Last Wednesday, we held an amazing event with leaders from five of NYC’s best Co-Working Spaces. With the help of Jesse Podell, we were able to get the inside scoop on the recent rise of co-working from the founders and leaders of New York’s hottest co-working spaces: Benjamin from Grind, Marissa from Green Spaces, Jason from Alley, Tony from New Work City and Ted from We Work Labs.

Where were you before this? What made you decide to start/working for a co-working space?

Marissa Feinberg (@marissafeinberg):  I was working in social design. The Green Leaders Global group I organized enabled great dialog on sustainable topics.  We wanted a place to meet and work alongside one another every day, which led to the development of Green Spaces.

Ted Kramer:  I was working at a startup called Efficiency 2.0, and last spring we had our exit.  I loved the idea of working with startups and acting as a mentor to them.  Being able to share my experiences and expertise was very attractive.

Jason Saltzman (@SaltzmanJason):  I have been an entrepreneur my whole life. I worked mostly in different verticals such as real estate and marketing, but hated it. Made a ton of money, but I lacked a real sense of purpose in my life. Through one of the many businesses we created, my business partner Jonathan Ende thought it would be an awesome idea to destroy paperwork.  With the financial backing of a commercial real estate attorney, David Galanter, we started Seamlessdocs. When we started pitching the product in NY, we noticed a huge gap in the co-working market in Midtown. The area is prime for taking business meetings, and through validating the market, we knew we could get it done. I jumped on it and started marketing the space. That was one year ago, and now we are completely full and in the process of negotiating for more space.     

Benjamin Dyett (@BenjaminDyett):  My story is one originally rooted in necessity. Before I started Grind with my partners, I was a real estate investor and lawyer. I was just like any one of our Grindists, working for myself and in need of quality workspace. One day while working out of a windowless, dreadful, office at a business center in Manhattan, I became fed up with the space operator. I marched back to my closet of a workspace and cranked out a business model on Excel for what, a year and a half later, would become our first Grind location.

Who is the typical person that walks into your co-working space?

MF:  An entrepreneur with an idea to make our world better.

TK:  Someone who has a particular skill set but knows they can’t do it all on their own.  WeWork’s goal is to empower entrepreneurs with the tools to succeed.  We do that through our facilities, community, events, and diverse group of support staff.

JS:  AlleyNYC has an very diverse startup community. When vetting the people that apply to our membership program we do not care about how much money you make, or who your investors are, we care about you. We care about how collaborative you are, and if you’re an awesome person. We hate douchebags; we leave them at the door.

BD:  Grind is full of what we like to call ‘free radicals,’ who would rather work in a community than a company. We’re a members-only workspace, but that’s not because we’re elitist. We carefully curate our community in order to create and maintain a collaborative environment, not a competitive one. Our members tend to be slightly more experienced than your average coworker. For example, if they’re working on a startup, it’s not their first but rather their second or third company.

What is it that makes NYC special?  Why did co-working explode here, and is it replicable in other cities?

MF:  Our city is among the greatest in the world. It’s a city of people who love meeting new people. And people who are from somewhere else. Everyone is looking to make friends. Coworking enhances the incredible connections and serendipities of life.

TK:  To me, NYC has the most diverse community of businesses in the world. There is always a group of people working in your industry or specialty. That is what makes it such a special place to work in.

I think co-working has exploded because people have such diverse interests.  NYC is known for it’s hustle, and because of that, co-working embraces people who are working on multiple projects, ideas, and companies.

JS:  I feel that co-working is very special in NYC. Entrepreneurs are very like-minded here, and I feel there is a new movement in collaboration. We are the smartest, most driven people in the world, and we realize collaboration inspires innovation.  We embrace it, and that’s what makes co-working such a huge success in NYC. As far as replicating this, it would be much like replicating a sitcom. There are others, but they simply can not be the same.

BD:  NYC is one of the most diverse cities on the planet, making it a natural hotbed for coworking and collaboration. I don’t think you can necessarily replicate the exact energy we have here in New York, but coworking is clearly already a global phenomenon. Aside from the cities themselves, it’s the advancement of technology that has really helped accelerate this movement. Being able to connect to anyone in the world wherever and whenever you want, allows us to work out of spaces like Grind and be our most productive.

