AMWorks offers a diverse coworking and network community for creative entrepreneurs,
freelancers and small businesses. Located off Capel Street in a restored mill.

We offer:

- dedicated deskspace and lockable storage
- your own key & key fob to give you 24hr access to the space
- unlimited booking time of the meeting room
- space for third parties to come in and collaborate with you
- high speed internet access
- use of the projector, whiteboards, flipcharts, printer and fax
- package & mail receiving

Our Coworking Principles: (Adapted from the Citizen Space Philosophy)

Collaboration – One of the great benefits of working in a coworking space is that you will
meet a diverse group of people with all sorts of knowledge.

Openness – Transparency is important. We all benefit from sharing knowledge and ideas.

Community – We thrive on connections and mutual support here.

Sustainability – Sharing resources is good for the planet and we make certain our space is
very environmentally responsible.

Accessibility – Our spaces is handicap and wheelchair accessible

Our packages:

Full-time membership (7 days per week)- €260 per month + VAT

Lite-time membership(2/3 days per week) – €160 per month + VAT

Daily drop-in – €20 per day

Meeting room – €10 per hour

Virtual office – €20 per month + VAT

Charity projects – We can provide deskspace for charity projects free of charge

Contact Amworks directly for more info.

Previously mentioned here, and now available in it’s own domain.

We will be interested in talking to other Co-Working spaces around the country and beyond – seeing if there’s synergy, the possibility of desk swaps and working together. What say you?

Subsequent to some more frantic viewing, Andy McMillan and I have put the stake in the ground and decided that CoWorking Belfast will be opening soon.

As Andy writes:

we viewed a 1200sqft open-plan office (with kitchenette, disabled access & a shower) – on the first floor above the Black Box. The property ticks all the boxes – it’s finished to an excellent standard and could happily fit around a dozen coworkers simultaneously – and most importantly of all is mere feet away from coffee, pizza and beer.
Without negotiation on price – and with 10 coworkers renting full-time – its about £200pm – although obviously this price would fall when subsidized by hot-desking, virtual office services, room hire etc. As soon as we hit the 10 mark, we’ll be in a position to begin talking to the estate agent and actually open the coworking space.

We’ve also put funding into the Creative Industries Innovation Fund for desking and equipment so we’ll see where that takes us.

We definitely want to see permanent residents but also a smattering of Bedouin workers and temporary hotdeskers who just need a a conducive environment and some kick ass equipment.

CoWorking update on Digital Circle
CoWorking Update on Cimota.com

I received an e-mail today from Johnny Beirne who works for Leitrim Co. Enterprise board. Johnny was keen to highlight a new hot desking facility in the Carrick on Shannon area.

To Quote improvethroughchange.com:

“An innovation centre has been set up at both Omagh Enterprise Company and Leitrim Enterprise Board offices. These centres provide businesses with access to some of the latest information & communication technologies.â€?

Read on.

The services provided include:

• State-of-the-art computer with broadband connection.
• Web-cam for video conferencing
• High Resolution Printer & Scanner.
• CD and DVD Writer.
• VoIP
• Wireless (Wi-Fi) broadband connection – Access the Internet using your own laptop.

I’ve said before that I’m not really interested in using a public coffee shop for working. I think it might be more workable in the US where internet access is ubiquitous and there’s certainly more of a laptop culture but laptops are still few and far between in Europe.

The spacial logistics for using a coffee shop are also pretty poor:

• Tables often too small (designed for two lattés and a danish)
• Coffee plus laptop = bad (Trust me on this one)
• Laptops often too big (Come on Apple!)
• Large laptop bags obstruct walkways (this creates coffee+laptop situations)

I’ve witnessed business meetings in coffee shops around Belfast – three smart suits with starched collars, three document folders, one laptop and no room for any of it. People working off their knees is going to be fine for a short meeting but not for a co-working facility.

When we wrote up the business plan for “The New Workspace” last summer, we considered these problems very carefully in our design and plans for the office.

What would you consider as essential logistics for a workspace?

Martin Hogan, a Green Party candidate for the 2007 Seanad election in the NUI Constituency, has commented below to say -

“For those working in the digital media space, we have a couple of hotdesks with broadband access still available in the new Media Cube in Dun Laoghaire. I would be happy to talk to companies about renting a desk on an ongoing basis for half-days etc.”

Excellent, thanks Martin.

This article in The New Yorker debates commuting.

“I was shocked to find how robust a predictor of social isolation commuting is,â€? Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist, told me. (Putnam wrote the best-seller “Bowling Alone,â€? about the disintegration of American civic life.) “There’s a simple rule of thumb: Every ten minutes of commuting results in ten per cent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected to social isolation, which causes unhappiness.â€?

What of coworking?

Coworking is certainly the province of the self-starting entrepreneur or the employee of a progressive company. There’s something enchanting about gangs of workers throwing off their bowler hats and umbrellas and trailing to coffee shops and coworking facilities. Perhaps a different place every day. With different clientele, different views. And much like homeworking, it’s not for everyone. Some people need structure and discipline in their day. Coworking should have the advantages of working in an office environment (with nearby workers, sustenance, business services available) without the disadvantages of homeworking (loneliness, keeping very odd hours and having meetings while only dressed in your underwear).

When you cowork, technically your work is always with you. You can work on the train, you work in coffee shops, you can work where you are comfortable. You know the people next to you are also “working” and their presence in a coworking facility is evidence they have bought in to the concept. The reduction in social isolation should be considered a primary benefit of coworking in addition to the other benefits of business services which may be present at a coworking facility.

Evert Bopp announces on twitter that he’s, “Thinking about setting up a hotdesking facilty/business incubator in Tipperary. Anybody interested in participating?”

David Copithorne of Cork based startup Waveson has the following proposal for Enterprise Ireland -

“There have been parallel conversations between people about the lack of small tech company support, looking at Enterprise Ireland (EI), and around co-working. How about somebody proposes to EI to simply do the following:

At some trial location they provide 24×7, hotdesking facility. During this trial anybody who’s engaged in generating invoices or in a business generating cashflow (not necessarily profit) pays for the privilege of using the facility. BUT any startup gets a three month waiver on the fees, thereafter paying like everybody else. The startup would pay some sort of deposit in case things go pair shaped.
EI might say they already do this in the likes of the Rubicon Centre in Cork but I have no interest in applying to get on the GEP programme for the following reasons:

1. We don’t all live in cities. I live 60miles away from Cork and I can’t (financially) commit to living in Cork for a year, I could for three months. Getting to use a facility for three months would help enormously and would allow me to try it out both a project idea and co-working.
2. I mightn’t even commit to a project for the year (which you’d be expected to do for GEP, along with providing detailed business plans) never mind anything else.

Most importantly, It would give me the chance to work on a project and if it went nowhere I haven’t lost enough to stop me from trying again.”

Chris Byrne of SpinnakerPro suggested contacting Fionnan at the Dingle Technology Park, a wonderful looking business facility that I was totally unaware of even though I’m a regular visitor to the town. Dingle is less than two hours drive for me and I love the place so I was delighted to learn about the Business Center at Milltown.

So delighted in fact that I got straight on the phone to Fionnan and had a great discussion about hotdesking, coworking and so on. Unfortunately they don’t yet provide the kind of flexibility probably needed by coworkers, requiring a minimum of one month’s lease on their hot desks, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to work together to get around that.

One concern is regarding security but Fionnan had a great suggestion about compiling a membership list of coworkers who register with their own local agency, enterprise board, etc. Thanks Fionnan and thanks Chris.

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