better coworking, better business, and better communities
Beyond the buzzword, my take is that community is all about creating experiences where people feel trusted, safe, & supported.
This collection includes my full back catalog of articles about exactly how to start, grow, and nurture a thriving community.
A lot of us - community leaders and members alike - are feeling a very strange dual set of pains. On one hand, there’s a deep sense of isolation and “unstuckness” from both human contact and routine.
Continue ReadingI’m not going to be another voice harping on the value of hosting online events for our communities. You hopefully get that.
Continue ReadingIt was 1am after the closing party for the business conference I co-organize with my partner Amy Hoy. I stopped at the corner bar near my house to grab a night cap and collect my thoughts about the event, and why it had gone so smashingly well.
Continue ReadingBack in the spring I started riding a motorcycle to work. It was a dramatic improvement to my quality of life, but not without unintended (and surprising) side effects!
Continue ReadingA while back I got an email from someone working on starting a new coworking community in her rural town.
Continue ReadingHowdy readers! Alex here, with a very rare guest post on my site. This story is packed with valuable lessons (and a smart, fun, honest approach) that I wanted to make sure as many people saw as possible. So please read, share, and leave a comment!
Continue ReadingThis video is from a sit down conversation with my buddy Ryan Chatterton during a visit to Malaysia for my favorite coworking conference, CUAsia .
Continue ReadingOne of my FAVORITE talks I’ve ever given, in spite of it being so early in the morning, was at Creative Mornings Philadelphia.
Continue ReadingI’ll start by saying what community is not.
Continue ReadingThis question shows up more and more in my channels, especially from community staff that have been hired and are essentially inheriting a challenge of turning a room full of still relatively disconnected people into a dynamic, interactive community.
Continue ReadingIf you’ve ever been a part of a construction or renovation project, you know that there’s an “arc” of how things appear to be going.
Continue ReadingAs a rule I try not to link to FastCo and instead to the original research that they synthesize.
Continue ReadingEven though we’ve been working on this move for over a year, and even though construction has been going on for a couple of months, it didn’t really feel real until we put together this calendar to help us keep track of the next few weeks.
Continue ReadingI don’t have a problem with rules, I have a problem with creating an environment that creates rule-following machines.
Continue ReadingFridayAugust19th
Continue ReadingThe biggest question of the summer around Indy Hall is…when exactly are we moving? To be perfectly honest, it’s been tough on me and the team to keep giving vague answers like “in August…”
Continue ReadingThere’s this amazing video from Indy Hall’s 5 year anniversary party. People are reveling and reflecting. Some of them may have had a few drinks before the camera turned on. But I love it because it’s so honest, and a beautiful snapshot of what a coworking community can mean ...
Continue ReadingMy buddy Sean Fioritto has been craving a community of likeminded people in Chicago for a while, and he’s been struggling to find it.
Continue ReadingPhiladelphia is home to one of the largest internet providers in the country. So it’s not without irony – or controversy – that we don’t get any hometown love from our hometown provider.
Continue ReadingLet me save you from a hard-earned lesson in being helpful
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