An interview with Alex Hillman

We asked Alex Hillman, a real coworking leader, co-founder of IndyHall in Philadelphia, and web developer/strategist/co-founder of Round3Media to tell us about his perspective on the scene

Spike Gillespie: How’d you get involved in coworking?
Alex Hillman: I was introduced to coworking by Chris Messina and Tara Hunt, who run Citizen Space. I was recently independent, and had begun working at home. Quickly, my longing for people came back. After a failed attempt to move to the valley, I reflected why I was going in the first place. It wasn’t the money, it wasn’t the job. It was the community. Coworking became the end goal for a community building initiative here in Philly. Looking over the existing infrastructures (or lack thereof), it became clear that coworking could succeed here and be a core to a new movement.

SG: How did IndyHall get started?
AH: There was an existing local organization, PANMA (Philadelphia Area New Media Association). I’d become active on their email list, and was sort of recognized as a rabble-rouser/pot-stirrer. One list member whose eye I caught, Geoff DiMasi, emailed me off list and we got together to chat. He’d had similar co-op ideas and good experience with artist co-operatives. Using our combined powers and interests, we worked on a regimen of events and ideas that would lead us to being a visible center for an independent creative community, again, working towards a permanent home at our own coworking space.

SG: How long has IndyHall been open?
AH: The IndyHall listserv began March 1, 2007. We had our first bar-based meetup on March 26th. Our site was launched a few days later. Near the end of April, we decided to start our own version of Jelly. We ran it bi-weekly until mid-summer, around the time we had 15-20 people attending regularly. We signed a lease on August 10th and moved in immediately. We opened our doors on September 1st, 2007. Putting us just past 6 months of being open to the public.

SG: Are you seeing growth?
AH: We’ve not only seen growth, we’ve seen stabilization. Initially, we had a mostly “basic member” membership, and only a couple of full time and lite members. Since, we’ve seen a conversion of basic to lite, and lite to full time members. Our total numbers have increased steadily over time, and the weight of our membership has balanced more.

SG: Are y’all for profit?
AH: We like to say “for profit without a focus on profit.” So long as we’re making enough to cover the costs and invest more back into resources, we’re happy. I never expected to make a mint on having a coworking space. Coworking/IndyHall helps me do my main job better, which has made me more money.

SG: Coworking is really picking up steam in the media. Why do you think that is?
AH: Because it’s brilliant. :-)

Really, though… right place right time is one factor. Everyone’s learning that telecommuting is kind of a disaster from a social perspective, and coworking seems to be a natural evolution. At the same time, the fact that coworking is a starfish movement with so many smart leaders all over the world means that every time someone gets visibility, it encourages journalists to research their own backyards and see if coworking is happening there. And, as time goes on, the likelihood of them finding what they are looking for increases.

SG: What’s your favorite part of coworking?
AH: The fact that it helps cool stuff that may or may not have happened anyway, happen faster. It’s a very serendipitous community FULL of “doers” instead of just talkers. I love that.

SG: Is your role in IH cutting into your time to be a “regular” coworker? Is it taking over, I mean?
AH: If I said no, I’d be lying. Not only that, but my desire to help the community outside of IndyHall cuts even deeper. But that just means I need to prioritize and reorganize. My love for this community is massive, so I took my independent development firm and partnered up with some of the best talent I know (much of which works at IndyHall) to handle my workload along with even more. Keeps quality high, lets me keep a handle on things, but also put my focus elsewhere while this movement gets its legs.

SG: Did you hit any major unforeseen obstacles at the beginning?
AH: One of the weirdest things to me is being mistaken for an agency. Not just the agency I run, but IndyHall itself has a membership pool that’s diverse and wildly talented. When someone comes in and asks me to staff it, it’s hard to say no and explain that we’re not a staffing firm and that for me to place our members in projects would be potentially damaging to the community.

As far as getting started… it almost came together too easily. Yes, it was a lot of work. But I had awesome support and my own drive coupled with a lack of care to ask for permission. “Let’s just try it,” was uttered over and over, and every time we tried something new, we were pleased with the results.

SG: Do you have all those worked out?
AH: There are still day-to-day “issues.” The way we’ve approached it has helped a lot: give the community simple tools to communicate, let them sort it out themselves. Bottom line is, you can’t make decisions for everyone and you can’t force culture. Just give the members the tools they need to discover themselves, and encourage them along the way. Applying that to any obstacle, issue, or otherwise takes a huge weight off my shoulders and ultimately, yields the best reaction/result.

SG: Can you tell me about some of the coworkers who use the space?
AH: We’ve got a designer/developer heavy community, because that’s who we know. But we also have writers, marketers, project managers, telecom consultants, video producers…you name it, it’s been through our doors. That diversity is beyond cool.

Also… not everyone is independent. I think that’s really important. The fact that gainfully employed people are supported by their employers to work at a [coworking] office is huge, and even more than that, some people actually use our office as a retreat from their “corporate” offices. This says to me that this is a statement about HOW people want to work, not just WHERE. I think we’re helping redefine worker culture.

SG: How was your SXSWi experience?
AH: I rocked out, hard. SXSW is a bit of a reunion for me. The panel programming is far less interesting, and has opportunity for disappointment. I have yet to be disappointed by a hallway conversation. I have yet to be disappointed by a new friendship made. I have yet to be disappointed by the response when I get a chance to meet someone I respect and read and simply want to shake their hand and thank them for rocking my world. That’s my SXSW approach. Frankly, I attended 3 sessions including the 2 related to coworking. The third was Kathy Sierra, whom I positively adore.

Besides that… SXSW is a social event and there is no escaping that. I’ve got some big plans for a co-working/co-partying event next year. Stay tuned!

SG: What’s the future of coworking?
AH: It’s only uphill from here. More spaces will open. More models will be explored. More spaces will fail. More lessons will be learned. Someone will write a negative article. Whatever.

This is the most exciting part of the future is it’s in our hands. This movement is whatever the hell we want it to be right now. And with something this large and this real, that really makes me happy to wake up in the morning.