Social Capital & Cool Kids Clubs
The topic of social capital came up on the coworking google group today. My boy Trek, from Workantile, was cited for his usage of “social capital and debt” to determine which members might be not worth retaining.
I love Trek’s simple equation, it’s one I personally live by as well and has done well for me. In coworking, it manifests in lots of other ways, too. One thing we actively work on at Indy Hall is making sure it’s a place to DO work, not a place to GET work. Not to say that people can’t find or get work within a coworking space – in fact we all know it happens and happens a lot.
But members who show up with the express desire or need for work, for example, tend to find less of what they want. It’s like trying to withdraw from a new bank account that you haven’t made a deposit into yet.
On the other hand, the people who contribute before they take (make a deposit before a withdrawl) that get the most.
Teach a skill. Share a lunch conversation. Recommend a book or article. Simple stuff pays back 10-fold.
The Dark Side of Social Capital
All of that said, within social capital, there are also two kinds to consider and balance: bridging capital and bonding capital.
Bridging social capital is accumulated between heterogeneous groups, and bonding social capital is accumulated between homogeneous groups.
There are negative consequences of too much bonding capital:
- exclusion of outsiders
- burdons imposed on group members
- increased pressure to “fit in”
- a trend towards lowest common denominator social norms
Basically? Cool kids clubs are their own worst enemies, and many coworking spaces have the same problem.
Tricky, especially for guys like me who preach “build the club, then build the clubhouse”.
Luckily the antidote is simple: balance bonding capital with bridging capital.
Think of it like diversifying investments. You (and your members) want to diversify your social capital across the coworking space and it’s members – but actively encouraging people to invest their social capital in other neighboring groups as well is often overlooked.
Co-host a party with another group. Develop an event series with a bunch of partners. Invite cross-industry/community collaboration everywhere you can. Break those bubbles, get out of your comfort zones, and leave the treehouse once in a while.
Protip: this practice can start long before you open a coworking space.
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The Sweet Spot Between Business Partners
This post rang true of a comment that I’ve made many times about what to look for in a great business partner, and one of the reasons why I think it’s impossible to find a great business partner with the “speed dating” approach.
I met Geoff DiMasi after Indy Hall was already getting started – not as a workspace, not as a business, but as a community.
Geoff saw what I was up to, and we connected over my goals for the project – improving Philadelphia, improving our industry’s visibility, and making a difference in how work gets done.
I was green, too. I didn’t have a lot of business experience other than my solo practice. I had no experience in commercial real estate or rentals. And lets not forget – I was 22 years old with visible tattoos, piercings. I wasn’t exactly a shining example of confidence for a new business partner.
But Geoff saw past the exterior, and saw what I had already accomplished – and I think, what we could accomplish together.
All that said: I think the most important thing about the success of our working together is our differences.
Differences + Alignment = The Sweet Spot
Geoff and I don’t agree, we’re aligned. I believe the difference is one of orientation.
Alignment is something that comes with a deeper understanding of another person and empathy for the differences in their worldviews and objectives. Empathy doesn’t require that you agree with someone – it requires that you recognize their feelings and have the capacity to share. Those feelings may be emotions being experienced at a very specific time, but it also includes understanding another person’s general feelings about certain ideas, goals, etc.
As business partners (and team members in general), this is extremely useful.
When Geoff and I disagree, its a clue.
By acknowledging the disagreement, we can make sure that it’s not about ego and instead about the matter at hand. If it’s about ego, there’s a chance to let it go (or call the other person on it). If it’s not, we press on.
If you were to draw our opposing ideas as lines, they’d start as parallell lines.
We can trust our alignment to let us get through the disagreement, the lines start trending towards a center point.
Essentially, our alignment helps turn our disagreement into a divining rod for a “sweet spot”, an option I often refer to as “hidden option c”. When a disagreement is focused on the idea, the common place to end up is in whose idea is right or wrong, better or worse. Alignment helps us transcend our own ideas and look for “hidden option c”, a new conclusion that we can share.
This also reminds me of Steven Johnson’s theory in “Where Good Ideas Come From” that there’s no such thing as a single eureka moment, but instead the collision of two “slow hunches”, two half baked ideas, that need each other in order to be a complete (or more complete) good idea.
