SXSWi wrap-up

SXSWi was great for coworking. We had coworkers from all over the map in town to… well, cowork about coworking. But it sure didn’t feel like work as we gathered twice at the Hotel San Jose, twice for core conversations (one on transparency and the other on coworking), and unofficially at BarCamp (“unofficial” since they can’t call it a SXSW event).

I’ll talk about transparency in a separate post and Spike will give a report on the second San Jose meetup. For now, here are some highlights from the coworking core conversation and the Plutopia party:

Core Conversation — Coworking led by Patrick Tanguay from Station C in Montreal and Alex Hillman from Independents Hall in Philadelphia.

Around forty people gathered. The format was great — more brainstorming-friendly than a formal panel. The acoustics were a little rough though – we were sharing a high- ceiling ballroom with several other groups and the cacophony at times made hearing softer voiced speakers difficult.

Topics ranged all the way from “What is Jelly?” and “What is coworking?” for the newbies at the table to ways to build community and how to maintain financial sustainability for coworking groups using the anchor tenant model. I think some folks who hadn’t yet heard about the LaunchPad Coworking model were a little surprised to hear about our by-the-hour, for-profit goals and even more surprised to hear that we’re starting out with a very healthy budget.

But that’s the idea of all this coworking, right? To toss ideas into the ring that help us all consider various models and solutions and to take the best ideas from each other.

One topic of special interest was “respect” — how do you set guidelines and get people to follow them? Or do you even set guidelines? Alex and Patrick concurred that in their spaces, especially with coworkers knowing each other (as opposed to working around strangers in a coffee shop) and feeling a sense of ownership, there’s a very natural inclination toward mutual respect — simple things like taking loud phone calls to a meeting room or other out-of-earshot location and contributing toward the coffee funds without being asked.

I think best of all though, was that the conversation gave us yet another chance for face time so that when we’re posting to places like the Google Coworking group we have a real idea of whom we talking to.

In general, I think the core conversations are a good format for SXSW. Conversation leaders sit at a round table with the audience fanning out around the table. It would be really great if we could get the participatory audience members to stand around the outside for better voice projection.

Plutopia Party

Not to say the Plutopia Party was any less important than the meaty stuff at the convention center, but it was a chance to check coworking earnestness at the door and just have a great time meeting up with still more people gathered to support the EFF. The emphasis was on convergence, sustainability, futurism and art.

I had a great time talking to Tierney O’Dea, COO for slooh.com, a live online observatory that allows anyone to control telescopes around the world in real time via the desktop. Slooh was one of the many sponsors of Plutopia. Tierney is going to help us bring NOVA ScienceNOW Science Cafes to LaunchPad Coworking :)