Archive for 'Coworking'
We now have a Japanese UX Samurai at Citizen Space
Posted on 03. Feb, 2012 by Keisuke in Coworking, Internships, Japan, SOMA
What does Co-working, UX design, and Samurai’s have in common? Me, Keisuke Kajitani the new intern at Citizen Space. I’m a Japanese university student and I will start my career as a venture capitalist this coming April in Japan. Working in California is like a dream come true to me since the US is the mecca for entrepreneurship and venture capital.
Anyway, my first assignment as a intern was to give feedback on the user experience of a mobile application. Wow, commenting on a product’s UX in the first day of my internship!? I’m not a professional on the matter at all! However, my mentor knew how important it is to get an opinion from ”non-techy” users. After all, the customers who will use the application will mainly be normal people like myself.
I believe many app developers are wondering how to effectively get feedback more efficiently. When it comes to communicating with “non-techy” users, it becomes an even more difficult task. I have one suggestion, use a simple collaborative service like Notableapp from Zurb <http://www.zurb.com> . Why did I emphasized the simple part? Because many of the wireframing services has too many features that “non techy” commentator like me has no idea have to use it right. Notable is one solution for you. It allows commentator to just drag the part they want to make a comment and directly write comment on it intuitively. This simple experience will definitively reduce the stress of commentator.
If you have to create wire frames from scratch, Cacoo might work better. This web service from a Japanese team allows you to draw wireframe itself and what’s special about it is that the several people can edit the wireframe simultaneously, meaning the change or comment one person makes will reflect to other person’s screen. By using this service, two or more commentators
can have discussion at the same time, improving the quality and shortening the time and cost spent on the wireframing process.
http://youtu.be/IMC2QRH_gpU (checkout the video)
“Non-techy” users can sometimes be helpful so please use me anytime when you drop by Citizen Space. 
Follow all my adventures in the US here on our Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/citizenspace> page.
Freelance Senior Visual Designer Needed at Citizen Space SF
Posted on 14. Jan, 2012 by tobymorning in blog, Coworking, Designers, Developers, Internships, Jobs, San Jose, SOMA
The freelance Senior Designer will report to the creative director and art director and work alongside the account team, interaction designers and programmers. The successful candidate will be responsible for brainstorming creative concepts with the project team, developing original design concepts, executing designs based on established style guides, participating in visual design presentations to clients, developing detailed design specs for production, and overseeing junior design team members.
A stealth creative services company working in Citizen Space is looking for freelance Senior Visual Designers for short and long-term opportunities.
Requirements/Qualifications:
• Strong conceptual thinking
• Intimate Knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator
• 3-5 years of visual design experience.
• Strong leadership skills – ability to work with Art Directors and mentor Junior Designers
• A solid understanding of designing intuitive site functionality, interaction, site architecture, user interfaces, and navigation.
• Web development experience in an agency environment
• Great communications skills – both with internal teams and communicating with/presenting to clients.
• A great attitude – we value our creative talent tremendously and show it, but we operate a prima-donna free work zone.
Email us your resume, a link to your most recent portfolio, and your Linked In profile to be consider for this immediate position.
Check out ‘The #Coworker’ !
Posted on 24. Dec, 2011 by Matthew Hunt in blog, Coworking, SOMA
Happy Holidays, y’all!
As I’m sure you understand by now- I love social media….all of it! So, after many “maybe so” and “ok, tomorrow” type scenarios, I have finally just skipped the writer’s block merry-g0-round and created The #Coworker, a desktop and mobile formatted #coworking digest, powered by paper.li (@SmallRivers).
Check it out, & follow us on Twitter (@CitizenSpace) to keep up with the best, and freshest variety of coworking news!
2012 MOVE-IN SPECIALS, CITIZEN SPACE SF
Posted on 21. Dec, 2011 by jaymes in blog, Coworking, Local News, Newsletter, San Jose, SOMA
MOVE-IN SPECIALS FOR LAST WEEK OF DECEMBER 2011!!!
$999 – Lite Membership
Includes 3 months fees and deposit fee. Must pay upfront to secure this deal!
$1199 – Full Membership
Includes 3 months fees and deposit fee. Must pay upfront to secure this deal!!