If Geoff or I didn’t work with our alignment, the only options we’d ever have at our disposal would be the result of our own approaches. By allowing our alignment to navigate us to the sweet spot, we uncover a new idea, often more innovative, than either of us could have easily had on our own.
If I look back at every project or company that I’ve been involved with that’s been successful and/or innovative, it’s included a partner or teammate with a differing viewpoint but an overall alignment towards a goal.
If you’re looking for a great business partner, teammate, or client – spend some time focusing on your alignment, rather than the idea itself.
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The only thing special about doers is that they do things
One of my favorite Philadelphians and human beings, Wil Reynolds, tipped me off on this post tonight.
Doers see something they don’t like, and do something to change it. Talkers see something they don’t like and tell everyone how much they don’t like it, but never do anything about it. Wishers see something they don’t like and tell themselves in the head over and over how much they wished things were different.
Doers attract doers. Talkers attract wishers.
Doers like to be around other doers. Being around people who not only want to change things, but actually change things helps the doers keep doing. Meanwhile, talkers tend to hang out with other talkers and surround themselves with wishers who will listen to the talkers talk about how they would change everything if they were in charge. This makes the talkers feel important and makes the wishers feel like someone else might actually change things for them.
I think one of the main reasons that Indy Hall is a nexus of doers is because it was started by doers – and I’m not talking about myself.
I’m talking about some of the most fantastic people in Philadelphia who chose to do it with me.
JFDI.
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It’s not about the pieces, it’s how the pieces work together
Inspiring words on designing experiences from…Ice Cube?
It’s not about the pieces, it’s how the pieces work together. You know, taking something that already exist and making it something special.
Update: The NY Times has a Q&A with Ice Cube about this video that’s pretty great too.
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Made by Hand – My Notes on Craft & Movements
Geoff turned me on to this remarkable series called “Made by Hand”, a Brooklyn-based film series covering the stories behind handmade objects and the people behind them.
The second short film in the series, follows knifemaker Joel Bukiewicz through his personal journey of becoming a craftsman. Like Geoff, I identified strongly with Joel’s story and took notes on a few themes that stood out to me.
“It doesn’t cost much to start – just time”
I’m a devout bootstrapper, for a lot of reasons including of my relationship with money. It’s not that I don’t have big ideas – believe me, I do – but I know that most of the time I can start with very, very little investment of cash and just a smart investment of my time.
“Cut yourself, burn yourself, fuck stuff up, you never make that mistake again”
While I’ve only bled once or twice for my work, I’ve felt the pain of a mistake. Mistakes are part of the learning process, so long as you’re learning from them and seeing the opportunity on the other side of the mistake.
“Once you become competent, maybe you have it in you to become an artist. Maybe you don’t. Mastery is the 10,000 hours it takes to get to day one. “
I’m still working on my 10,000 hours.
“…studios full of people just…doing shit that they loved to do. I didn’t realize that I could have a community – [...] it was like somebody turned the lights on.”
If it takes 10,000+ hours, why would you choose to do it alone once you knew there was an alternative?
The importance of a catalyst (Photographer for Edible Brooklyn)
Joel mentions the editor of Edible Brooklyn being the human catalyst for introducing him to the world outside his own door. Every success story contains this chapter. Every. Single. One. Who’s your catalyst? Who could you be a catalyst for?
“The currency is really rich in community [...] in friendships, doing what you want, quality of life.”
“Independence” isn’t much worth the effort if you’re doing it by yourself. Success doesn’t start – or stop – with wealth.
Being rich alone is still being alone.
“More than a community – a movement.”
It’s interesting to hear Joel describe a movement as another layer above “community”. It’s something I’ve said before but have always struggled to describe or qualify.
In Joel’s description, a “movement” describes larger changes that result in the converging of consumer & producer ecosystems. The textbooks define a “movement” as a coordinated group action towards a cause, but I don’t know if it’s always that deliberate.
“If there’s a movement, it’s in the future.”
This sentence was extremely resonant for me. In it’s essence, the idea that we’re not able to see these convergences around us as they’re happening…but we can see that they’re likely to happen.
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