Robert Paterson's Weblog

Happy Birthday Queen Street Commons - 8 years old this May

The Queen Street Commons, PEI's Co Working site, at 224 Queen St Charlottetown, opened its doors in May 2005. We were one of 5 such sites in the entire world! 

There are now nearly 800 commercial co-working facilities in the United States, up from a little more than 300 only two years ago, and about 40 in 2008, according to an annual survey by Deskmag, an online magazine that covers the co-working industry.

More than 110,000 people currently work in one of the nearly 2,500 coworking spaces available worldwide. Compared to last year, there are now 83% more coworking spaces that serve a total of 117% more members! Considering only workdays, we see 4.5 new coworking spaces have emerged daily for the past twelve months. During the same time, the number of coworking members increased by 245 people on average each work day. (Deskmag)

As a member of the QSC, you are also part of the Coworking Visa - you have the benefit of access to over 200 sites all over the world. Details here.  Visiting Toronto, London, Paris, Los Angeles? You have a space and a community waiting for you.

What is going on and how might this help you?

Working at an office can be too structured. Working  at home can be too lonely. You may not have a job anyway. If you are under 30, you probably don't. Same if you are over 55. So you seek to make a living. Co Working gives you the network to help. It gives you the social space to thrive in. 

So are you a student with a summer clear ahead of you and want to get a feel for this kind of work and space? Maybe you have a project? Are you in your 40's and 50's and wonder how you will cope when you lose your job? have you retired but are going mad from boredom?

Try out the Commons. Here is the link to the main page. Here is the link to how to become a member. 

Here is what the global survey by Deskmag found:

The benefits of coworking continue to be realized: 71% of respondents said their creativity had increased since joining, and 62% said their standard of work had improved. Countering the common claim that coworking spaces can be distracting, 68% said they were able to focus better, as compared to 12% who said the opposite. 64% said they could better complete tasks on time. 

Who are the coworkers? 53% are freelancers, while the remainder are entrepreneurs, small company employees, big company employees, and 8% who describe themselves as none of the above (the proportion of "other" respondents has increased from 5% two years ago to 8%, while entrepreneuers has fallen from 18% to 14%). The proportion of female coworkers is growing, up from 32% in 2010 to 38% today. 

The average number of desks and members is growing. The maximum capacity of most spaces is now 41 people, and the average membership size is 44. Desk utilization is up, from 49% to 55%, meaning spaces are being used by their members more frequently.

The majority of coworkers are so content with their workspace that they don't plan to leave. 62% said they have no plans to leave their locations, while less than 5% will stay just for one month, disproving the notion that coworking is for mobile workers only.

And for those that like infographics:

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Can a conventional organization become a network? A Case Study

I have been posting a lot recently about how networks work. My new book is all about why and how the Network model will take down all those that organize traditionally. So what to do?

You have a traditional organization. Can you change to become a network and so survive the revolution? I think in most cases the answer is no. But with the right leadership - FROM THE TOP - you can do it. This post is about the context of one organization that had had the right leadership and has made this transition.

It is The Nine Network for Public Media in St Louis - Formerly KETC Channel Nine.

TV as we know it is the typical traditional organization. You watch what we think is good when we choose and all you do is watch. Appointment media like that is dying. But The Nine Network of Public Media in St Louis is no longer that kind of station. Yes they still do TV but the choice is massive and you can watch it all on your terms and you can also participate. But this is still nothing.

The Nine Network is much more than a TV station that has taken advantage of the digital realm. It is doing more.

First of all it is becoming the local community convenor to deal with important local issues. It started by helping people tell their own stories such as what they did in the war. The breakthrough project was when Nine took on ther Mortgage Crisis at the outset. It called the meeting of all who could help and created the space to help the community help itself. This was so successful that CPB funded a national program where stations, radio and TV, in the worst hit parts of America became the local facilitator of the community. Now Nine is involved in Education and Healthcare.  Many other stations see this role as Connector as their future too. Here is Ideastream in Cleveland - another leader. 

Secondly it is putting the public into Public TV. It has a school that teaches the public how to tell stories on video. 

Thirdly it is connected to the St Louis Public Radio station. St Louis Public Radio. The two stations are physically linked in adajacent buildings and are building a Commons between them to enhance their role as Connectors of the Community.

Fourthly, 9 hosts the local online newspaper - The Beacon - that is full of journalists who could no longer work for a paper!

These local relationships are not one organization but are a real network. They are separate but together. They share resources. They look after each other.

So what was the context for this change? First of all there was the leadership issue. Jack Galamiche at then KETC was a man who saw what had to be done. Tim Eby, who had been chair of NPR, was the new leader at St Louis Public radio. He had sponosored the project that had all the stations in the NPR system look into the digital future. It is my experience that without the right kind of leadership at the top, traditional organizations have no chance.

The second was having the right kind of context. What would success look like? What could be the goal and so what then was the work to get there.

This was the context that we worked from. I think that any traditional organization can look at these slides and find a goal and so a path for themselves - provided that the leader wanted to do this AND could bring their board along too.

You will see that at the heart of this work is a shift in culture. There is no harder work. You will also see how, if you can agree to make this shift, how you then schedule work to help you make the transition. For we cannot change our culture by an act of will. We can only acquire new habits. We have to work our way into the new.

Culture map copy from Robert Paterson

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Co Working will be part of your future

(Source)

If you want to find out what the real new network economy is all about - Join a Co Working space like Scrib

If you want to know why - Read my new Book - You Don't Need a Job

How to help your entrepreneur sons and daughters?- Help them join a co-working site

 

If you have not met me - this is what I look and sound like.

