When we launched CoCo way back when, we talked ever so briefly about the potential of inviting corporate workers to spend time in a coworking environment. It was one of those ideas that gets thrown out there…and then quickly dropped. “Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen.”
But as it turns out, we might not have been too far off the mark. Within the next week, we’ll have a corporate department actually take up residence with us for a couple months while their office digs get shuffled around. Meanwhile, another major corporation in town has asked us about conducting offsites and coworking – apparently in hopes of getting a boost of creativity and insights into our work culture. So, perhaps there are some cubicle dwellers who see benefits in getting out of the office.
But what about the many corporate workers who don‘t work in cubicles? Telecommuters? Sales reps? ROWE workers? A USA Today article about coworking suggests that the benefits of coworking – namely working with adults – might hold some promise for corporate nomads as well:
A new study of 3,600 telecommuters commissioned by Microsoft revealed their No. 1 complaint was lack of face-to-face interaction.
So, tell us please: If you are a corporate denizen or a telecommuter, do you see value in occasionally taking the team in a different environment (different than a hotel ballroom, for example) for ideation, problem solving or other creative meetings? Or for individual employees to occasionally work offsite? How useful would it be to make connections with other smart people from outside your organization? Honestly, we’d love to hear from you – particularly about what ideas you have for bringing coworking and the cubicle closer together.
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We would also appreciate any feedback on some of the new services we’re thinking of offering:
- Team coworking – where a department, workgroup or project team could visit CoCo for meetings and collaborative work sessions. These meetings could be facilitated (we know a few good facilitators of various stripes!) or not.
- Corporate daycamps - an invitation-only event* that includes breakfast, a morning lecture/discussion on a hot topic, followed by a day of coworking (and very likely some good conversation and cross-pollination.)
- Private offsites – like the above, an organization could have its own daycamp, in which we would provide breakfast, a lecture/discussion and an afternoon of coworking in a private room, or in our open areas.
- Speaker’s Bureau – we’ve already had some great speakers at CoCo. The topics they’ve covered include social media, IP law, blogging, marketing strategy and GTD, to name a few. We want to formalize this somewhat by creating a stable of speakers in different domains, who are available to speak authoritatively to visiting corporate groups.**
* Why invite-only? One of the issues we anticipate is that corporate employees might have trouble (or perceive too great a risk) mixing it up with the competition. So, our idea would be to invite employees from like departments at non-competing companies (e.g., Target, UHC, 3M and Ameriprise).
**If you are an expert in your domain and would like to be part of our Speaker’s Bureau, please contact us. Our goal would be to have a short list of 10-15 experts who are visible and credible and would bring value to our guests. (In case you’re wondering, yes, it would be a paying gig.)
This is such a huge step in bringing the people and the organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors closer together! There has been a lot of chatter lately of fragmentation of our “tribes” and collaborating enough. Well here it is people in the Switzerland of the Twin Cities. It is ok if competition gets together share on some topics and yes some still need to remain behind the firewall, but sharing processes and tool ideas about expense management can help each of them to lower operating costs which can improve the profitability and lower product or service costs and guess what their consumers will appreciate this. Most of the time competitors share the same person.
Our community has stretched our resources and money too thin to continue on the path of isolation to win. This is a huge step but it will the tiny shared wins that will make the big impacts.
The “expert” domain I can help provide is being a Business Analyst with many experiences and specialties within the software development cycle and how to practically make it work for all the disciplines work within their discipline at the sametime. I can also help in the areas of social (you plug in the word after that) internally and externally. Being a business analyst i have been operating in two diverse culture for the last 12 years. Trust me they are very different cultures between business and technology cultures.
The best thing I have seen happen in the last 4-5 years thanks to social is technologies that people use outside of the office have become better than the tools they use at work. This makes for breaking down cultural barriers to have an innovative or problem solving discussion around process and technologies.
The best thing about being a business analyst is being throw into the unknown. We are not afraid to ask questions of Why, How come, and How do we breakdown to deliver? Being unfamiliar with the business makes this process work even better because the SME’s have to explain it and with these explanations we discover together gaps and potential innovation. Guess what it is fun because you talk, rework, and deliver!
If this “expertise” has some interest to the people that come into CoCo I would love an opportunity to share, contribute and learn!
I put “expertise” and “expert” in quotes I always feel weird using that word. Look forward to seeing what happens!
I think all four of the services you’re considering are terrific. As a cube-dweller, I know one of the challenges I’ve faced when working at CoCo is getting into that “work” mode. I think it’s a fun environment and feels a bit like a vacation day. If I did it regularly, I’m sure I could get the focus I need. I’m pretty sure going in with a team would drive that even quicker.
I would really enjoy the corporate daycamps. I get jazzed when I collaborate with internal departments I don’t usually contact. I imagine external groups would provide the same if not more jazzing.
There’s real value in a perspective change, even if it’s just temporary.
New ways of approaching work involves new ways of interacting with people, too. Changing what the term “co-worker” means can be part of that…does a co-worker need to be someone who sits next to you in a cube in an office building at the same company? Not anymore.
Looking forward to following what people are thinking as they experiment with this concept…