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Finding the right workspace is like dating — the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet has made it a lot more complex. In essence, this means more options.
Whereas the traditional office once served as the default choice for effective communication and collaboration between coworkers, today’s businesses can be just as productive by collaborating on the web, with as little as $10 and a Google account. Entrepreneurs operate from coffee shops, kitchen tables, and coworking spaces in addition to the traditional office.
We asked three entrepreneurs with drastically different office strategies for their advice on choosing a workspace. Read on for their tips and add your own in the comments below.
What Kind of Office is Best to Start In?
“When you’re starting out, you should absolutely not be spending money on rent,” says Jason Fried, the founder of web-based software company 37signals. “It’s a huge waste of money.”
After Fried started 37signals, he and the other two employees working for the company at the time shared a room with another business. “Basically we had a corner of a desk,” he jokes. Assuming you can find another company that is willing to share, teaming up on a space saves cash while still providing a place to work away from the distractions of home.
Others see value in setting up their own offices from the get-go. After a brief stint at the virtual office, Anthony Franco chose a house in Denver to set up his company, EffectiveUI. It wasn’t an ideal workspace, but he got a deal on the rent. New employees were often greeted on their first day with an Allen wrench, to be used for assembling their own desks.
“We started at home, but if we were going to handle demand, we needed to have a place where we could come and work,” Franco said. He added that the extra value of being able to work as a team (in person) more than made up for the cost of an office.
While the lease route worked out well for EffectiveUI, there’s a certain amount of risk involved with jumping into your own space too soon.
“Most commercial leases are for three to four years, and so if you’re small and you’re starting out and you’ve got a couple people, you’re making way too much of a commitment,” Fried argues. “You don’t know where you’re going to be in three years.”
Is Coworking Right for Your Business?
One modern compromise between working completely virtually and committing to a lease is working at a coworking space. These office spaces provide a work environment and an alternative to coffee shops for independent workers.
Campbell McKellar discovered the value of coworking spaces when the company she worked for left their expensive traditional office and started working virtually. The move allowed her to work from anywhere, and she chose Maine. “I was trying to do work in a cottage with family members and dogs running around,” she said. “I loved being fully mobile and independent, but I also wanted to have a platform to do my work.”
LooseCubes, the company McKellar founded in May, runs a website that matches independent workers with coworking spaces and spare desks in other companies. Quite appropriately, it’s currently being run out of a coworking space. McKellar says that working from the space has helped her launch.
“Especially if you’re in a creative business, the best way to get ideas is to meet new people,” she says. “You can get stale by talking to the same five people every day.”
Coworking allows McKellar to “unintentionally network” with the other people in the space, to seek advice from other entrepreneurs, and to host meetings and work with her team at a place that isn’t her living room.
On the other hand, coworking has its challenges and might not be a great fit for every company. Coworking spaces can be distracting, and most of them are set up in a way that requires people making phone calls to seek silence in the hallway.
“For us, quiet and privacy is very important,” Fried says. “So, coworking spaces and coffee shops don’t work for us.”
McKellar admits that on days when she’s “under the gun,” she chooses to work at home. And there is a point at which a company outgrows a coworking space. LooseCubes, for instance, plans to move to its own office space sometime in the next three months.
When Should a Company Transition to a Traditional Office?
“We need to be in a room with a whiteboard that isn’t erased every day, where we can have a conference call in an open environment,” McKellar says of her hopes for transitioning to an office space. Before she commits, however, she wants to wait to see how her site’s public launch goes. In the meantime, she’s renting a room at a Manhattan coworking space called New Work City.
All companies should do something along these lines before committing to a lease, Fried says. “You don’t know if you’re going to be successful,” he says. “And if you are, you might need more space than you have right now…You don’t want to lock yourself into anything when you’re getting started. You want to be as flexible as you possibly can.”
For some people, this means staying virtual for as long as possible. For others like McKellar, it means launching from a coworking space. For Fried’s 37signals, which is based in Chicago but has employees in 11 cities, it meant working from a variety of shared office spaces for about ten years before finally opting for an office of its own in August.
But how do you know when it’s time to make the switch?
One obvious factor is space: “We were only able to rent five or six desks in our last office,” Fried says. “We had nine people in Chicago. We were out of desks at six. So everyone couldn’t come in at the same time, and that was problem.”