Many resources have popped up in the last year for people who may want to transition out of corporate life and into startup life (or individual work), what resources have you seen that are effective, and what is missing?

MF:  Skillshare offers incredible classes and training for people to flex the muscles they’d like to use.

Terrific conferences and unconferences exist for people who have a few days to spare and want to become immersed in an industry and get inspired.

Networking events throughout the city are available any night of the week, allowing people to dip their toes in the water.

I would like to see a platform for startups to access courtesy advisor services from people in the corporate sector.

TK: I find that co-working spaces offer the best value because they provide all the overhead that someone who wants to focus on their business requires. The big challenge is having the proper people who can advise you without trying to pull change from your pocket all the time. Having a great community manager and support staff is important for any co-working space.

JS:  Any resource that allows an entrepreneur assistance in the growth of their business. Resources that provide affordable solutions, so people can build their business quick, and pivot around what works and what doesn’t.  Right now in the startup world, we are very limited to large corporate resources, such as hardware resources, etc. I feel that a large corporate organization has to be very forward-thinking to help startups, since the ROI might not happen until a later time.  Large organizations should get more involved and help us grow; if they don’t, we will destroy them through disruption.

BD:  There’s a plethora of resources, including collaborative workspaces, that help people transition out of corporate life, but they’re not as important as one particular, intangible necessity. It’s all about the drive of the person who is trying to change his or her career path.No amount of resources can replace an individual’s desire and passion to pursue an idea or start the company of his or her dreams.Without that dedication and commitment, you might as well quit before you even start.

December 19, 2012 10:20 a.m.

 For a generation of workers who grew up connecting online, striking up a casual workplace conversation is harder than it seems.

Enter Flockd, a startup that provides 3.8-inch-high, dry-erase pyramids that sit on a desk to indicate when a person is available for a chat. The pyramids serve the same function as Gmail colors that indicate when someone is "free" or "busy."

Flockd, which has landed deals to sell its $5 pyramids to companies including a subsidiary of office furniture giant Steelcase, is one of a handful of new firm finding business models in the movement to help plugged-in people unplug.

"While technology is doing amazing things for us in so many ways, we're still human beings, and the real world still exists in analog," said Tony Bacigalupo, co-founder and mayor of five-year-old New Work City, a co-working space that uses Flockd pyramids. "The more we get wrapped up in our online world, the more desire grows for better, healthier, authentic offline real-life interaction."

Josh Auerbach, CFO of betaworks, a Manhattan firm that invests in and helps grow high-tech startups, points to the dozens of e-commerce brands that set up temporary brick-and-mortar "pop-up" shops in Manhattan for the holidays as another example of the trend. Familiar online names including eBay, Etsy and Web-based clothier Everlane have increasingly been doing some of their work offline.

Other companies are organizing intimate gatherings where customers mingle with advertisers. Intended to provide face time for online-only brands, the events also help to bring in more ad revenue.

Shouting over the crowd

"Companies are looking to get noticed, stand out—basically shout over the noise—and right now in-person events and physical spaces are a pretty good way to do that," said Mr. Auerbach.

Digital media firm PureWow, a 23-employee Manhattan company whose lifestyle newsletter, website and social-media outlets attract about 1.5 million 30- to 54-year-old females across the country, has found that events are important to building a sense of community among its members.

The company, which is profitable, recently invited more than 200 Dallas-area bloggers and readers to a launch party that was sponsored by liqueur brand Baileys. The party, which generated a pile of content for the company's site, led to a second Baileys-backed event, this time held in Manhattan with a mix of local entrepreneurs and PureWow readers.

"For us, it's brand awareness," said PureWow CEO Ryan Harwood, who said his company's revenue is in the mid-seven figures. "We're showing our audience that we're real—where they can see our editors and where we see our readers and we can build a bigger sense of community."
Membership for 2012 is up four times over last year.

