Openofficespace.com is proud to be a sponsor of The Rise of The Cubicle Farmer Project - An epic journey to discover the changing landscape of "work". If you're a start-up, entrepreneur or frustrated cubicle farmer and dream of making work more about what you do than where you sit, you should really follow the LaC team throughout their journey. The Trip 11,921 Miles 1,080 Hours 55 Stories 45 Days 35 Cities 20 CoWorking Joints 1 Roadtrip About Rise of the Cubicle Farmer Rise of the Cubicle Farmer is a 45 day Road Trip documenting the changing landscape of the idea... Continue reading

The following is a re-post from the Jelly Long Island blog. One of the initial triggers that led to the blog post, Why are there no Coworking Spaces In Long Island?, and eventually into our growing bi-weekly Jelly event, was the book Emergence – The Story of the Centre for Social Innovation. Emergence is the first of a three part series published by CSI entitled Shared Spaces for Social Innovation. The three part series offers a comprehensive overview of the CSI shared space model. Part 1 – Emergence – The Story of The Centre for Social Innovation Part 2 –... Continue reading

As a follow up to one of my recent posts, 9 Ways of Finding Cheap (but not cheap looking) Artwork For Your Office, here is a great resource I came across to help make your small office, YOUR small office. A site called CanvasPop, offers a pretty awesome service that allows you to create custom corporate art printed on an ultra-high quality canvas. Users can create branded, modern pop-art using a company logo, or even create art from photos shot by staff members. As I mentioned in my previous post, your office is an extension of your brand. CanvasPop really... Continue reading

A little over a week ago, my wife and I hopped on a plane to Dublin, Ireland to check out the sites, sounds... and Guinness. While in Dublin, we had an opportunity to visit AMWorks, a coworking space right in the heart of the city. Alan Richardson, Founder of Amworks, was extremely hospitable throughout our stay and a tremendous help in organizing the filming of this interview. Aside from the slight accent (we couldn't agree which one of us had the accent), I found it very interesting how the residents of AMWorks described the benefits they derive from working out... Continue reading

I was recently invited to attend a Working Lunch with Rob Basso. At each Working Lunch event, guests view the premiere of the latest Basso On Business episode, and get involved in a live, interactive business discussion with Rob and leading experts.The goal of Rob's lunch program is to motivate and support small businesses with innovative presentations, business growth strategies and informative speakers. The focus of the event I attended was Matt Silver of Ultimate Class Limousine. Matt runs a very successful company but seems to have a little trouble managing the long list of tasks that he is faced... Continue reading

I just finished reading Emergence - The Story of the Centre for Social Innovation. Emergence is the first of a three part series published by CSI entitled Shared Spaces for Social Innovation. The three part series offers a comprehensive overview of the CSI shared space model...talk about sharing. Part 1 - Emergence - The Story of The Centre for Social Innovation Part 2- Rigour - How To Create World-Changing Spaces Part 3 (coming soon) - Proof - How Shared Spaces Are Changing The World I dare any entrepreneur to read this book and not feel at least a little ping... Continue reading

On Wednesday of last week I had the pleasure of attending the Entrepreneur Summer Launch Party at WorkBar Boston, an awesome coworking space in Boston. The event was co-sponsored by WorkBar and Grasshopper (The Virtual Phone System Designed For Entrepreneurs) and brought out some of Boston's finest entrepreneurs. (more on the actual event in an upcoming blog post) Anyway the space was so impressive I decided to push my luck and asked to come back the next day for a formal tour of the space as well as an interview with the founders and a few of the residents. The... Continue reading

As a follow up to my last 2 blog posts regarding furnishing the "optimal office space" and modern trends in office furniture, here are a few great resources (blogs/books) to help provide you with some additional inspiration and ideas for creating YOUR ideal office space. BLOGS The Office Stylist About The Office Stylist The Office Stylist is a multi-platform media brand based on the idea that we should live well at work. In addition to offering readers daily tips on office style, two-time entrepreneur and TV personality Sayeh Pezeshki provides office styling services, consulting and personal shopping for private and... Continue reading