Another factor is work environment. If the space you are working in is interfering with your work, it might also be time to opt for an environment you can control. “We work very quietly,” explains Fried. “So our whole thing is be as quiet as possible, don’t talk throughout the day, just have a very quiet setting like a library…You can’t impose those kinds of rules on another company, especially if it’s the other company’s space.”
What are the Benefits of a Traditional Office?
For EffectiveUI, the traditional office was always a great fit. Having grown from a couple of founders to 100 employees since 2005, the company long ago left its house-office behind. They now work from a 12,000-square-foot office space.
But both spaces fulfilled the same requirements: “Whiteboarding, talking with each other and eating lunch together: It’s part of the team culture,” Franco says.
The more traditional office, however, has given him some additional perks. “We have clients come to visit us. We’re able to brand the building and the space, and when people come they can see we’re a real business,” he says.
A lot of people associate traditional offices with being trapped in a cubicle, but Franco maintains that it doesn’t have to be that way. “Just get creative and make it fun, but also give everyone a place to go,” he says.
Can I Have an Untraditional Traditional Office?
Fried thinks of his new office as more of a home base than a traditional office. Employees are free to work at home whenever they want, and half of the company still works in other cities.
“We feel that a combination of both is the best route,” Fried says. “Because we all do want to get together occasionally, and sometimes small teams of five or six people want to get together for a while.”
The home base strategy combines the benefits of virtual and traditional workspaces. When people want to work from another city or find they work better in their pajamas, they can stay home. When they need to collaborate or want to get out of the house, they have a great place to work.
“Our office is highly customized for the way we work,” says Fried. For instance, it has soundproof walls, phone booths for people to make uninterrupted calls, and rooms for small teams.
Most employees who work from Chicago come into the new office about three or four days a week. “We want people to work wherever they work best,” Fried says.
What are your tips for choosing a workspace? Add them in the comments below.
Series supported by RingCentralThis series is supported by RingCentralclass="blippr-nobr">RingCentral. Power your business with a phone system designed to meet the needs of today’s small businesses, entrepreneurs, and mobile professionals. With RingCentral, you can take control of your phone system anywhere — using your existing phones, smartphones, or PCs. Sign up today for a special 60-day free trial.
More Startup Resources from Mashable:
- 8 Funding Contests to Kick Start Your Big Idea/> - HOW TO: Run Your Business Online with $10 and a Google Account/> - 5 Startup Tips From the Father of Gmail and FriendFeed/> - 6 Ways to Recruit Talent for Startups/> - 10 Essential Tips for Building Your Small Biz Team
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CNN: Obama: GOP relying on fear, frustration instead of offering new ideas
With Tea Party protesters gathered outside, President Barack Obama said Thursday he understood the anger and frustration in the country but insisted his policies would move the nation forward. Speaking at a fundraiser for Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Connecticut, Obama said Republicans and special interests were spending millions on negative ads against Democrats instead of offering any new ideas or proposals to spur economic recovery and job creation.
CNN: Pelosi Sends Mixed Messages on Tax Cuts, Clarifies Her Position
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed to send mixed messages Thursday about whether she is open to extending the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. Numerous times in her weekly press conference she strongly argued against the tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000. … But responding to a question about whether there is any chance the top tax bracket tax cuts will be renewed, she appeared to not rule it out. "The only thing I can tell you is that the tax cuts for the middle class will be extended this Congress."
The Hill: Maxine Waters's aides are expelled from event of Speaker Pelosi's
Three staffers working for embattled Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) were asked by security officers to leave an event in downtown Washington on Thursday after they tried to display large campaign signs just as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was about to speak. The aides were holding lawn signs that defended Waters from the ethics charges she is facing in the House.
Politico: John Boehner: No government shutdown under GOP control
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) rejected the idea that Republicans will shut down the government if they come to a legislative impasse with President Barack Obama, even as some conservative activists have predicted and even pushed a shutdown next year. “Our goal is to have a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government here in Washington DC. Our goal is not to shut down the government,” he said.
Los Angeles Times: No winning in economy blame game
Democrat Lee Fisher knows exactly who's to blame for Ohio's 10.3% unemployment rate: It was George W. Bush who dug the state's economic hole, he tells voters, and one of those shoveling right alongside him was Rob Portman. "He helped create the recession," Fisher says of his Republican rival for the U.S. Senate. But Peggy Swope, for one, isn't so sure. There are plenty of reasons the economy tanked, says the 68-year-old independent, and it's not like Obama has done such a great job turning things around. "He was so fixated doing what he thought he needed to do on healthcare that he let everything else go," said Swope, a Columbus retiree.