Combining online and offline

A strategy that combines online and offline might be the most powerful, according to new research from Active Network, a San Diego firm whose Web-based software helps clients such as Bike New York and the New York Stock Exchange organize events. According to a November report, 99% of the 500 consumers surveyed took action offline—such as attending a charity or social event or participating in a sport—as a result of interacting with a Facebook or Twitter connection online.

"The common irony is that people are more active on social networks than in their personal lives," said Kristin Carroll, vice president of corporate and consumer marketing at Active Network. "Within social networks, there is opportunity to motivate people to do things they otherwise wouldn't."

To that end, Flockd's co-founders are debating whether to create a smartphone app that somehow ties in with their pyramids and their Facebook and Twitter feeds. In the meantime, the company is hiring salespeople and hoping to expand into more shared workspaces, high-tech firms and, eventually, public spaces such as coffee shops, universities, hotels and airports.

"The co-working movement is doubling each year," said co-founder Marissa Feinberg, who is also a founder of Green Spaces, an eco-minded co-working space in Manhattan with revenue of under $1 million.

Mr. Bacigalupo says conversation has spiked in his office since the introduction of the pyramids. "What Flockd does is give people a way to sort of easily bump into each other in ways that they might not have otherwise," he said. "It lowers the barrier for people to meet each other."

Correction: PureWow is a digital media firm. The company description was misstated in the summary for an earlier version of this article, published Dec. 19, 2012.

Read more: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20121219/SMALLBIZ/121219899#ixzz2GBWSg039

Each downloadable PDF will answer the questions: “Why does a changemaker need to know about any given subject?” and “When in the first 12 months does she or he need to be focusing on this particular subject?”

SIC has lined up an amazing group of contributors, each of whom is a leader in the social change space in their given field. Click on their name for their profile in our directory. SIC has also linked to each of the contributors’ companies so you can learn more.

Contributors:

Andrew Greenblatt, CEO of Vendorboon

Amy Hartzler, Studio Director at Free Range Studios

Andy Fyfe, B Lab

Andy Smith, Co-author of Dragonfly Effect

Aria Finger, COO of DoSomething.org

Carly Leinheiser, Esq., Perlman & Perlman, LLP

Deroy Peraza, Co-Founder of Hyperakt

Freeman White, CEO and Founder of Launcht

Ian Fisk, Executive Director of The William James Foundation

John Rooks, President of The Soap Group

Lee-Sean Huang, Strategist and Designer at Purpose

Marissa Feinberg, PR expert, writer for Forbes.com, Co-Founder of Green Spaces

Mark Randall, Founder of School of Visual Arts’s Impact! Design for Social Change

Matthew Klein, Executive Director of Blue Ridge Foundation

Rob Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of CauseVox

This is a great piece by Pedro Hernandez! Thanks so much for mentioning Green Spaces : )

Prosperity Rides

A dusty, road-worn bike with curved metal handlebars and grease-coated gears. What does it sound like to you? A weekend activity to feel the wind in your hair? For me, it’s a perilous way to risk my life with the NYC traffic monster – shh, I happen to be a klutz.

As many know, in parts of Africa, access to a bicycle is the difference between getting medical care for your child or not. It’s how you collect food, clothing, and household items your family needs from a far-off market. Or the only way to access clean water.

For others, bicycles can do even more than that! I love the idea that, after the bare necessities are met, the human spirit’s creativity always finds more ways to make life better. Given the opportunity to own a bike via microcredit, the villagers I learned about become entrepreneurs whose mini-enterprises made their family’s lives and health better AND added tremendous value to their community.

Isn’t that just exactly what every entrepreneur should aspire to?

Green Spaces member Molly Burke is co-founder and Executive Director of Bicycles Against Poverty (BAP). Right now, she’s in Uganda doing participant evaluations, surveying new areas the nonprofit could service, and talking to local leadership to pave the way for BAP’s microcredit program.

In East Africa, specifically Northern Uganda, lies the Gulu District. It’s war-ravaged but stabilizing. Most residents live on less than $1 per day; many are displaced from their homes, unable to farm and easily access life’s necessities.

