Great snaps of the mixer by Nan Palmero from SalesBy5.
Nan will be reporting on SXSW so watch for his tweets, posts, checkins, etc.!
Thanks Nan!
Regina Villalobos, our genius PR goddess, got us booked on San Antonio Living this Wednesday at around 9:15 am. Watch for Todd talking the Pink Slip Mixer Talk and walking the coworking walk.
In case you missed it we’re having our second Pink Slip Mixer here at the space on Thursday, February 4 from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. It’s a networking event for mid-level and professional job seekers and recruiters and HR staffers.
Our first event was a great success with good feedback from both the candidates and the hiring type people. We’re looking forward to more of the same.
Are registered yet? Do know someone out there looking for a position? Well Register Right Now!
See ya there!
By day, a mild mannered coworking space.
By night, a groovy, hip happening place!
We wanted from the start to have events in our space. It connects us to the community, exposes people to our members and evangelizes coworking in general. We’ve been blessed with lots of great events since we opened. And we’ve made lots of new friends and new connections.
Here’s a summary of events for 2009. Keep up with our events at our Calendar page or on our Facebook Fan Page.
| C4 Workspace Grand Opening | Event |
| Southtown Chamber of Commerce meeting | Meeting |
| Astrology with AstroFish.net | Workshop |
| First Friday Open House | Event |
| Social Media Club – San Antonio | User Group |
| “King Corn” – Christa Emrick | Film Screening |
| AdFed San Antonio Board Retreat (Private) | Meeting |
| Southtown Chamber of Commerce Board | Meeting |
| First Friday at C4 Workspace Gallery | Event |
| Social Media Club San Antonio | User Group |
| 48 Hour Film Project Start Night | Event |
| 48 Hour Project Dropoff | Event |
| The San Antonio Independent Web Professionals Meetup | User Group |
| AIR-SA Advisory Board | Meeting |
| “Future of Food” – Christa Emerick | Film Screening |
| First Friday at C4 Workspace Gallery – Guest Artist Dick Davison | Event |
| Net Squared San Antonio | User Group |
| “One Bite at a Time Movie” – Christa Emerick | Film Screening |
| Pink Slip Mixer | Mixer |
| ActionCamp Post Party | Mixer |
| “Donato: King of the Vampire Drags” – Private VIP Screening: – Mary Harder | Film Screening |
| AAF – San Antonio Board Meeting | Meeting |
| First Friday: Home Brew Beer Tasting | Event |
| “Dairy Quite Contrary” ” – Christa Emerick | Film Screening |
| Walk A Mile Kickoff Mixer | Mixer |
| Moore Photography Workshop | Workshop |
| Free movie with Christa | Film Screening |
| Mosaic – Grant Writing Workshop | Workshop |
| First Friday at C4 Workspace Gallery – Guest Artist, James Hendricks | Event |
| Teach a Friend How to Brew Day | Workshop |
| PetPals Board Meeting | Meeting |
| Texas Media Empowerment / Local 782 – Paid vs. Earned Media panel | Workshop |
| AAF – San Antonio Board Meeting | Meeting |
| Baby Besos Boutique | Event |
| San Antonio Shakespeare Company auditions | Event |
| Thankful Tuesday Pot Luck | Event |
| ADDYs Student Workshop | Workshop |
| AAF – San Antonio Holiday Mixer | Mixer |
| Communities in School Breakfast Mixer | Mixer |
| First Friday at C4 Workspace Gallery – Guest Artist, Debbie Rourke-Smith | Event |
| Louise Hay’s “Heal Your Life” – Christa Emerick | Film Screening |
| TED 2006 documentary – Science Café Meetup | Film Screening |
| Solar San Antonio Installer Roundtable | Workshop |
The next two weeks are probably the most unusual in business. Heck, even for retailers this time of year isn’t like normal day to day operations.
C4 Workspace will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. If you need to get away from the retail insanity on Saturday the 26th (after picking up wrapping paper on deep discount) we’ll be open from 9 am to 1 pm as usual.
Next week we’ll be open Monday the 28th through Thursday the 31st from 8:30 am to 6 pm. And since New Year’s Day is on First Friday this year we’ll have our monthly First Friday Open House from 5 pm to 8 pm.
If you don’t have to work we hope you’ll enjoy the season and spending the time with your family and friends. We will!
It has been 3 months since our last New Member post and it’s about time!
We’re now over 75 members! And so diverse! Come on down and check it out if you haven’t before. You never know what will happen.
Here’s the latest! Welcome everyone!
