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May 9, 2008

The continued rise of the home office

We hear a lot of buzz about the popularity of people working at home, but how prevalent is it? Here's a snapshot via answering a few questions:

How many U.S. Americans are working at home? 28 million at least part time in 2006.
Is that number growing? That's a 10% increase from the previous year and a 40% increase from 2002.
Do U.S. Americans have home offices? 7 out of 10 have offices or designated work stations, a 112% increases since 2000.
How important are home offices in new homes? Fourth, after security.

For sources to these findings, check out the NY Times article, The Office, Housebroken. Apartment dwellers should peruse the profile of Alessandra Gouldner's 2.5 x 4 foot workspace.

Sarah Susanka, author of the wildly popular Not So Big House series of interior design books, observes that many people often prefer working in nooks and spontaneous spaces (see all three photos) rather than in assigned rooms. The NY Times article also looks at the opposite spectrum, albeit those with a a much larger budget and need for status, thus fueling home office sections in retail stores.

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May 8, 2008

Q&A: How do you initiate a beta community?

It's the question I've lately been getting asked the most, so I thought I'd publish a response.

First of all, to clarify in the simplest terms, a beta community is the future group of tenants/buyers/customers for a place to be, involving crowdsourcing it into a community numbering in the hundreds. But how does it all begin?

It may help to explain where the millions of people initially came from to establish eBay, Facebook and YouTube - by providing a unique valuable service and allowing people to realize that the service becomes even more valued the more people they include. That's the viral loop, and a viral loop network occurs when people spark their own related groups. For example:

- YouTube allowed videos to be easily shared like never before. Users formed groups based on certain video publishers and topics.
- Facebook established itself at a single university allowing students to easily network with their peers like never before. Users formed groups based on other universities and companies.
- eBay provided access to great deals that couldn't be found anywhere else. Users formed groups based on unique interests.

What's the unique valuable service that could be applied to crowdsourcing a place? Let's take a nightlife-oriented commercial district that is looking to improve on its sparse day scene - here're then benefits it could offer future 'customers':

- Meeting fellow dayworkers that provide social well being to overcome an isolated lifestyle.
- Gaining recognition for helping a local independent business, something people are very passionate about
- Making a real, tangible, measurable difference in one's neighborhood
- Identifying business opportunities that would otherwise not be utilized
- Feeling a true sense of community
- Having the ability to establish daytime groups of common interests that meet at daytime venues, and allow them to be open to other beta community members
Invitations to exclusive events
- Exclusive access to meet with the business owners (monthly fireside chats)
- Exclusive access to knowledge worker/cultural creative calendar of events
- Exclusive opportunity to win a free dinner for two to a designated restaurant each month, and receive neighborhood recognition for contributing 'the most' to a local independent Adams Morgan (priceless)

Once you have the valued service, you can even start the beta community with your own friends. The founders of Brewtopia did just that with 140 of their friends when crowdsourcing their beer selection, and wound up with a supporting community of 10,000 in a few weeks.

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May 7, 2008

The 'creative treehouse'

If you're looking for an affordable, creative place to work or hang out, you're in luck if you live in Pittsburgh, or more precisely, Bellevue, Pennsylvania, 4.5 miles from downtown Pittsburgh. That's where you'll find the Creative Treehouse; a 7500 s.f. arts-oriented coworking space. The key ingredients? An inexpensive lease in a developing neighborhood.

The membership-structured (starting at a mere $25/month) space features:
- A creative service center that will allow businesses to network with member artists (the coffeehouse/coworking scene, as pictured);
- Multi-purpose facility for public art displays, gatherings and even live music (essentially a large open room);
- Photography studio with darkroom;

Also, members are allowed to:
- Organize events;
- Host and attend workshops and classes;
- Be included in group showings,
- Update their online profile accessible to businesses and other members.

Events include 24-Hour Creative Marathons (e.g. publish a comic book), NY-style dance parties, and collaborative world happenings like the May 10, 2008 Pangea Day where 24 user-created films are shown simultaneously around the globe.

Open since June 30, 2007, the Creative TreeHouse has plans to expand to other cities (undetermined) in the future, which is expected since it fits the MySpace-oriented viral loop model of customer-motivated replication. As owner Jesse Hambley puts it, who founded the Treehouse as a 23 year-old independent photographer, designer and video editor, "It's like MySpace in a building."

Thanks to Christian MacAuley of Fab Apps for the reference!

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May 6, 2008

'Workforce housing' and why local businesses want it

Imagine if half of all your employees suddenly couldn't afford to live conveniently near your workplace? Many of them would leave rather than spend two hours of their daily lives in traffic or transit. Of course you'd replace them, but you wouldn't be attracting the same level of talent, then naturally, your customers would gradually realize the same.

Thus local businesses today are advocating for more 'workforce housing' - housing that is attainable to working families earning between 60%-120% of the median income for the area, and typically unsubsidized, as defined by real estate industry representative Urban Land Institute.

The following survey results of local businesses (this one in New Orleans) reflects a growing national concern, a result of a peaking perception that more square footage is better.

- 71% said the lack of workforce housing negatively impacted their business;
- 65% considered the need serious;
- 42% felt developer incentives would increase the supply;
- 33% proposed public-private partnerships as the answer.

Myriad solutions are provided for such a pervasive issue, but the most logical lies with the fact that the average area of living space per occupant in the U.S. was 290 s.f. in 1950 and is 939 s.f. today. So maybe the answer isn't how do we build affordable 1200 s.f. homes, but how do we make 'not so big' cool again.

Image source: The equivalent of workforce housing in Munchen, Germany, by rondelro

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May 5, 2008

Carbon footprint per passenger mile

For those of you wondering what the carbon impact is between walking, riding and driving, the folks at the Sightline Institute, a nonprofit sustainability research center, provides an answer with clarity.

Some insights from the graph:

- You can't get much greener than a walkable community.
- It's easy to see why SUVs get such a bad rap, though a solo hybrid is no better than a 3-person SUV carpool.
- It's easy to see why hybrids get such good press, though that's only when it's compared to other cars with the same number of passengers.
- The best way to calculate carbon impact per car passenger is to divide the carbon impact for a solo driver by the number of passengers.
- A 4-person carpool is greener than transit only if everyone else is 4-person carpooling as well. In other words, an infrastructure that allows a 4-person carpool is going to attract ten times as many solo drivers.
- You can't get much greener than a walkable community. Worth repeating. Even more worth executing.

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