Recognizing the tremendous economic value bikes provide these villages, BAP created an effective microcredit system to deliver them. The organization selects participants carefully to ensure the model will work, and every person who receives a bike on microcredit learns from two community-led workshops: one on microcredit management and savings, the other on bike repair.

Two grants from the Clinton Global Initiative later, two-thirds of BAP bike owners have increased their income. More than 90% regularly now save money. Most often, villagers share bikes with the community, pay back according to plan, and value and respect the program.

Enough Praises! Let’s Bounce

Before Molly left for Africa, a Green Spaces’ Idea Bounce was her sounding board to prepare for an exciting campaign BAP has coming up.BAP’s founder, Muyambi Muyambi, will bike across the country to raise funds and awareness, and Molly asked us for input on the best ways to maximize engagement and connect with supporters across the country, AND keep them interested after the journey’s over.

Green Spacers addressed it as a marketing issue and suggested that BAP target people who identify with the cause. Meaning, get in touch with cycling enthusiast groups, get them to see the value of a bicycle in a new way, and ask them to participate. Go grassroots and activate networks already built in; BAP began at Bucknell, a school that has strong alumni groups across the country. Brown, Cornell, and Skidmore also have BAP programs.

Help More Low-Income Entrepreneurs Serve Their Communities

And then there’s those of us interested in social ventures, and in putting our money and work in efforts that are charitable but also perpetuating. Social entrepreneurs and their networks, at BAP’s service! Let’s alert our friends with philanthropic pockets too and try to make a difference.

Did we win you over? The campaign’s New York City event will, of course, be at Green Spaces on September 6, 2012. It’s a great cause and I know you want to meet Molly. At the very least, BAP and the new entrepreneurs it creates are incredible inspiration to all of us who work to support ourselves and impact our community. Let’s ride!

Green Spaces is New York City’s sustainable coworking space for startups, entrepreneurs, and others who like to work happily while improving the world. Members and guests from diverse and overlapping fields make us NYC’s networking hotspot for the eco-minded. I’m Marissa Feinberg, Green Spaces co-founder, PR and marketing media whisperer, and rapid dot connector. See my recent interview about Green Spaces on Mashable.

Idea Bounce goes digital

Each Wednesday, members gather for the Green Spaces “Idea Bounce,” also known as “startup therapy with dumplings,” to share news and fun facts. Then, one person or company (sometimes a member, sometimes a guest) introduces a challenge they’re facing. The group bounces ideas, recommending strategies and contacts. I’m sharing some of what we come up with on this blog.

More on Green Spaces in New York and Colorado:
Web // Twitter // Facebook

Laura Grasso, content strategist + writer and Green Spaces New York member, contributed to this post.

Hank Fieger’s in his third. He’s an executive coach with a 30-year client repertoire of over 1,000 executives from 20 countries and several major corporations. He wrote the book Behavior Change: A View from the Inside Out; Hank and his book advise you not how to behave, but how to discover your personal best way to break bad habits and do things better. With those successes behind him, he’s ready for the next challenge.

For his third act, Hanks wants US as the subject. Us, the young social entrepreneur crowd. The ones doing what we do because we want to add value, not just make money. We’re a cohort he hasn’t fully engaged. I met Hank at this year’s Conscious Capitalism conference and YouthTrade celebration, and I invited him to come to Green Spaces to bounce ideas about how to reach people like us.

The Bounce

One of Hank’s specialties is teaching how to present your ideas in ways that affect the hearts and minds of your audience. And truly, it isn’t messaging that will challenge Hank’s break into a new market -- I think that by word three of his introduction, we were all pretty sold on the value he can bring. So, he seeks help on the practical side of reaching people who want to change the world with their work. Green Spacers, take it away!

A given: It’s got to be affordable and fast.

Hank’s desire to give back after the success of his career is behind the draw toward the social entrepreneur/conscious capitalism crowd. We startup founders with hearts are rarely short on passion or smarts, but we’re often a little cash strapped and harried for time, yes? We first suggested that Hank design a new “product” from the services he’s geared toward CEOs and executives; a version that lots of people can benefit from simultaneously for a cost that’s lower per head. It should be in turbo mode, harnessing the most of Hank’s expertise in a manageable amount of time.

