[sudo-discuss] membership reboot?

[Phil Wolff]

re: Impact Hub.

I spent a month there, attended numerous events and spoke with the
organizers, room tenants, and members. My observations:

It's a business.

Like many for-good businesses, the Impact Hub adds a layer of societal
benefit to its for-profit bottom line. Others have described this but I'll
add that the Impact Hub Oakland is just a local component of an
international network of such spaces, each culturally adapted to the local
scene.

Their landlord is independent from who they are or what they do (the way I
hope Sudo Room's is from ours).

As to the prices, they are pricy if you make $12/hour. Not so much if you
bill $100/hour. They have to find a mix of paying customers that keep them
liquid. They probably make their monthly nut by renting out the fifteen+
private offices (there's a waiting list). For those flying solo, they offer
differential pricing to maximize revenue subject to capacity (if they could
fill the floor every day at $1000/day, they would; since they can't, they
sell some seats at $400/month, others for less).

This is a real estate play. Their competitor is http://www.regus.com which
rents office space by the hour/day/week/month, no questions asked so long
as your corporate check clears. Impact Hub's advantage is that they pick
cheaper digs, offer fewer amenities, but still are a step up from meetings
at Farley's. And they come with a light veneer of social responsibility,
which matters to some people.

As a place to dock and meet for work, it's a clean, well lighted place for
(mostly) free agents.

Impact Hub is done for the next two years. They're full and now they have
to optimize for steady low-cost low-churn operations. They may have new
growth opportunity as their block is rebuilt with more retail, office, and
residential construction. But for now, they are baked.

What can Sudo learn from them?

*Business models can be put at the service of a higher cause. *

For example, we might have (raised the money and built out the space and
rented the offices) so ongoing costs were covered. (Playing landlord.) But
our choices would differ: We'd likely recruit different office tenants,
define classes of membership according to our own expectations (full
sudoers who subscribe to and affirm our values vs. tenants vs. guests).
We'd provision the space differently, of course (more power-tool
friendly).

*​Small teams can run a huge space. *

I think they started with three people and now have fewer than eight FTE,
including an event coordinator and AV/electrical guy. They are open more
than fourteen hours a day, seven days a week.

*The External Community Layer is worth money. *

They worked their professional, social, religious, and political networks
to forge ties between Impact Hub Oakland and hundreds of other groups.
Through reciprocity and trust-building they strengthened those ties. So
when it came time to Kickstart and then when it came time to move and
relaunch Uptown, their community rallied. They rallied because they felt
aligned and connected to the people and the cause.



*The External Community != Internal Community*They are actively cultivating
their own in-house community among the people who show up frequently. For
now it is mostly social and collegial but it's the natural first step for
trust-building within the building.

*People like to work at Ikea. *

The place feels roomy, spare, very clean, coordinated, well lit, with fresh
coffee, lots of power outlets, reasonable Wi-Fi, and minimal noise (no cafe
Muzak). It has lots of nooks and crannies if the main floor doesn't suit
you. There are four small quiet "phone booth" rooms for taking noisy mobile
or video calls away from the quiet work areas. A conversation yurt. A
bungee cord hammock. A classroom big enough for thirty. Liberal use of
whiteboard paint, markers, and post-its. Two large configurable commons
areas; I've seen them rearranged for product launch parties, hackathons,
spirtual workshops, birthday parties.
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