Business Success for Wednesday August 10, 2011

Business Success For You Wednesday August 10, 2011 Co-working Centers in the Suburbs -- Why Not? Chris Lytle's Sales Tip -- Selling Better While Having Fun Quote of the Day

Co-working Centers in the Suburbs -- Why Not?  Chris Durst and Michael Haaren Coworking centers are places where freelancers, road warriors, entrepreneurs and other 2.0 folks can gather to work, socialize, and have a cup of joe. Currently, the vast majority are located in urban areas. Why can't we have them in the suburbs, too? A COUNTRY IN SEARCH OF A "THIRD PLACE" Some 20 million workers in the U.S. are home-based. According to research firm IDC, we have the most highly mobile workforce in the world. Indeed, 120 million workers will be mobile nationally by 2013, and globally, we've already passed the 1 billion mark, IDC adds. Many of these folks have two only choices for worksites -- casa and cube. Each has its drawbacks. Working at home all the time is isolating and lonely. Cube life often means killer commutes and distractions. Many cubers have to be road warriors, too. The old infrastructure has been caught flatfooted by these communications-fueled trends. Cafes offer the nomads wi-fi, but music, chatter and coffee-grinding can make it hard to work. McDonald's is spending $1 billion to make over most of its 14,000 restaurants into sleek laptopper-worthy hangouts, but their deadline is a distant 2015, and re-branding will be tough. Plus, they have to get rid of that fast-food fragrance. Enter co-working centers. COWORKING STATUS CHECK What do co-working centers offer? It runs the gamut. Some are upscale, catering to the business-suit crowd with state-of-the-art conference rooms, daycare and full administrative support, plus coffee, snacks and yoga. Others are smaller and more Bohemian, with creative types on comfy furniture in loft-like ambiance, updating their blogs, designing logos and comparing new tattoos. Many of the larger U.S. cities have co-working centers, such as Office Nomads in Seattle (officenomads.com), New Work City in the Big Apple (nwc.co), Boston's WorkBar (workbarboston.com) and Sandbox Suites in San Francisco and Berkeley (sandboxsuites.com). The movement has spread internationally, too, Fueled by broadband connections whose speed and cheap rates Americans can only dream of. (A newly-discovered tribe deep in the Amazon rainforest has Internet access rates slightly behind ours, but they're expected to pull ahead of us early next year.) SO WHY NOT THE SUBURBS? Progress is simple. Find a sexy idea and roll it out. That's how enlightenment over the centuries has come to the human race. The wah-wah pedal. The Snuggie. The amphibious automobiles of the 1950s. These things aren't brain surgery, folks. Progress is simple. But even though we have these latter-day Acropolises easy to hand, something more is required of us now. The planet is heating up and not just from Snuggies. So, while we deal with the hurricanes and droughts and what not, imagine a scenario that really isn't half-bad. Suppose we take some of the spare change that has fallen off one of our larger budgetary tables -- say, the foreign-war table, or the highway table, or the murderous-dictator-prop-up table -- and put co-working centers in the suburbs? A bike, a little solar-powered train, or just a pair of shoes could take us from our front doors to the center. And the center itself (we'd give it a sexy name, of course, like the "Wah-Wah A Go Go," or "The General Telecommuting Center") could have locally-grown food in the caf‚, free daycare and not just dial-up, but real 20th-century Internet access! And heresy of heresies, you wouldn't even need a car because the center could be a commercial magnet too. We could have, like, an actual town, where neighbors could even learn each other's names! We could offer classes in that. But isn't this worth thinking about? After all, wouldn't you rather walk or bike to work, even if the place has wah-wah in the name, than have to drive an amphibious car? Christine Durst and Michael Haaren are leaders in the work-at-home movement and advocates of de-rat-raced living. Their latest book is "Work at Home Now," a guide to finding home-based jobs. They offer additional guidance on finding home-based work at www.RatRaceRebellion.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2011 BY STAFFCENTRIX, DISTRIBUTED BYCREATORS.COM

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Chris Lytle's Sales Tip -- Selling Better While Having Fun  Chris Lytle's Sales Tip: "When I'm selling at my best, I'm more playful," said a seminar participant recently. "Work is more fun than fun," suggests Noel Coward. Selling at your best is fun. You smile more. You are more at ease with your customers and they react accordingly. Customers sit through plenty of boring meetings. What can you do to add a measure of "playfulness" to your next customer encounter? Click here to visit Lytle's site.

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Quote of the Day  Francis Bacon There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

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