Five months ago, I was excited to see the opening of the Gate 3 Work Club in Emeryville, CA.
I completely believe in the principles;
- people like to work from home – just not all the time
- people like to work around others
I was skeptical that Herman Miller furnishings were necessary, and thought IKEA would be fine.
Well looks like February will be their last month open…due to funding issues.
I wish Neil Goldberg the best in the next iteration of the Work Club concept.
Maybe he should have realized that people work at home, for the most part, to cut costs. (i know, that’s obvious, but, you know, it had to be said).
But, I wonder if he went after the right market. The national consulting firms, law firms, engineering teams, PR and ad firms that jet large groups of people around for projects seems like a better audience to me. There’s got to be a market for flexible, cool workspaces where project teams in town for extended periods can work.
Garrick, thanks for the wishes. I’m still very optimistic about the future of social workspaces, be they workclubs or someone elses formulation. I’m doing my best to find a way to continue to be part of that.
And Jim, you’re right, the money is in larger organizations for whom work hotelling makes a lot of sense – and already utilize this work practise. Problem is that they need a very particular kind of workspace that I didn’t have the resources to provide, and their decision making cycles are as slow as a stroll through mollases, and I never even started thinking seriously about starting the sales cycle till it was way too late. Oh well, that’s why we do experiments.