Last month I attended my first ever GCUC (pronounced ‘Juicy’ and stands for Global Coworking Unconference Conference), in Manhattan, NY.
Content-wise it was pretty different from the other coworking/startup conferences I’ve been to before, and I like the way it was setup as ‘tables vs rows’; but the people, ie the other attendees are what took the cake for me.
I was blown away by the friendliness of the ‘coworking people’, and their dedication to building communities that are important to them, their local ecosystems and the members they care about.
As is becoming tradition, instead of going on-and-on about what I thought of every little thing, we decided to instead crowd-source a summary of the most important lessons/takeaways people had learned at the conference.
Jump straight to take aways shared by other attendees.
If you attended, and haven’t contributed to the summary yet, you can do so below for a few more weeks.
Lessons Learned at GCUC USA 2018
Everyone in coworking is the smartest person in the room about coworking because right now we are all subject matter experts. So don't compete - listen!
Felicity MaxwellRun/manage a coworking community
at fibercove@fibercove
The Industry is maturing with the advent of capital investment
at GCUC@gcucgb
That the coworking community cares about members and the wider community. Spaces like Beahive in Beacon New York, 312 Main in Vancouver Canada, and the NGO All Good Work work for the benefit of the wider community. Made for a great reception of Shareable's new book on Sharing Cities, sharingcities.net.
at Shareable.net@gorenflo
There's room for everyone in coworking. The workspace industry is a barbell industry: one one side you have big money real estate players and on the other you have small, community-focused coworking spaces. And that's ok. Think of it like the coffee industry: Some people want Folgers and Maxwell House, and some people want locally-roasted craft coffee.
at catjohnson.co@catjohnson
The best part of GCUC is meeting people I've only known online in person!
at Cohere@coherellc
Lorem Ipsum
at Ironfire in Long Beach, CA@joshrencher