Blacksburg Coworking Week One

This week started rather normally.  I went to Russell (owner of the Easy Chair) and asked if he thought we could start Coworking this week, so we decided on Monday and Tuesday from 3 to 9 pm.  Most of the survey results seemed to show that people wanted to work that late.

Once we had a plan I went to work and a few tweets, Facebook events, and emails later we had about 12 people come out this week (about 10 Monday and 6 on Tuesday – some overlap).

I learned several things from this trial.

1. So far everyone hit a wall around 7:30 pm and many came around 2 pm.

I know this will not always be the case, but for now to ensure that we are not putting a huge burden on the space Russ and I decided that 2 to 7 pm made more sense.

2.  I am too passive.

I hope everyone who came out had a great time and felt welcome.  But I noticed that I did not spend enough time telling people what we are starting and ask how I could help.  Part of that is because since we are using a space that has many regulars I did not want to annoy people.  So I will make a stronger effort to welcome people.

If you come in the future and I do not find you please find me or talk to the person behind the counter so I can be sure to introduce myself.

3.  The quicker we can get a normal schedule the better.

Let’s be honest, we all have work patterns and joining this community is going to change some of that.  Now Easy Chair welcomes people all the time to come drink coffee and do some work, but I hope we can find 2 or 3 days a week where you know you can work with others.  Stay tuned to our experiments and I hope you will come out when you can.

So I think it was a great week, but what can you do to get involved (or more involved)?

Next week:

We will be meeting on Tuesday and Thursday between 2 and 7 pm.  Like before it is free, but we ask that you buy something to support the awesome people at Easy Chiar.  Here are the links to the events on Facebook (also check out the Facebook Page).

Tuesday Night
Thursday Night

Please invite your friends if you think this is the kind of thing they would be interested in.  And thank you for coming out and supporting the formation of this community.

Newsletter:

You can subscribe to the newsletter here.  The first one will be going out Monday or Tuesday.  Basically the newsletter will discuss the upcoming events, some discussion of the evolution of the community and the space, and finally we want to celebrate the milestones our fellow coworkers hit.

Have a great rest of your week and if you would like a few places to go on the web to learn more about what Coworking looks like elsewhere I just added a new page.

What did/do you think?

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