Being a bike friendly business and being downtown we thought we’d pass this along. This came from our friend Lydia Kelly, Bicycle/Pedestrian Transportation Planner for the SA-BC Metropolitan Planning Organization.
The City of San Antonio has posted a survey on bicycling to work and/or bicycling downtown. If you ride downtown please consider filling out the survey.
Safe riding ya’ll!
Web Worker Daily put up this post afew days ago, Justifying Coworking As an Investment. It flashed across the coworkingverse like wildfire and it has some great points.
We’re always looking for information about coworking that we can share. But I thought it might be good to make this one relevant to C4 Workspace. So here goes.
WWD laid the post out in three points.
Step 1: Identify What You Have to Gain from Coworking
We like to think of these in terms of our name:
- Collaboration
- Cooperation
- Community
- Connection
Put those together and you have what we could call “opportunity investment.”
Step 2: Assess the Risks and Costs Associated with Coworking
WWD didn’t really address the “risk” part of that so we will. The biggest risk of coworking is that you will run into someone who isn’t about the community so much as about themselves. They could steal an idea or a client. This is a case of what I call the 99-1 rule. Don’t spend all you time planning and worrying about the 1% of worst case scenarios. Plan for the 99% you’ll run into and deal with the 1% when they come along. You are more likely to have an idea or client stolen at a coffee shop by someone you don’t know eavesdropping on your conversation. (We take the “Co-” in community seriously. If you need a private conversation speak more softly or use a one of the phone rooms.)Costs always have to be considered. It was one of the first things we thought of when we stated to think about opening a space: will people pay for professional workspace? We answered it in one of our initial presentation slides titled “Whadya Nuts?”. The answer is that as a small business or a freelance or solo you have no choice but to grow your business, especially in a down economy. To grow you will need to attract new clients and appear more professional than the next guy. That requires an investment in time and money.
You also have to consider what operating out of your home costs you now. You’re driving to meet clients. If you work (ethically) in a coffee shop you’re buying drinks and food. You’re paying for WiFi in some fashion. So, add up those hard costs for gas, drive time, WiFi, food and drink. You probably spend about $20 a day for little to no privacy, no connection to others, noisy meeting space and overpriced WiFi and beverages.
Coworking at C4 Workspace starts at $20 a day and goes down from there. Last I checked Starbucks didn’t give you volume discounts on lattes.
Step 3: Make an Informed Decision
Absolutely. The best way to do that is to “try before you buy”. Drop in on the Second Thursday for Jelly San Antonio all day free coworking. Better yet, just drop in and sit down. Talk to us about what you need and we can work something out. Remember, it’s all about the community. Essentially, everyone is a customer, a participant, a contributor. Even us.
Because it’s not necessary. Try coworking one day and you’ll be hooked. Yes, it costs money and money is dear right now. But if you are serious about your business and want to be a player in our economic ecosystem we think it’s an investment worth making.
What a great tagline for coworking! Solo, But Not Alone from Entrepreneur.com hits it on the head.
A few of my favorite quotes…
“The appeal of co-working seems clear: It provides people … a professional and social package that most alternatives can’t match”
“…what makes co-working alluring (is) the cooperative spirit and community vibe fostered by the people who populate those spaces.”
“Isolation…is an inconvenient byproduct of the concept of home-office convenience.”
“…the problem with working from home wasn’t just the distractions, it was the sense of physical and mental separation.”
Shared desk spaces like C4 Workspace are cropping up around the world. Coworking spaces have successfully connected small businesses with other small businesses. Businesses can’t grow without connection. Think hard and realistically about how well your existing network is helping your business grow. Wouldn’t an expansion of your network make your business grow even faster?
Does coworking just sound cool, but for you not so much? Are you afraid a fellow coworker will swipe some business from you? BTW, the antithesis of coworking. Are you shy and don’t like meeting new people? Are you afraid of downtown and all that parking hassle?
C4 Workspace was created to “build a sustainable professional community.” The community that works here loves it, but most people who think it’s “cool” have never tried it. If you’ve attended an event here that’s nothing like working in the space. Besides the jazz music in the background and keyboard clicks it’s pretty darn quiet. Parking is free. We’re one mile from the major highways downtown. The space (if I may say so myself) is the coolest looking office in town.
So, what’s up San Antonio? We’d like to know. Please leave a comment and tell us what you think.
…and of course Alan Weinkrantz for featuring C4 Workspace on the San Antonio Startup Blog.
We have been trying to coordinate with Alan for months now and we finally did it. Check out the walking tour.
