Collaborative space pushed
Good Company to provide office space at old UNW building for startups and home businesses
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Friday, March 11, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Most people know what a co-worker is but may not be overly familiar with the term co-working.
A Yellowknife startup wants to change that and is inviting the public to an open house tonight for a new co-working and innovation centre which provides space for home businesses and new companies.
Co-working is where people with different skill sets get together and collaborate on projects under a single roof.
This particular centre is being set up by a firm called Good Company, which includes some of the same people who initiated the city's IserveU movement last fall.
James Young, the centre's project leader, said the office space will provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs and other business people to rent space and work with other individuals on projects of mutual interest. He said they are hosting the open house this evening in order to get feedback from potential clients.
"We are sharing with people our ideas for what the space will be like and the community we want to foster," Young said, adding that the organization is also seeking feedback.
"We want to create the social infrastructure for entrepreneurs and independent professionals to have a space where they can work but also a space that provides them with programming for professional networking ... and help them connect with other like-minded people but with more diverse skill sets."
Young said hopefully the centre would create a space whereby, for example, a graphic designer would sit at one end of the room with a web designer and a freelance writer and together they would be able to work on projects that they would not be able to do on their own.
"Hopefully, we could sort of incubate some new ideas and new partnerships that wouldn't necessary happen otherwise," Young said.
He said the office space was previously occupied by the Union of Northern Workers and the property is owned by CloudWorks, a Yellowknife company that he said is known for its unique and forward-thinking ventures.
"We pay the rent on the space and then a monthly fee would be collected from the clientele in order to pay the operating costs," said Young.
Young said they have a decent sized area that they are in the process of renovating and plan to take 2,100 square feet of the building's main floor.
"That's including working space and common areas like a breakout room, a shared, bookable conference room, a kitchenette and some open concept working spaces," Young said. "Once the site is fully rolled out people would be able to find a membership package that meets their monthly needs in terms of hours per month."
Young said the space would have what are known as "hot desks" - work spaces where people could show up and grab whatever
desk is available.
He said they are considering making dedicated desks available to people who want to work out of the space full-time, depending upon demand.
"This is essentially another project by some of the people who were working on IserveU. There are several of us who aren't developers so we don't have a hand in the software side of things but we wanted to continue working on projects that are geared toward building community and increasing the capacity for innovation in the North specifically," Young said.
He also said co-working centres are popular in larger southern cities and that there is one in Whitehorse as well. He is hoping the office space will be ready by spring and fully operational by the summer.
Dane Mason of IserveU ran as a council candidate running under the electronic voting platform's banner.
He said Good Company grew out of last fall's municipal election campaign when he heard there was a need for more support for local business and economic diversification.
"IserveU is based largely on innovation in the public sector whereas Good Company is about supporting innovation in the private sector," Mason said. "It's a natural pairing."
He does not expect the IserveU movement to use the office space other than to put in a touch-screen voting machine which he said will give people who may not have access to a computer an opportunity to vote and have their voices heard on issues facing the city.
The organization had previously said the application would not be ready until January.
"The system has taken longer than expected to launch, and we own that responsibility. With the extent of the changes asked for by Yellowknifers at our post-election public meetings, we had a choice to launch a mediocre service on schedule, or a great service. We opted to make sure it comes our great rather than fast," Mason told Yellowknifer in an e-mail.
The open house begins at 5:30 p.m. and runs until 7:30 p.m. on the first floor of the old UNW building on 52 Street.
