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The Community Manifesto

230109

14 comments

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Coworking Spaces

In February 2009, Station C will be one year old. We're growing and evolving. So it's time to better articulate who we are, the role we play in the Mile End and Montreal, and what we want to achieve.

We've started gathering the nitty gritty about how we operate into one document to make it easier for folks to pitch in. Knowing how the projector and espresso machine works is important stuff. And we've drafted a Community Manifesto. It's meant to lay the groundwork: explain our vision, tell others what to expect, guide our decision-making, help people decide if they want to join or run screaming in the other direction.

Here it is:

Station C is a space that fosters community, collaboration, innovation. People come here to work and connect. We are a hub for creators and innovators: entrepreneurs, geeks, artists, social activists.

Station C is part of an international coworking movement, which brings together the best elements of the office, cafe, and salon. This movement is built on a set of common values:

  • Community — We are a community that thrives on connections and mutual support. Everyone participates, contributes, and benefits. Station C members take the initiative to care for our collective space, welcome visitors, orient new members, start conversations, and host events. We also reach out and contribute to our local community.
  • Collaboration — We work together, intentionally as part of project teams or in an ad-hoc way when  someone needs a hand. We help each other out by sharing ideas, learning, solutions, resources.
  • Openness — It is beneficial to share and build on each others' ideas and knowledge. We encourage this in a concrete way by working at shared tables in an open space. We're a modern agora, providing a public space for informal community gatherings and encouraging folks to drop in and work with us for the day.
  • Diversity — We want people with different ideas, perspectives, and ways of working. People from different backgrounds. People at different stages in their life and career. Diversity means occasional misunderstandings, annoyance, and arguments — all of which are a small price to pay for sparking creativity and avoiding groupthink.
  • Sustainability — Financially, Station C was designed to sustain itself and the community, not to make a profit. Each of us is responsible for finding our own work. Environmentally, like everyone, we are still learning and finding ways to lower our impact and promote sustainable products and behaviors. We need to do more and welcome help with this.

On the diversity piece. I'd like to get an "Innovation Desk" program started. Local companies or government agencies could sponsor a space at one of our tables so that someone who could not normally afford to work with us can benefit from being here. We'd have a special spot on our website to recognize this and the person would blog about their experiences and learning. I'm still developing the idea and welcome your feedback.

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge that parts of this text were built on Citizen Space's philosophy and ground rulez. I've also been influenced by Alex Hillman at Philadelphia's Independents Hall and Tonya Surman at Toronto's Centre for Social Innovation — see their Theory of Change. And (of course!) this content is yours under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.

So, what do you think? Please leave us your comments below so we can post the final version.

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Comments

Submitted by Alex Hillman (not verified) on Fri, 01/23/2009 - 02:16.

As I said on the google group, I'm particularly interested in how the sponsored "innovation desk" works out. Please keep us posted. Great work!

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Submitted by Christine (not verified) on Fri, 01/23/2009 - 02:22.

Just added Alex to the acknowledgments. I read a lot of his writing while preparing this. Sorry Alex, long day :)

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Submitted by Geoff DiMasi (not verified) on Fri, 01/23/2009 - 13:33.

Great post.

I wrote up some of my ideas when we opened Independents Hall here:
window.punkave.com/2007/09/07/independents-hall/

For me, creating the possibility for happy accidents/meetings is key.

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Submitted by Zach (not verified) on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 17:10.

Overall it looks great. Some suggesions:
-in the second paragraph, change "a Community Manifesto" to "this Community Manifesto" (doing so adds clarity)
-throughout--add "and" before the last item in a list (it's ok to omit it sometimes for emphasis or to seem artsy, but do so sparingly)
-Diversity--second and third sentence aren't sentences.
-Kill the quotes around "Innovation Desk"

I WANT TO WORK IN A MODERN AGORA!

I've found some folks who are interested in coworking in Louisville, but nothing ever comes of it. Your manifesto motivated me to try again.

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Submitted by Christine (not verified) on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 23:20.

I'm going to be revising the "open" section to make it more realistic and closer to our practice. (Thanks to Michael Lenczner for pointing this out.) We're all about open, but we need and respect privacy. We've all had those moments where we slip into the conference room to speak privately. And some of us work on projects the details of which we don't broadcast to the world.

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Submitted by Nicolas Ritoux (not verified) on Wed, 01/28/2009 - 03:43.

Also, I will from now on remove my snowy wet shoes when I get in.

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Submitted by Station C » Blog Archive » Free(lancing): Report from South- (not verified) on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 12:34.

[...] can handle spotty Internet) and relax knowing that there’s someone (read: Patrick and other Station C members) at home holding down the [...]

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Submitted by Writer (not verified) on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 22:36.

Do you guys have a recommendation section, i'd like to suggest some stuff

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Submitted by Christine Prefontaine (not verified) on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 19:54.

@Writer. Feel free to make suggestions here. Or you can also send an email to info@station-c.com.

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Submitted by Station C » Blog Archive » Community Manifesto (take two) (not verified) on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 18:06.

[...] for all your feedback on the draft. Here’s the updated version of our Community [...]

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Submitted by Building a coworking community | The Cubicle Punk (not verified) on Fri, 08/07/2009 - 16:11.

[...] Zach seems to have the right attitude and thoughts get this thing going.  Inspired by the Station-C manifesto, Zach and a handful of others are looking to fill a fairly small space. But unlikely [...]

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Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 01/14/2012 - 22:17.

You've hit the ball out the park! Incrdielbe!

  • répondre
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 02:32.

This manifesto sounds interesting thanks for sharing it thoroughly here.
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Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 02/10/2012 - 16:34.

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