$699 – Team Special
Includes 2 Tables/ 4 Memberships. Month-to-Month Deal
$425 – Café Membership Per Quarter/Receive Mail here!
Or $200.00, Drop-in Member Month-to-Month Fees
$150.00 – Drop-in Members – if you pay 3 months in advance
Or $200.00, Drop-in Member Month-to-Month Fees
So, if you’re interested in more information, or want to become a member before special ends, shoot me an e-mail! You can do that here: jhines@citizenspace.us
What exactly is an outstanding idea pitch?
Posted on 22. Nov, 2011 by Matthew Hunt in blog, Coworking, Designers, Developers, SOMA
So how, exactly, does an idea turn into a company? This is the road block that many entrepreneurs find themselves at when building their seedling ideas into profitable startups. Of course there are numerous prominent and successful startups that were born overnight. However, the problem for the average human being is that they cannot afford the time that it takes to guarantee success, and/or they lack the full range of skills necessary to build the startup entirely on their own — much less overnight.
The truth of the matter is that there is no possible way to establish a strong foundation for your new startup without a serious time commitment. Time, in and of itself, is most often one of the primary reasons that many entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts experience complication in the execution of the necessary planning stages of idea discovery. A lack of time and planning in the initial phases of this tedious process can often spillover into the actual development and long-term establishment of a new startup.
Participants at an "Idea Accelerator" pitch their initial ideas
Let’s face it: we’re all busy and things in this day and age move at a very high speed- and they’re only getting faster. Without the personal time and work commitment necessary for having a systematic and well-planned approach to the many “idea-to-seed funding” stages of building out your plan of action, you could easily see a great idea fall through.
Citizen Space recently had the great pleasure of hosting Startup Monthly‘s IceBreaker 3.0, which is was the third iteration of their Idea Accelerator program. The beauty of hosting events such as this in our SoMa #coworking space is that the transformation of office space by day to startup incubator activities in the evenings (and on weekends!) allows our members to participate in these types of networking and team building opportunities, with the option for doing so being literally right at their doorstep.
The purpose of these types of events is to have seamless collaboration between people that might not have otherwise met at all. It is in this type of environment that much of the discovery, planning, and development of new ideas takes place. Having both seen and facilitated the growth of brand new ideas into concepts and eventually startups in our space, we have learned the ins-and-outs of the crucial milestones that must be incorporated into the development process of new ideas, and can summarize success for many by one simple thing: teamwork.
Having said over and over again that time and commitment are crucial in the beginning stages of implementing your new idea, it is likely a very difficult thing to do it all quickly enough to keep up with the rapid development of new technology. Many entrepreneurs moonlight with their ideas, and exhaust themselves with trying to do it all on their own- even to the extent of taking on the self-teaching method to very difficult, complex coding languages.
Team Building is Essential to Creating a Successful Pitch
While this is definitely feasible for some people to do, the easier and more well-rounded option in this case is to build and foster relationships with other people who can bring something to the table as a technical, marketing, or business co-founder. Lessening the workload on each person by working with others in the teamwork approach not only increases the technical resources that the idea will have to build upon in it’s early stages, but will also decrease the amount of total time that it takes to pitch your idea to investors for seed funding.
It is important to also remember that as you build a team around your idea, it might not always be the “best” one. Having a team brainstorm together and build upon an idea can often lead to the development of brand new, even better ideas- and this is what we see often, particularly at events such as the IceBreaker 3.0.
So, when you’re at the point that you’re ready to move forward with seeing your idea come to life, remember this Japanese proverb: “None of us are as smart as all of us.”
Still have questions? Ideas? Tweet them to us @CitizenSpace!
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Citizen Space is the world’s first coworking space, located at 425 2nd Street in the SoMa district of San Francisco. The idea of Citizen Space is to take the best elements of a coffee shop (social, energetic, creative) and the best elements of a workspace (productive, functional), and combine them to give indie workers the chance to have their own, affordable office space. Citizen Space was built on the coworking philosophy. Our residents (past and present) range from: software engineers, web developers, social media consultants/strategists, graphic designers, product designers, public relations specialists, and sustainable web hosting entrepreneurs. Check us out today!