In Part 2 of a two part interview on Officebytes TV, Jenny-Lynn Georgiades, Director of Architectural and Design Support Services at Waldners Business Environments, offers entrepreneurs & small businesses insight into the current trend of furnishing the workspace with "collaborative" office furniture. A few quotes from the interview: "One of the biggest trends in the office furniture industry today is the decline of the cubicle. The cubicle walls are coming down and their allowing employees to interact and collaborate." "They're using the open office space that's left over when they shrink those workstations and doing more with the in-between areas."... Continue reading

In Part 1 of a two part interview on Officebytes TV, Jenny-Lynn Georgiades, Director of Architectural and Design Support Services at Waldners Business Environments, offers entrepreneurs & small businesses some very sound advice on choosing the right office furniture to create the optimal working environment for their company. A few good quotes from the interview: "When and entrepreneur or a small business is planning to do a new space, I think its really important to examine closely where your company is now, and where you want to be in the future. It's important to examine your work processes..." "Something as... Continue reading

The following is a re-post from an article I came across a few weeks ago on Fastcompany.com entitled: 11 Ways You Can Make Your Space as Collaborative as the Stanford d.school. The article gives some very good suggestions for creating a collaborative workspace within an organization. (all 11 suggestions are below) But what about environments such as coworking spaces or shared office spaces where many different companies are residing in the same space? As we continue to tour/interview founders and residents of coworking/shared office spaces, here are a few of the questions we will consistently seek answers to. Is collaboration... Continue reading

During my visit to Chicago this weekend, I had the opportunity to visit a very cool coworking space located right in the heart of the city. From the minute I walked in the space I received a warm welcome and was invited to take a tour of the space. Immediately following the tour, I requested an opportunity to film the space and interview the manager and some of the entrepreneurs doing business at Officeport CHI. Listening to a few of the residents discuss how the space has improved their productivity as well as the overall image of their company really... Continue reading

On today's episode of Officebytes TV, Patrick Braswell, Founder of MOSAtlanta.com and Assistant Vice President with Colliers Spectrum Cauble discusses 3 of the top 10 mistakes made by many entrepreneurs and small businesses when looking for office space. A few good quotes from the interview: "Companies that come out of executive suites or that are looking for traditional office space for the first time, they tend to fail to look at their current and future priorities. They don't list them out and make sure they have those ducks in a row before they actually go out and look for space."... Continue reading

Let's face it, as entrepreneurs, our ability to successfully pitch ourselves and/or our businesses depends quite heavily on our ability to project a high level of confidence. Unfortunately, maintaining a consistently high level of confidence is not always an easy task for an entrepreneur. Whether it's a negative comment on a blog, an "exciting" new product just released by a top competitor, a nasty email from a good client, slower business growth than projected, or even just trouble on the home front, there are many outside forces busily working to chip away at our confidence. This past weekend was the... Continue reading

Disclaimer: This blog post is an admission of guilt as much as an observation of other folks in my office space. As an entrepreneur, I spend an exorbitant amount of time in front of my desktop, laptop and on my blackberry. Throughout a typical work day, I am constantly massaging a dull pain in my forearm, neck, back and hand on my right side. Now, before anyone tells me that I probably need to adjust the angle of my monitor, the height of my office chair or the incline of my keyboard, here is my admission: I KNOW BETTER! I... Continue reading

Officebytes TV just launched a new interview with successful entrepreneur Rob Basso. Rob is the owner of Advantage Payroll Services, BassoOnBusiness.com and Working Lunch With Rob. Rob describes his experience with sharing office space and offers some very good advice/insight to entrepreneurs that are just starting out as well as those that are thinking about expanding into a bigger space. A few good quotes from the interview: "Just get creative, don't get stuck thinking I have to be in a $50 per square foot building, or I have to be on this street or I have to be on that... Continue reading

Officebytes TV had the pleasure of interviewing Rahsheen Slaugter and Greg Kalafatic of Breakthroughs to Fitness, a successful personal training company located in Long Island, New York. Rahsheen Slaughter shares the inspirational story of how he "never let his disability become a liability" on the road to becoming a college All American freestyle wrestler, and eventually founding Breakthroughs To Fitness. (Rahsheen was born without a quadricep or hamstring on his right leg) During the interview, Rahsheen and Greg also give some VERY good reasons why entrepreneurs MUST adopt health and fitness as part of their business/life plan. A few good... Continue reading

