Coworking most definitely fits into the ‘useful, important, enjoyable and therefore coming to a place near you’ basket, the same basket that contains unconferences, lightweight structures, wikis and wikification in general, democratic working practices and yes, Twitter ;)
What they share is a new remoulding and levelling of the world, a move towards collaboration over command and control, a shift towards warm, human and flexible over cold, automated and rigid: just a better way of doing things, where the fluidity and sharing that is enabled by the Internet and portable easy to use technology (mobile phones, mobile internet, laptops, stuff) are embraced and exploited to their full extent.
If you’re new to the coworking concept you can find learn more by reading this NYT article on coworking in general or indoctrinate yourself on the Coworking Wiki.
Coworking has real momentum, although many with a more historical bent would have no truck with this recent-schmecent rubbish: look at medieval guilds and the like, as Dan McQuillan suggests. Yet again Tara Hunt is at the heart of the recent digital rejuvination of this grassroots-style movement (hats off to she that makes good things happen).
Today I needed to be somewhere else: home would be too crazy; the office would be too interrupted. I had to make serious headway in developing some training materials and needed a productive working environment with low hassle high bandwidth wifi, light, space and Brighton & Hove coworking space The Werks came to mind.
I don’t know an awful lot about The Werks’ story but I do not that their Friday co-working – where all and sundry are welcome for a spot o’ co-working – has gained and gained and gained momentum over time, and that my regular Friday appointments with our business advisor and team lunches have kept me away, but at an interested and enthusiastic arm’s length.
When we recently used a Werks meeting space for a client workshop James mentioned that co-working is now anyday of the week (a good decision all round I reckon) meaning that those wanting a drop-in desk space (or sofa!) can pop in free of charge and get involved. Wickedly nice gift to the community, if ever there was one. So I took James up.
It werked wonderfully for me.
Although I have to confess I didn’t really cowork as work in a coworking space, given my deadline and the need to focus. But I did catch up with the very nice Richard Dallaway, local community pillar Rosie Sherry, the talented Josh and Dave and met for the first time Jim Callender who’s been a contact on Flickr and then Twitter <californian accent> for like ages </californian accent>(Wow, what geekery – marketing guy using pseudo HTML in blog posts, time to buy that farm in Patagonia methinks).
Next time I’ll go with less specific tasks to complete and more of a nosey, collaborative attitude. And I’ll seek to give as much as I can.
But even so, perhaps there’s the rub: though I was focused and working and productive and largely opting out via headphones (and not knowing most of the others on my bustling table of 7 or so other peeps) I still managed to chat to good people I rarely see and have the space to talk with. It was actually really nice.
I love what James and his gang of supporters have been able to achieve. And I can see how the momentum and success is going to grow. The Werks is a wonderful experiment that’s working: the metaphorical petri dish is bubbling with growth and energy, and I’m just delighted that we – the Brighton digital community – have such a wonderful asset to take from and give to.
Will McInnes wrote this on 27.05.08 – 1 comment
It's filed in the Brighton, NixonMcInnes box
Yesterday at NESTA’s Innovation Edge conference, I watched a selection of the great and the good set out their vision for turning (or returning?) the UK into an ‘Innovation Nation’ .
Chris Powell, NESTA’s Chairman described a future in which an aging population with ever increasing life expectancy will need to be supported by a much smaller working population. With a globalised economy in which we can’t compete as a manufacturing base, and the knowledge that India and China will not content themselves with being cheap producers in the long term, Mr Powell asserted that we need to improve the capacity and climate for innovation in the UK. The key lies in embedding innovation in our culture. However, change can’t be imposed from above – it must be systemic, and that involves us all.
For me, the highlight of the day followed – a video conference with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Andrew Marr’s video introduction cited the Victorian book ‘Enquire Within Upon Everything’ as an Berners-Lee’s inspiration. Berners-Lee wanted to recreate the interconnectedness of the information within the book – to create a ‘web of connections’. He developed this as a system that would allow computers to share information and by 1991 had connected scientists around Europe using his ‘world wide web’. Key to his ability to develop a project not officially sanctioned by employed was his manager’s belief that his proposal was ‘vague, but interesting’ and willingness to allow Berners-Lee the time to explore the idea and see where it went.
Apart from the fact that I (and vast numbers of other people) now owe my income to Berners-Lee’s innovation, the web has the capacity to change the models of human society, democracy and behaviour through its ability to connect people as never before. Tim Berners-Lee’s new project is dedicated to understanding the implications of this, through the development of a new form of science. He views the current web as being in its early adolescence, flexing its muscles but not yet sure of its boundaries. His hope is that it grows into a responsible adult – although he made it clear that like all machines it is the people who operate it who must ultimately learn how to use it wisely.
A modest, public-spirited English scientist, Tim Berners-Lee has done more to change the way we live today than any government. He’s part of the history of modern Britain and the epitome of innovation. He also made no money from his invention – an observation which caused a very British titter of self deprecation around the audience.
Next on stage was Bob Geldof - a whirlwind of socially impassioned energy. He challenged the point of view of the previous NESTA speakers, who had focused on encouraging innovation as way of balancing Britain’s books in the future. His point was to do with social innovation and our ability to engage specifically with Africa – which as he pointed out is only eight miles from Europe, yet not a point of focus.
Walking on to the strains of U2 (and starting with a jibe about Bono being small and fat, unlike himself) Geldof characterised us as a nation with a historical love of the eccentric, uniquely placed to try new things and new ideas. He reminded us that we had, in a time of post war bankruptcy, created the National Health Service and the Open University. That this vision of a healthy, educated populace had enabled us to build the world’s fifth largest economy. However, he went on to question if we are a society overcome by the fear of failure. “We need to celebrate the attempt at trying,” he said. “Failure is nothing.”
