Tara Hunt has kicked off a project she’s calling “Spread the Love”. I’ve been following it closely and thinking about how its core values can be better applied to the things I’m involved with, and wanted to put some of those thoughts down here.
There’s been some discussion recently about the recent press that IndyHall has received. Of course, we’re proud of our office and talk to anyone about what we’re doing here, and what’s going on in the world of coworking outside of IndyHall. Unfortunately, some misplaced journalistic intention has stirred up some bad juju…so I wanted to clear the air.
Whenever I speak to someone about Independents Hall, I try my hardest to make it clear that we didn’t originate this concept, and that this kind of thing CAN and IS going on all over the world. In some settings, I tell the more personal story of how we got the crew together, what motions we went through, and how we arrived at sharing an office. I think that story is extremely important to show that from nothing, something can form, and that community is the most effective (and fun!) way I’ve found to do it.
The downside with telling that story is that it makes it difficult for the writer to choose focus. Are they here to interview about Independents Hall (or whatever space they are interviewing) and how it came to be, or are they here to interview about the coworking concept from the level where they can see EVERYTHING that is going on around the world. Honestly, I think the interview is easier to write and thats why they choose that one. I can count, on one hand, the number of articles that have been written that focus on the coworking movement rather than any specific space (or spaces). That leaves it up to the interviewer to put some focus back on the community that supported them, and maybe I haven’t done as good of a job as I could have.
This morning we had a piece published on one of my FAVORITE blogs, Freelance Switch. There is a lot of traffic coming to the site this morning from that article, and I wanted to post a few points of clarification, some additional links, as well as provide some resources that I’ve been providing to people who’ve emailed me personally to ask more:
- I never made it to San Francisco…the “interview” was 100% remote. I imagine my jealousy of the west coast would have multiplied had I actually made it over there to hang out with the crew that I had become so close with (via the web), and I may have not ever come back :-).
Some of them have recently made the voyage cross-country to visit me so I intend to return the favor very soon to see what west-coast coworking feels like. The biggest thing that I drew from their experiences that they published were the core values of community, collaboration, openness, and sustainability. Without them, it was tough to consider ourselves a *true* coworking space. - Coworking is a starfish organization and we’re just one leg of that starfish. Independents Hall is not a franchise. Neither is coworking. It’s a community driven sharing of experiences and knowledge that allows the movement to grow leaps and bounds beyond what it could if it had hard-defined leadership and rules. Instead, we rely on the core values listed above to establish an organizational ring around the global entities that make up the coworking movement. If you want to cowork in your area, check the wiki, find out who else is posting on the google group, or go to the local cafe and see who’s working. “Roll your own” if you can’t find someone else doing it. Which brings me to….
- The Cream Cheese Sessions were inspired by Jelly in NYC. Amit Gupta and I have been discussing ways to impart the value of Jelly/Cream Cheese/whatever you want to call your semi-ad-hoc-work-together-session on others. These events are one of the best ways to get your local coworking in my opinion. They’re low cost (if not free), easy to organize, and a lot of fun. Amit has started a “Jelly Organizers” group where we hope to help start the discussion about how to get your own local event off the ground. We’d like to, in time, field more specific questions in the form of a podcast…but that’s down the road.
- The P’unk Ave crew who hosts and runs Junto helped forged the path in a huge way. Since the first day that Alex Gilbert mentioned the idea, it was clear how important this could be. Watching the event grow, flourish and mature from “4 people in the middle of a snowstorm” to dozens of people who come out monthly to embrace a topic and share their ideas has been inspiring, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. Geoff, Rick, and Alex G. provide and lead this event that uses a historical venue (I don’t mean their shop, though it is beautiful, but the format of Junto) to promote the true purpose of what we as a community wanted to accomplish. Without Junto, there likely wouldn’t BE an Independents Hall. We think (and hope) Ben Franklin would be proud.
I’m feeling guilty about some of the “me me me” type of stuff that’s been published…and I can’t put all of the blame on the writers. It’s admittedly hard to tell a story from a neutral standpoint, especially a story I’m so passionate about, and I definitely could be doing a better job of leading journalists in the right direction. The promotion of the space that we’ve opened here has been wonderful and of course we appreciate every place that has written about us or included a link to our website. But there are more people, the people I’ve listed above and many more, who deserve attention too.
I just want it to be crystal clear that we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for more people than I can count, or can list, or probably even know of. I don’t want anyone to think that I’ve been opportunistic, because I really am passionate about both this local community that drives IndyHall as well as supporting the coworking spaces that are opening up all over the world. Remember, we’re just one small leg of the starfish.
I’ve spoken to Geoff about this matter and moving forward, we’re going to request that reporters interview a larger census of the community whenever they write about us. We think this is a fair opportunity to “spread the love”. If you have other ideas on ways to better future interviews and remove opportunity for a skewed story, please, let us know in the comments.
Great post mate! The article on Freelance Switch left out a lot about coworking and its principles. I think you wrapped it all up nicely here.