This Thursday: Finish your %#&*@ drafts
Posted on 14. Oct, 2007 by Chris Messina in Coworking, Uncategorized, blog
It’ll be remarkable if I get this post out, but if I do, this Thursday, Oct 18, we’re having a get-together at Citizen Space to help others do what I’m doing right now: Finish your %#&*@ drafts!
As for myself, I’ve got countless blog posts that I started, worked on and then abandoned or just never got around to finishing. Heck, I even have a category on my blog called Untitled, unfinished, incomplete.
But, no more!
This Thursday the idea is to come together and peer pressure productivity. I’ll be providing some decent coffee (leaded and unleaded) and light munchies… you bring your laptop and a penchant for finishing what you started… ages ago.
I haven’t figured out how we’ll celebrate the work we get done that night, but presuming that it’s a success, you can rest assured that there will be all kinds of epiphanal blog posts making the rounds on Friday.
Plan to show up between 6:30pm and 7:00 and then working until 11 (or until your CTS kicks in. It’ll be a good time, one way or another.
Citizen Space mugs have arrived!
Posted on 06. Jul, 2007 by Chris Messina in Local News, blog
Thanks to the good folks at Right Sleeve, we’ve received our order of sweet mugs (inspired by Wishingline’s original mugs).
The mug design process was captured, where else, but on Flickr?
For now, Citizen Space tenants will be the first recipients of mugs — and a number will replace our janky IKEA mugs that had been serving us in the conversation room. The rest well… would be perfect additions to coworking spaces around the world!
Studio Critique: Boosting Creativity through better Feedback (full day workshop)
Posted on 15. Jun, 2007 by missrogue in Events, blog
Saturday, July 21, 2007 10:00 am PT – 5:00 pm PT
Citizen Space, San Francisco, CA
Cost: $99
Artists and designers rely on studio critique to understand how their work resonates with others. But it’s not just artists who need to bridge the inner worlds of creativity with their audience to improve and innovate, we all do.
This workshop is an inside look at studio critique. It is a hands-on inquiry about the fundamental human practice of feedback. Find out what’s entailed in creating a safe environment so that people will share what’s on their mind productively. Walk through an evaluation framework that allows diversity to flourish. The rigor of the approach accelerates innovation and boosts morale.
Learn for yourself the how of studio critique: be guided through a proven 10 step protocol for compelling evaluation and optimized outcomes. Come away with a clear and grounded approach to giving feedback at work.
Audience:
- Creative Teams
- Product Development Professionals
- Engineers & execs who want to learn to give better feedback
- Q&A teams
In the fast-paced world of technology, we may miss the nuances of feedback. Essential for any design team, especially non-designers.
Instructor:
A thought leader on creativity, Elle Yaven provides programs on emergent research from inside the art and design studio. She has a background as a painter and is on the Graduate Design faculty at California College of the Arts, San Francisco.
Elle has been a guest presenter on making thinking visible and the studio critique at Harvard, AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artists), The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, The Creative Problem Solving Institute and Innovation Immersion for Fortune 500, among others.
Visit her website: www.lindayaven.com
Net Tuesday with SlideShare and Scrapblog in Citizen Space
Posted on 29. May, 2007 by bbravo in Events, blog
Last month Citizen Space hosted NetSquared’s Net Tuesday with presentations by PulseWire and Not Just a Number.
This month our presenters will be Jonathan Boutelle, Co-founder and CTO of SlideShare, a rapidly growing site for hosting and sharing presentations, and Cindy Li, Director of Content for Scrapblog, an online scrapbooking website where you create a world for your pictures.
Come network and socialize with social changemakers and web innovators! RSVP on Upcoming or Meetup.
Refreshments are sponsored by City CarShare. City CarShare is a Bay Area nonprofit on a mission to provide convenient, affordable access to cars so that we can reduce individual car ownership” and improve the environment and quality of life in our cities.
About our presenters
Jonathan Boutelle was previously the software architect of MindCanvas, a ground-breaking research tool that uses game-like experiences for customer research. Jon likes building simple web applications that solve a real need, really well. Jonathan’s interests lie at the intersection of technology, business, and customer experience. He conceived of SlideShare while he was helping to organize Delhi BarCamp. Jonathan studied Computer Science at Brown University. He writes an occasional article on his blog,
Cindy Li will be introducing how Scrapblog can promote non-profit events using her last volunteer project as an example. The volunteer project started with her love of photography and was for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society’s 20th Anniversary Ball in Washington, DC.
Thanks for hosting us again Citizen Space!
Photo Credit: Cindy Li of Scrapblog and Jonathan Boutelle of SlideShare.
CoworkingIreland visits Citizen Space
Posted on 06. May, 2007 by Chris Messina in Coworking, Local News, blog
Paul Campbell from Ireland stopped into Citizen Space this past week on a fact-finding mission for CoworkingIreland. Here are his thoughts:
So I stopped into Citzen Space in San Francisco yesterday and I’m coming to the end of my second official day co-working, right where it all began. Chris Messina and Tara Hunt are the remaining occupiers of the office, but the place has been teeming the past two days.
I arrived in and after about 2 minutes of awkwardness I was at a desk, plugged in and good to go. I was more awkward that nobody actually acknowledged my presence – as though they were used to people walking in – and they are!
And so it’s pretty much exactly as you would expect. A couple of regulars, a couple of bedouins and an atmosphere that encourages collaboration and playtime, as well as serious business.
Antoin raised a few issues recently about the viability of co-working, and I got a chance to quiz Chris on some of them. From talking to him I got the impression that it’s important that there’s a ‘home team’ – Citizen Agency are such for Citizen Space and they handle the lease and deal with the landlord. Indeed, it’s important to have the landlord on your side – I feel, however, that co-working is actually an attractive proposition for a landlord – the ‘home team’ will generally be subsidised by the regular deskers and there’s generally a really good atmosphere.
Antoin also raised the point of office conflicts and deskers being protective of their business dealings and projects. Chris’s response to this is: deal with it, or go somewhere else. While I was there, several of the regular deskers were on calls, winning deals on large contracts for their businesses. There was a spirit of comradery and good will, rather than secrecy and remorse.
Regarding actually getting work done, there were often long periods in the office where banter would be high – I noticed Chris had a set of Shure EC3 headphones – headphones were donned by anyone who wanted to get some serious work done, including myself.
All in all, the experience and advice that I received was extremely rewarding. Citizen Space is right in there between the coffee shop and the conventional office, with all the good will and social activity of BarCamp to boot. I’m really pepped and looking forward to some good meetings next week to try and get a space off the ground in Dublin.