The future he predicted was bleak – one of wars we can’t afford, climate change and population migration. He underlined the necessity of innovation and entrepreneuralism in tackling the huge problems we face in the future. He also spoke of the ways in which developing countries leap-frog technological innovations, finding new uses and contexts for familiar devices. Most illustrative was his story of a Tanzanian woman, used to walking eight hours to visit a butcher, who could now use her mobile phone to text ahead reserve her meat and pay using phone credits. This illustrated not only the social impact of technology but also the way in which citizens of unstable economies can bypass the economic infrastructure and move into a post-currency society. If a population can wrest control of transactions away from a government is there any continuing purpose to that government.
Sir Bob wrapped up with a call to arms, transcribed more efficiently than I was able by the Telegraph:
“Where are these ideas of a different world, a world not to be afraid of? One that is coming, that is possibly here, but that is certainly inevitable.
“We need our social entrepreneurs to consider these things. We need them to be innovative and progressive, we need our politicians to recognise it, and we need our financial institutions to support it. Is that currently happening? No, not enough.”
After lunch (a most satisfactory bit of catering, except for the rather strange nutty meringues) we had a surprisingly charming and self-assured (and blissfully short) visitation from the Prime Minister. Looking utterly comfortable in his skin, he said all that was necessary just by turning up. He told a few jokes but the essence was that he is convinced of the necessity of the drive for innovation and is committed to breaking down any and all barriers that exist in order to help deliver on the promise of the conference. His closing comments summed it up:
“the most important thing we have is you… your creative talents, your ability to innovate, your ability to lead for the future with new ideas – for new businesses, new services, new goods. I look forward to Britain leading the world as the innovative nation of the future – and it can do so because of your talents.”
I’m not sure if he’ll be around to lead us into that future – but the sentiment was convincing.
The rest of the day flagged, with my energies being so totally drained by a circuitous discussion on whether Social Networks are the new cities. It was a desultory affair with uninspiring participants and little or no audience interaction. I retreated to charge my batteries – literally and metaphorically and ponder the inspiration of the morning.
My key takeaways are
- frustration over the lack of definition – what is innovation? What does it look like and where does it currently live?
- a reinvigoration of my interest in the global economy and our place within it
- fascination with how emerging markets will leapfrog existing modes of use for familiar technologies and develop new, unguessable solutions for problems of which we in the West are unaware
- vague inklings of how we can use the connecting power of the web for the social good – locally and globally
So – this was a long post – does it make sense / strike a chord / bore you rigid? What do you identify as innovative and do you believe we are a nation in which innovation can blossom? Do you harbour secret plans of your own – if so, what holds you back?
Jenni wrote this on 22.05.08 – 5 comments
It's filed in the Business, Events & conferences, Interesting box
Last night, FlashBrighton hosted a Code-along session, the primary objective of which was to develop a genetics algorithm collaboratively. Edd and I were there, desperately trying to follow the proceedings in our languages of choice, C# and Java, respectively.
At the risk of massively over-generalizing, from my understanding of last night’s session, the general pattern of a genetic algorithm is thus:
- Create a random population
- Evaluate the ‘fitness’ of the members of the population
- Destroy the ‘least fit’ members of the population
- To make up the numbers, the sad loss of aforementioned weaklings is replaced with mutations of the ‘most fit’ members of the population
To whet our appetites, we were given a quick demo of SmartRockets, a clever population of rockets that, over time, learn how to hit a random target.
So, with the groundwork covered, it was time to crack open our respective IDEs and attempt to follow along. As GA newbies, we didn’t quite reach the lofty heights of the SmartRockets algorithm, but we did create a population of bit streams, whose goal was to eliminate all 0s in favour of 1s.
Here’s the ActionScript implementation and, for those that attended last night and are interested, my Java implementation of this algorithm is here (execute it using this Java class). And Edd’s C# implementation here.
Sadly, I had to leave before the end of the night, in the midst of everyone debating how to evaluate a population whose sole intent was to evolve into a certain colour (at least that was my understanding, had my head stuck in a cloud of 1s and 0s, so it was hard to tell!) — for anyone that was there, I’d love to see the end result of this discussion!
Steve wrote this on 20.05.08 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Brighton, Development, Interesting, Off topic box
Read on for an update of recent press that we have been contributing to here at NixonMcInnes, plus a list of future events we will be attending. Read more…
Ruth wrote this on 14.05.08 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Events & conferences, Marketing, NixonMcInnes, Press box
MeasurementCamp is fun, relevant, and important! Oh, and it’s not a weekend, it’s a couple of hours once a month. The first was held at the beginning of April. The purpose of MeasurementCamp is to create a set of open source resources which allow interested parties to better measure and so understand and improve their social media communications online and offline. MeasurementCamp brings together the varied people of the digital revolution – web developers; buzz monitoring technologists; social media planners; smart PR people – to solve the questions that swirl around ‘how do we measure social media?’. Read more…
Ruth wrote this on 12.05.08 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Events & conferences, Social media box
The Brighton and Hove Business Awards website has been updated and went live a few days ago.
NixonMcInnes are sponsoring the BAHBAs for the fifth year in a row and we are proud to announce the launch of a re-designed and radically different website complete with social media features to support the awards.
Read more…
Ruth wrote this on 09.05.08 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Brighton, Business, Events & conferences, NixonMcInnes box
When I first started working in web agency world in the Jurassic era of 1999, we had a battle on our hands. Because the web was ‘to do with computers’ and a bit new, more often than not it fell to the I.T. folk in our client’s organisations to lead on web strategy, design and development. Read more…
Tom wrote this on 08.05.08 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Social media, Strategy box