In this short video I talk about why the more innovative children do so badly at school. They don't fit into a culture of obedience. I talk about how on PEI, where I know many of the entrepreneurs few did well at school. Many did not even graduate. But many had help - from older entrepreneurs. 

Is your son or daughter one of those that do not fit in to school? Mine were.

They are not "bad" kids. They are in fact our best hope. My advice - help them to connect with others who have been though this. One way they can do this is to join a co working space. Here is the link to a global directory. These exist in many cities. On PEI there is the Queen Street Commons. Link Here. 

Co working sites are full of entrepreneurs. They are the embodiment of the real new networked economy. They are not expensive and welcome the young. Once a member in one, you can get a pass to visit others all over the world. 

The new New World is reaching out to your kids. 

More on this in You Don't Need a Job

Queen St Commons - Leaving my "Meme Baby" behind

One of the new age mantra's is "Letting Go". I have been letting go of our lovely place here on PEI. Letting go of much of our stuff. It's hard. But next week I let go of one of my Meme Babies, and this is hard.

The Queen Street Commons is one of the earliest co working sites in the world. Dan James, Cynthia King and I founded it in a moment of intuitive madness back in 2005. I have been its chair for 3 years and next week I give up my role as chair and become the most junior of members - a non resident Network Member. 

But I leave it as a parent does when they have a grand child. There is a special love for a child that now has taken up the full role of being an adult and that gives new life to others. I know this feeling well as both my real kids have their own children now. So I know that how I feel about the QSC as it moves on playing such a role in the life of PEI.

What a wonderful Tribe it has become. What a proud grandpa I am. How fortunate!

 

PEI now has a Local Crowd Sourcing Platform - Bootstrap #crowdfunding

Do you live on PEI? Do you have a small amount of money to raise? Do you have a community that will support you?

Then Bootstrap can help

One of the lessons of the PEI Indiegogo deals is that most of the support comes from locals and all the money is Canadian. Another is that many financings here will be for smaller amounts of money.

Matt Sullivan has built a local tool to address these issues. 

• It is in Canadian Dollars
• Aimed at PEI and later at any small community like ours
• Designed for modest amounts

Called Bootstrap - you can find out more by going to this address and you can see the first beta deal for the Inspired Farmers here. 

StartUp Canada comes to PEI Next Week - Why you should care

Want a job? Worried that your kids will have to leave PEI to get work? Worried that your kids wont come back to PEI because there is no work for them? Losing your job soon? You are the Premier and want to increase PEI's population to 150,000 and offer more work to do this?

The reality is this. Start Ups are THE engine for jobs and immigration.  Here is the data:

The study reveals that, both on average and for all but seven years between 1977 and 2005, existing firms are net job destroyers, losing 1 million jobs net combined per year. By contrast, in their first year, new firms add an average of 3 million jobs.

“These findings imply that America should be thinking differently about the standard employment policy paradigm,” said Robert E. Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation. “Policymakers tend to focus on changes in the national or state unemployment rate, or on layoffs by existing companies. But the data from this report suggest that growth would be best boosted by supporting startup firms.”

Because startups that develop organically are almost solely the drivers of job growth, job-creation policies aimed at luring larger, established employers will inevitably fail, said the study’s author, Tim Kane, Kauffman Foundation senior fellow in Research and Policy. Such city and state policies are doomed not only because they are zero-sum, but because they are based in unrealistic employment growth models.

An outcome that I look forward to by the end of this week is that we shift our focus to supporting Start Ups and understand what this means. 

Here is the calendar of events next week in support of StartUp Canada's Visit

Here is the link that will take you to each event.

If you are a micro entrepreneur - I invite you to join an event just for you at the Queen Street Commons on Tuesday May 8 at 6pm - details are here

 

How to live in tight money times - Share!

My pal and fellow Queen Street Commons member - John Morris - was checking to see the best price he could get for heating oil. Working with Kenmac, and using his PEIInfo platform,  he offered out a group deal. At least 70,000 litres have signed up so far. Details here.

At the Queen Street Commons we are also exploring a "Lending Library" for business. We have ourselves a digital projector. What might all our members have? What would it be like to get $10 a day for your projector or $5 a day for your flipcart? On the other hand what would it be like to get the use of these things for this kind of price?

Daycares often have Toy Libraries and have marts for buying and selling big items such as Strollers. Airbnb enables us to share where we live. 

The principle is that until now, we all had to buy the big ticket items ourselves. Even Oil! Now we can group buy or rent. All win.

What do think would be the ideal conditions to do more of this?

Ultra Small Business - Our Future

Here is the reality of employment on PEI - so when we talk about more jobs etc here - might it not make sense to get behind who we really are?

70% of PEI businesses have less than 5 employees.

Most earn less than $250k and a lot less than $100K - they earn a "Living"

A lot are self-employed.

So why not get behind this sector? There is also a global trend in play here. More and more people choose to be self employed or to run a very small business.

 

 

 

What would an economy look like if it was based on a Network Model? Here is a Vision of PEI in 20125

Here is the front page of ann imaginary magazine in 2025 looking at PEI. It tells the story of how PEI transformed itself by adopting a Network Model. After the front page, I attach a pdf file.

I think tnat this is entirely possible - what do you think?

Here is the full piece in pdf  Download Net PEIfinal