Echoworking

Today I’ve been working in the Moseley Exchange coworking space in Moseley with Stef. It opened a couple of weeks back but, well, there’s not many people here yet. It’s less coworking and more echoworking, if you’ll excuse the terrible pun.

As you probably know I’ve been interested in coworking for a couple of years as a concept – my talk at Moseley Barcamp looked at the coworking movement as a form of collective activity emerging from Internet culture – and as someone who works from their backpack I’m also potentially interested as a customer. One of the reasons I sublet a desk from Nick at Fazeley Studios is for the coworking-esque environment there but while it’s a good thing I’m always looking at different options, weighing up the pros and cons.

The fact that the Moseley Exchange is currently empty might at first appear to be a problem, given it’s supposed to be the hub of the local community for self employed home-worker types. But sitting here working with Stef all I can see is potential. It’s a decent sized space kitted out with all the essentials (wifi, computers, desks, sofas, kitchen with complementary drinks, air conditioning, etc) and given the investment it’s definitely going to be around for a while. And while the management have a good ideas of how it’ll be used they know that they can’t dictate how it’s actually used – that has to come from the people using it. Currently those people are Stef and, today, me. So how did we use it? We caught up with what each other are doing, worked through an idea I’ve been mulling to see if it was viable and knuckled down to a few hours of work. Nothing particularly revolutionary but for today this is what the Moseley Exchange is. If you were to come into tomorrow however you used it would be what it is. The space is defined by the people in it, and that’s rather exciting.

This month the drop-in rate of £25 a month for 16 hours is being waved so anyone can come in and use the space. After that the top-whack rate is £85 per month for unlimited use, 9am – 8pm and Saturday mornings by arrangement. (Details of rates are here.)

I’m not on commission and I already pay rent on an office in Digbeth so I’m not looking to move soon. I just want to make folk aware there’s this very nice functional space sitting here in Moseley that’s pretty much for the taking.

And in the short term it’s a very quiet place to get some work done!