Contributing to New York Coworking and New Work City

Last night, I was proud to be a member of the community who congratulated Tony Bacigalupo for the launch of New Work City. As a member of the team for these past few years, last night, a couple of people ask me what had happened to my involvement in coworking and New Work City.

Specifically, one person made an outrageous comment asking “Did Tony steal your idea?” when he was fronting cooperBricolage and New Work City.

Simply, no. Tony and I formed a friendship and a partnership with regard to New York Coworking – where, as in Ori Brafman’s “The Starfish and the Spider”, I am the catalyst and he is the evangelist. We each bring our strengths to the table and have brought about this amazing thing. I am doing what I have been doing for many, many years – helping create an idea and a person grow into what he/she can become – being there and providing support and guidance when needed, and (sometimes) being the bad “cop” so that he/she can be the person they want to be.

I always wanted something like NWC to happen. Ever since I started spending time in New York City, I searched high and low for what I had become used to in London – a shared workspace where freelancers and other creatives got together and could work with wifi, deskspace and collaboration with others.

Yes, there was Jelly every month, but for my purposes, it was not what I was looking for. It represented a model, but not one I wanted to create. I was fortunate enough to meet Alex from A & N Design, and used the space for a while. But the space was dark and limited, and did not satisfy what I was searching for.

Over time, I noted the various retail spaces that were lying fallow (go along any major street in NYC and you can see all sorts of storefronts with no one inside) and I thought how easy it would be to set up a “mobile incubator” for this kind of need. Simply purchase some IKEA desks, set up some wifi routers, buy some chairs and lay out some power strips – and you’d have a mobile workspace that could pickup and leave on a moments notice.

I had a personal desire to create this for my own needs (heck, I wanted to be around smart, energized people) – and thought, “I can make this happen.” People told me it was stupid, it would fail, and so on – but I chose to try anyway. After spending time with a restaurateur who had a space that was closed during the day, I was able to convince him to open up his space for the daytime, install wifi with some solid DSL service and create cooperBricolage with the help of a number of great people including Tony B, Mike L. and others as shown in the photo here.

With CooBric in place, an incredible team appeared – all interested in making coworking happening. Our first cooperBricolage Committee or “cooBric Comm” was simply a group of regular people that came together to change the way people in NY works:

• Tony Bacigalupo, www.tonybacigalupo.com
• Jennifer Hall, www.jennifershall.com
• Alex Linsker, www.alexlinsker.com
• Nate Westheimer, www.cafebricolage.com
• Kara Masi, www.karamasi.com
• Jeffrey Warren, www.vestaldesign.com
• Dan Laurie

Seeds of New Work City

cooperBricolage had problems – cracks in our model included trying to generate interest, having people pay to sit in a restaurant and deal with the challenges of bringing their stuff into the space, and that at 5:30pm every day, our community was shuffled out to make ready for the restaurant’s normal customers.

At that time, Tony and I began discussing getting a space of our own and the challenge of the name of cooperBricolage (even Allen Stern did not like the name) and we kept the process running after the restaurant caused us to move to GramStand, where the community still thrives. In one of the CooBric Comm meetings, Kara Masi came up with the name New Work City and Alex was the enthusiast that pushed the idea forward.

One of the things that mattered to me was that I was not going to be running this space, it was always about creating the space and finding others who would make it happen. I had always been enthusiastic to create the idea, offering funding and expertise, but running a physical space is not my goal. Tony, on the other hand, was enthralled with the idea – flying to SXSW to meet complete strangers to chat about Coworking and taking up the thread on the coworking google group – and creating a Coworking Meetup Group in NY.

Finding a Coworking Space

Tony and I spent about a year searching for places – and working on the finances for it. We drafted an Executive Summary and a Financial Plan and began to search. Tony did most, if not all of the heavy lifting; scheduling all of the meetings and getting all of us together. I would bring various people or expertise to the table and then we would work on making things happen. We had a line on a couple of spaces and fell in love with one that was a Duplex – which would have been the perfect space. But someone snatched it before we could, and we found ourselves having to start over after so many months of trying.

Jeevan and element^n always had the space on 200 Varick and were interested, but we were sold on the beauty of the Duplex and the excitement we could generate within it. When the deal fell through and the business issues of investment, debt and other concerns happened, we visited the idea anew and were pleased to discover element^n was still interested in partnering.

Tony spent the greater part of September and October making things happen – and the honor and credit go to him for his hard-work. I had been extremely busy these past few months, and as I said, New Work City was a dream that Tony made come true.

Why I love being a teacher/mentor

Last night, I met Tony’s Mom, Dad and sister and saw the pride in their eyes for what Tony had accomplished. Toward the end of the evening, his father thanked me for all that I had done in working with Tony. I had to thank him for giving Tony the chance to be all he could be – and taking a chance like this.

For me, this is just what I do, have done for many years. I love create new opportunities, new businesses, new direction for others to further their dreams. As an undergrad/grad student/teacher/professor/whatever, I have always enjoyed helping others become what they could be. I can tell a number of these little stories from over the years, from Purdue to Stanford, from the Kerry Campaign to Cooper Union, from California to London to New York, from whatever to wherever – and I am nothing but happy to be part of people’s lives.

When I help, I always ask a simple thing – for them to pay it forward. Not trying to be cheesy – just a remembrance of what it meant to help someone else get a leg up, or advice from someone that could help them move forward. If that is all I do in this world, it would be enough.

It is one of my personal drives – to honor over my father’s dream, which seemed to be captured in a poem he always quoted when he would talk to others about how proud he was of his two sons (and daughter, after she was born). That poem is “To Have Succeeded”:

To Have Succeeded

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a little better place than when we found it, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
to know everyone’s life breathed easier because you lived.

This is to have succeeded.

Tony and the New Work City team are incredible people – and I am proud to be a part of helping them make the world a little better place than when we found it.