Green Coworking: Interview with Chris Messina and Ivan Storck or Citizen Space
by Worldchanging San Francisco local blogger, Britt Bravo:
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, almost half (49 percent) of the nation’s businesses are operated from home. Working from home provides amazing freedom, but with that freedom can come isolation. Community and opportunities for collaboration can be lost when it is just you sitting down to work each day.
Coworking, a group of individual entrepreneurs sharing a work space, can provide that community while also being an environmentally sustainable choice. I talked to Chris Messina of Citizen Agency and Ivan Storck of SustainableMarketing.com about their green coworking space in San Francisco, Citizen Space for the Big Vision Podcast and have posted a transcript of the interview below.
For more information about coworking, read the Coworking Community Blog, check out the Coworking wiki, join the Coworking Google Group, watch this short video, and see photos of coworking spaces in the BusinessWeek article, Where the Coffee Shop Meets the Cubicle.
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Chris Messina: My name is Chris Messina. I co-run a company called Citizen Agency with my partner Tara Hunt. We opened up Citizen Space in San Francisco in November of last year, of 2006.
I guess I got involved in coworking originally because I was working out of cafes and wanted a more collaborative, productive environment to go to and work around other people in. The green part sort of just came naturally, both by being around Ivan and finding out more about what he does, but also holding that value as well, and wanting to figure out a way to change the worklife environment so that you don’t have to give up your values when you go to work.
Ivan Storck: I am Ivan Storck from SustainableWebsites.com, and SustainableMarketing.com. I got involved in green coworking, being here in Citizen Space and trying to bring some of the green values that I promote on my Internet sites into actual practice here in the work place.
The first part was realizing that I could go out and freelance and not be involved in a huge corporation anymore. That made me realize that I could bring my environmental values to my work. I think that is a big realization that you get from freelancing. When you find other people that are into the same thing, it’s great, because it just helps to reinforce that and gets things moving.