When I first launched my other company, 3Dwalkthroughs.com, I spent a lot of time presenting my company's capabilities on my laptop. While I was extremely confident in my product offering, I was anything but confident in my ability to present it. 3Dwalkthroughs.com specialized in producing several types of 3D assets: 3D renderings, 3D walkthroughs, 3D floor plans, 3D interactive tools and even the type of 3D technology used in the movie Avatar. Depending on our clients needs, the end product was always rendered in a variety of different formats. (jpeg, mov, mpeg, swf, wmv, and more) ...and therein lied the... Continue reading

As a follow up to suggestion #2 (Cover bare walls with inexpensive artwork or photography) on my recent blog post, 10 Inexpensive Ways To Spruce Up a Small/Shared Office, here are some specific suggestions to actually help you FIND cheap (but not cheap looking) artwork for your office. Remember, your office is an extension of your brand so make sure the artwork/photography you choose accurately reflects this. 1- Tap into the talent of your kids or even the talent of other children in the community: As soon as most children enter nursery school there is a very good chance that... Continue reading

In today's episode of Officebytes TV, Greg Hoffmeister and Jon Frisch of T3 advisors, based in Massachusetts, discuss the "3 izes" that all start-ups and small businesses should keep in mind when searching for office space. In addition to our friends at T3 Advisors, the interview also contains excerpts from the following on their experiences with finding/helping others find office space: Sachin Agarwal - Operations Lead | oneforty.com Derek Lyman - CEO | Dexrex.com Barrett Bilotta - COO | Dexrex.com John Hallinan - CFO Cytel, Inc. Here are the "3 izes" in more detail Organize - Set your criteria (location,... Continue reading

Today marks the official launch of Officebytes TV - Interviews with industry experts to help entrepreneurs and small businesses find, promote, settle in, and create the most productive, cost effective and healthy office space possible. Our first interview was with Jason LaVanture, Founder of Realtourvision.com and BlueLavamedia.com. About Real Tour Vision: Originally established in 1999 as RealtorVision and now RTV, Inc., our profitable and privately held corporation is tucked away here in Northern Michigan and proudly supports over 100 thousand real estate agents in 27 countries. Our virtual tour technology has also attracted over 1500 independent business owners who now... Continue reading

On the heels of a recent speaking engagement I attended about corporate fitness coupled with the fact that the summer is approaching fast and furious, I decided to re-purpose a blog post that was written a little over a year ago.(also, I think I was the ONLY person reading my blog over a year ago) The speaker at the corporate fitness event was very passionate about how critical it is to make smart food choices in the office, as this is where most of us spend the majority of our time. As a personal trainer of over 17 years I... Continue reading

Donating/recycling your used office electronics (computers, monitors, laptops, flash drives, cell phones, televisions, scanners, printers, hard drives, keyboards, speakers, cables, cords, ink and toner cartridges, appliance, cameras) can not only go a long way to help the environment, it can also aid many people in remote and underprivileged communities, schools and organizations by providing them with access to technologies they could otherwise not afford. Below is a VERY COMPREHENSIVE list of resources to help you sell or donate your used office equipment: Goodwill partnered with Dell Computer to create RECONNECT, a comprehensive electronics recovery, reuse and environmentally responsible recycling opportunity... Continue reading

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a full screen 360 degree view worth? Always on the lookout for innovative technologies to help companies best showcase their unused office space, we recently came across a few samples of a high definition virtual tour...VERY COOL. If you have an impressive coworking, executive suite or shared office space, adding this type of full screen presentation to your property listing will definitely make a powerful impact and potentially help improve your chances of generating qualified leads. To better describe this technology, here are some excerpts and samples from a blog originally... Continue reading

This post is about making lemonade from lemons and inspired by today's beautiful weather and how much I miss commuting into Manhattan. When I was in Manhattan... I had to drive 20 minutes to the subway and then hop on the N or W train for about 45 minutes. All together, my commute was about an hour longer than it is now. When I was in Manhattan... I used to read between 2-3 books every two weeks during my commute. Now the only time I get to read is right before bed and I am lucky if get through 1... Continue reading