate with students and educators in our communities. Our coworking communities can benefit from their fresh ideas, youthful exuberance and desire to learn, while they are introduced to a… Read More »
I hope that you had a chance to read the recent article on coworking in IEDC's EDnow newsletter (It's only available to members, so if you are an IEDC member, you can grab it here). It goes into some depth on the phenomenon of coworking and what it means to economic development. If you don't already understand the concept of coworking, you can learn more by reading the article, checking out Deskmag, attending the Global Coworking Unconference Conference (shameless plug: I'll… Read More »
Yes, Marissa hit the panic button, and Yahoo’s new ban on “working from home” has ignited a huge firestorm from a long-smoldering debate over how to manage worklife balance and workplace productivity. However, pitting working from home against working from a central headquarters office misses the point. Neither the home office nor the centralized HQ is the complete answer anymore. Worklife, has become infinitely more interesting and requires a more thoughtful approach, since knowledge workers now choose how, when and… Read More »
Corporate leaders have started to pay attention to the buzz and research around culture and employee engagement, as they are seeing that these are critical to attracting and retaining talent, and they have a direct connection to their bottom line. The realization is that the sea of cubicles is not quite conducive to deep employee engagement and it’s time to evolve the open office space concept to fit a more dynamic digital economy. Most research happening around workspace design, collaboration… Read More »
I grew up in Western civilization, raised on Darwin’s, survival of the fittest worldview. No matter where you are on the evolution/creation theories, his competition, bloody tooth and claw perspective has become a pillar of our cultural heritage. It has been the prevailing influence in how we’ve run our businesses. “Eat or be eaten” and “It’s a jungle out there.” Yes, it is a jungle out there. And until very recently we’ve been making the nearly fatal mistake of following… Read More »
The coworking movement has survived it's infancy, learned to walk and talk, enjoyed the freedom of childhood, and now sits somewhere in its young adult phase. The individualism of childhood fades as teens begin to run in packs, so excited to have found others like themselves. At that stage, you bond by defining what you are not, i.e. "we are not a typical office", and rebelling against difference in others, I.e. "that place is not a 'real' coworking space". At… Read More »