ROI: Help us sell it to our bosses... or ourselves.

Not all of us social-minded business folks are our own bosses. Some of us have bosses whose favorite word is NO, especially when it comes to things like training. We wanted to see a case statement that shows the money people why Hank is worth the investment, especially for when Hank isn’t there to convince them himself. And even for us founders; we’ll take a little info on the return on investment for Hank’s help.

We’ll find you.

Some of us in small organizations recognize that our passionate, hardworking colleagues -- especially the youngest ones -- often lack the leadership, time management, and project management skills that would make them and the team most effective. These are exactly the skills Hank teaches, and we’re looking for them. As Odile Beniflah of Carpooling.com leaned over the conference room table and somewhat intensely put it: “I would find you. We need you. We never have time for anything!” In other words, make sure that new website and social web presence are searchable and findable.

Hank is interesting in leveraging social media, so we forwarded the advice Geri Stengel, founder of Ventureneer.com gave us at another Idea Bounce: pick one social media channel and master it. Better, delegate that task to someone else, because the true amount of time to create a workable social media effort is staggering.

The tools of evangelism.

Green Spacers thought the best route to the communities Hank wants to support is finding his “fans” and equipping them with what they need to spread the word and get him on board. To sum up: We proposed he create a package catered for this market that’s effective in time and funds. It’ll be findable and visible and boasts a credible web presence. And it comes with a little note that tells us and our leadership exactly why we need this now.

What Hank Gave Back

Hank didn’t take our ideas and bounce -- he stayed to give us all a mini session of his coaching.

As entrepreneurs, what’s our collective Achilles heel? Commonly, it’s our temptation to micromanage, coupled with a reluctance to delegate. In Hank’s words: “getting down on the dance floor when you should be up on the balcony.” But before you start letting go, you have to engage, enroll, and empower the people you’re delegating to using the story of your vision. A very convincing story of your vision.

Hank shared with us some speaking and presentation pointers on getting up at the front of the room with a plan and full confidence that people are going to “get” and support you.

• The audience is going to take between one and three points away from any presentation. No more. So choose your messages wisely, and begin with your end in mind.
• Create a hook. Right off, use a rhetorical question, a provocation or challenge, an anecdote, statistic, catchy metaphor, or even a juicy self-disclosure to captivate your audience.
• Be in your audience’s shoes. Seems obvious, but often forgotten. If you were in the room, what would you be thinking? What would you be skeptical about?
• Engage your listeners with vocal tricks. When people talk softly, they speak more slowly; when they’re loud, they talk quickly. Consider this in your own speech patterns and create modulations.
• You know that tendency when you’re speaking to put your weight on one foot and bend the other knee a bit? Don’t. Distribute your weight evenly. Take a stance.
• Use your elbow room. Lots of people velcro their upper arms to their sides when they present, weakening their gestures. Unstick those elbows and gesture openly, and use your hands to enumerate and emphasize.

And with a grand, open arm gesture, we thanked Hank for his time. Here’s to you, Hank, and to your life’s acts numbers three, four, five, and on...!

Green Spaces is New York City’s sustainable coworking space for startups, entrepreneurs, and others who like to work happily while improving the world. Members and guests from diverse and overlapping fields make us NYC’s networking hotspot for the eco-minded. I’m Marissa Feinberg, Green Spaces co-founder, PR and marketing media whisperer, and rapid dot connector. See my recent interview about Green Spaces on Mashable.

Idea Bounce goes digital

Each Wednesday, members gather for the Green Spaces “Idea Bounce,”also known as “startup therapy with dumplings,” to share news and fun facts. Then, one person or company (sometimes a member, sometimes a guest) introduces a challenge they’re facing. The group bounces ideas, recommending strategies and contacts. I’m sharing some of what we come up with on this blog.

Previous Idea Bounces:

The Fairy Godmother of Social Entrepreneurs -- Ventureneer.com

Launching a bicultural startup — Carpooling.com in the U.S.

