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.

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

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!

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.

Point by Point

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.

No Hard Sell

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.

…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.

The San Antonio chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) held their annual board retreat in our community space. This is a great example of how the space at C4 Workspace can be used. The shared desks were rearranged to form a large “U” shaped meeting table and the group used the different spaces like the lounge and conference room for breakouts. Check out the pictures below.

Make us your First Friday headquarters! We’ll be open with beverages and victuals from 5-9 pm.

That’s all. 

I’m going to use a little Spidey sense here and guess that when you come downtown you dread the cost of parking. Is that you?

Well, one cool thing about C⁴ Workspace is that our parking is FREE! Not $10! Not $8! Not even $5! FREE!  How do we do it? Well, we have nothing to do with it actually.

We are out of the main downtown parking melee, thank goodness. But for you skeptics, here’s the deal.

We have four parking options:

• Out in front – We have a free, non-metered, 2 hour zone on the street in front of us. We spoke to Camelia the Parking Enforcement agent for our area. Her main beat is the Courthouse and when she is here she is looking for scofflaws (3 or more tickets) not parking violations. (Her supervisor sends her over here just before her lunch break when things are slow at the Courthouse.) She is not in the area long enough to write parking tickets. She DOES have a cool Tricorder thingie that reads your VIN number; we think it has GPS (and maybe a phaser built in.) Debbie and I park in front everyday, all day and have never gotten a  ticket. So, don’t sweat it.
• Around the park – There is both free 2 hour and no limit street parking around the King William Park triangle. The no limit spaces are occupied by 8 a.m. though by, we think, workers at the courthouse.
• Around the corner – There is free, no limit street parking down the block on Turner Street.
• In our parking lot – Yes, we have a FREE parking lot! We have limited spaces in the shared parking lot around the other corner at Madison and S. St. Mary’s. It’s a pleasant stroll past the storefronts on S. St. Mary’s. While you’re walking you can window shop for that perfect trinket at Blink or Tres Rebeccas. We would like to reserve the parking lot spaces for Full Time Desk residents but since most of us park in front there are spaces open.

So, that’s the deal. Parking is FREE. And most spaces are closer to the front door than you’ll ever be at the mall or at a downtown office.

Did we mention we have FREE parking?