This in the Globe and mail today - The idea of a Work Place Commons is emerging spontaneously across Canada
By SHANE SCHICK
They weren't really friends, at least not at first -- they were bloggers who got to know one another electronically. Then the group in Charlottetown started to wonder: Wouldn't it be great if they all worked in the same building?
That's when an actor-comedian, the head of a software development firm called SilverOrange, and a consultant decided to create a space called Queen Street Commons. Inside, it looks like a comfortable house, the walls painted in rich shades of blue, orange and green. Its purpose, however, is not to shelter a family. It's to establish a community for entrepreneurs and small businesses that can't afford office space in a downtown high-rise, but don't want to be working in isolation at home.
"They needed a community. We knew that, because we are those people," says Cynthia Dunsford, the actor-comedian in the founding trio.
"We worked out of our homes and met clients in coffee shops, primarily because they offer wireless to lure you in. You'd be sitting at Timothy's or Starbucks and holding court all day with all your meetings. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not completely professional."
The alternative is what some are calling a "third working space," which attempts to create the atmosphere of a coffee shop along with the privacy and amenities of a regular office.
Read on to find out what is going on elsewhere
Technorati Tags: Commons, Community, Culture, Cyn Dunsford, Dan James, Queen Street Commons, Rob Paterson, Work
Queen Street Commons, for example, does not lease out its space. Instead, it charges a monthly membership fee for use of the facilities, which offer wireless Internet, high-speed Ethernet, printers, and other standard pieces of office-IT equipment. There are also a few cutting-edge services, including a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone system that turns messages into MP3 files that can be e-mailed to the recipient's in-box.
Queen Street Commons has signed up about 35 members since it launched last year. Ms. Dunsford says it tends to attract professionals who have had enough of the stuffy cubicle culture.
"Those who drop out are the ones who take the initiative to start something like this," she says.
This unusual workplace development model has already replicated itself. In Vancouver, Bill MacEwan is putting the finishing touches on a converted Gastown loft that will be known as WorkSpace. Mr. MacEwan likens the idea to a gym membership -- professionals may use the boardroom, kitchen or IT-equipped workrooms on an as-needed basis.
"We'd been working off a laptop in cafés and always struggling to find a better Internet connection and a better latté," he says. "I figured if people were willing to put up with those microscopic tables and intermittent Wi-Fi, and noise from babies and coffee machines and so on in a café, they'd love an environment like this."
Efforts are under way to set up a third working space in Toronto, a project that has been called the Innovation Commons. Among its leaders are David Crow, a software developer who has been involved in organizing what he calls "un-conferences," where everyone is expected to be an active participant rather than a spectator. Like Queen Street Commons and Workspace, Mr. Crow hopes the Innovation Commons will have the hum of a bar, where people talk in ways they avoid once they step into a skyscraper.
"The idea was that, as society became more social and urban, third spaces are the spot that doesn't put a lot of pressure on individuals," he says. "How do you capture that [idea of the] workplace, knowing that not all of us can afford a thousand square feet on a subway line in a metropolitan area?"
In fact, the best way to understand a third working space might be to imagine an artist's colony. These were places where painters, musicians or novelists would be invited to hole up for an unspecified period to work on their masterpieces. In between, they would share meals, discussions and an environment conducive to original thinking.
"Culture is the most important thing," Mr. Crow says. "It's got to be somewhere you want to be around, physically and cognitively."
This cultural element is what should differentiate third working spaces from "hotelling" services offered by real estate companies that allow firms to set up temporary offices or satellite offices far outside urban cores. Networks and other must-have office-IT infrastructure are now affordable enough that it is possible for an Innovation Commons to offer the same kind of technology found in a downtown skyscraper, but third working spaces provide a working ambience.
Some are touting third working spaces as a revolution for increasingly mobile workers who don't necessarily need a full-time office, but still require a comfortable and professional workspace from time to time.
"People will` work not where they have to work, but where they want to work," Mr. MacEwan says. "It's got to be a comfortable, warm atmosphere that's a lot like home but still provides the connectivity, the meeting rooms, the fax machines."
The timing of these ventures seems right, and they're a phenomenon to watch. The past 10 years have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of contract positions and freelance workers, along with a proliferation of mobile computing technologies. Third working spaces capitalize on both trends, and have the potential to change the way labour is organized. Small businesses might, for instance, decide to use such environments instead of putting contract staff in their own high-priced office space, or forgo setting up their own facilities altogether. These environments may become the place where trends in small business IT use and spending are determined.
Third working spaces could also be the physical representation of the collaboration that blogs, wikis and related technologies have fostered over the Internet. Finally, they could change what we expect out of the working experience. In the dot-com days, companies installed foosball tables and beanbag chairs to lure talent and make them comfortable. After the bubble burst, those perks disappeared. Third working spaces propose something in between -- a much-needed renovation of the workplace concept, rather than an extreme makeover.
Shane Schick is editor of ITBusiness.ca.
sschick@itbusiness.ca