On the future of angel investing — Mission Markets

More on Green Spaces in New York and Colorado:
Web // Twitter // Facebook

Laura Grasso, content strategist + writer and Green Spaces New York member, contributed to this post.

Jenny Blake, bestselling author of Life After College, life coach 

Nitika Chopra, YourBellaLife.com founder 

Annie Escobar, ListenIn Pictures co-founder 

Marissa Feinberg, Green Spaces co-founder 

Lara Galinsky, Echoing Green senior vice president, author

Julia Gazdag, HelloGiggles contributor, Women Working To Do Goodseries editor 

Natalia Oberti Noguera, Pipeline Fellowship CEO and Founder 

Xian Horn, Teacher, Writer, Positively Positive Blogger, Speaker

Christina Rasmussen, Second Firsts president and founder

Tammy Tibbets, She's the First founder and president

Jacquette Timmons, Financial Intimacy author, Financial Intimacy Conference creator

Sheryl Victor Levy, PHIL & Co. Digital Strategy Savvy Strategy founder 

Spread the Word

• Join #MoxieCamp this weekend! Transformational activities, red hot speakers & panels #socialchange #socent #nonprofit bit.ly/LmznuL
• Step into your power & build a movement around your ideas at #MoxieCamp for female leaders bit.ly/LmznuL

The History of Moxie

Originally patented as medicine in 1876 by Dr. Augustin Thompson, by 1884 Moxie was bottled as our nation's first soft-drink and served at soda fountains for people who wanted to be endowed with "rugged individualism." It's still available from specialty soda vendors today, though now moxie is thought of more as a quality than a beverage. It is synonymous with being daring, having courage and taking risks. Hope to see you there!

NOTE This event is being promoted by Green Spaces, yet hosted off-site at the New York Insight Meditation Center.

Since we started The Daily Muse, we’ve spent a lot of time working virtually with our team, and we’ve done great work that way. From our editors who could be as far away as Denmark to our leadership team who travels (a lot), being virtual made a lot of sense.

But recently, we moved into a co-working space called StartupHQ in San Francisco, and I discovered some of the unexpected benefits of being in person. If your company is still small and getting your own office seems like a budget line item you can’t afford, here are five reasons to consider a co-working space.

1. You Cut Down on Email (a Lot)

I love email as much as the next woman does, but sometimes it can get a little out of hand. I never realized how much email traffic was being generated just keeping people in the loop, until I could look up and share a thought or idea with the team instead of busting out my laptop. It’s also been easier to keep the whole team involved in projects (or at least aware of them) when we’re all in the same space.

2. Instant Sales Leads

We work in a space with dozens of other companies. By meeting them and learning about their products, we’ve started to do business with many of them. In some cases, we’ve become their clients (we now use Xero, a cloud accounting solution), and in others, our deskmates have wanted to work with us. If you offer services to other companies, co-working can be a great source of sales leads, and you really can’t beat in-person customer service over coffee.

3. More Down Time for Bonding

Lunch. Coffee. Happy Hour. These are some of my favorite times with The Daily Muse team, and moving to StartupHQ has increased the frequency of our team events significantly. I’ve also learned how to make delicious lunches in mason jars from Niki, and started to make improvements to my wardrobe (read: free start-up t-shirt + jeans) thanks to Adrian.

4. Amenities You Couldn’t Otherwise Afford

Once your company gets to a certain size, you’ll likely start looking for office space. But as many founders of early-stage companies know, budgets can be tight, and when choosing between a kitchen in your tiny office and a marketing budget, you’ll often go for the latter. Co-working has been great for us because we get access to a fully stocked kitchen, a lounge area, and lots of conference rooms—without breaking the bank.

5. New Ideas

Anyone who knows me knows that I like to brainstorm. But that’s a lot harder to do alone. Being around my team means that we can riff of each other’s ideas and generate new, and often better, ones. Co-working has allowed us to have more serendipitous moments, and to better integrate sales, marketing, and editorial initiatives.

Learn more about co-working at Startup HQ at companymuse.com/startuphq.