Washington Post: The 'tea party' gears up for 2012
The playbook for winning the Republican presidential nomination begins with a set of inviolable rules: Start early, raise millions, build an organization, and trudge across the country seeking the blessing of mayors and money men. But in a world where the most careful plans can be rendered obsolete by a Sarah Palin tweet (see: Primary, Delaware), many in the party have begun to question whether those old, pre-"tea party" rules still apply.
CNN: Ousted in GOP primary, senator seeks advice from colleagues
A day before she declares whether she will mount a write-in candidacy to preserve her Senate seat, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski spent several hours in and around the Senate chamber Thursday talking with her colleagues about the difficult decision she faces. After unexpectedly losing the Republican primary to Tea Party-backed Joe Miller, Murkowski is scheduled to be in Alaska Friday to announce whether she run in the general election.
CNN: Dana Bash: Snowe sounds off
Few Republican lawmakers were as stung by Rep. Mike Castle's surprising loss to his conservative GOP opponent as Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. In a hallway just off the Senate floor Thursday afternoon, she sounded off about her place as a moderate in the GOP, and voter anger she says she understands. Visibly sad, Snowe called Castle "an outstanding public servant who was committed to the common good of his state and country."
CNN: O'Donnell's post-primary fundraising nears a million
Christine O'Donnell's campaign tells CNN it raised $850,000 in the first 24 hours after her upset victory in the Delaware Republican senatorial primary. Spokeswoman Michelle Lauren says the campaign's website crashed Tuesday night due to the large amount of traffic generated in the wake of her surprise win. The site went back up Thursday morning, she says.
CNN: Delaware Senate candidates set the stage for November
Delaware voters were treated to a markedly different tone Thursday night as they watched their two Senate candidates together for the first time since the primaries. During a candidate's forum, Republican Christine O'Donnell and Democrat Chris Coons displayed little of the animosity that came to define O'Donnell's bitter primary battle with Rep. Mike Castle. Rather, the night was marked by polite discourse and even agreement as the two candidates sought to lay out their position on many key issues.
CNN: Biden to Delaware Friday to help Coons
Vice President Joe Biden's heading home to Delaware to try and help keep his old Senate seat in Democratic Party hands. The vice president is scheduled to appear with New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, the Democrat's Senate nominee in Delaware, at an event in Wilmington Friday, according to a Thursday evening e-mail from the Coons campaign.
CNN: Clinton talks tea party
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out about the Tea Party movement Thursday, drawing a contrast between the rhetoric of campaigns and how candidates eventually govern. …"When they have the burden of holding office and the responsibility that goes with it, I've seen them become very sobered very quickly," Clinton said. "Sometimes the poetry can get kind of hot and a little over the top, but the prose brings you down to earth."
CNN: Jimmy Carter blames Ted Kennedy for health care delay
The late Sen. Ted Kennedy is widely hailed for devoting his political career to the cause of providing health care to all Americans. But in an interview set to air on 60 Minutes Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter says Kennedy is the one to blame for delaying legislation to provide such care. "The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed," Carter told CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl. "It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill."
Los Angeles Times: Wall Street ties are a major player in midterm election
As Democrats seek to focus voter attention on the nation's economic problems that existed before President Obama took over, they have begun wielding a sharp new tool: the Wall Street reform law and Republican opposition to it. Large GOP gains in Congress could allow Republicans to hinder, or in some cases block, the ability of regulators to implement the law's stricter oversight of the financial industry.
CNN: Midterm TV ad spending could top $1 billion
Nearly $285 million was spent by Democrats, Republicans and advocacy groups on political television commercials in the 2010 primaries, and when the dust settles on this midterm election, the final tally could reach $1 billion. Evan Tracey, president of Campaign Media Analysis, notes history shows that three quarters of the money spent on political TV ads occurs in the final 60 days of the campaign.
Miami Herald: Crist lashes out at U.S. Senate race opponent Marco Rubio
Under attack on television and losing traction in the U.S. Senate race, Gov. Charlie Crist lashed out Thursday at front-runner Marco Rubio for his spending with a Republican party credit card and for trying to stuff "pork" into the state budget. Rubio periodically used his party-issued American Express card to pick up personal expenses, though he says he later covered them.
CNN: Whitman sets all-time spending record
Former eBay chief executive and current California gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman, has broken the all-time personal spending record for an American political candidate, dishing out $119 million in her bid for the governors mansion. Whitman who is running against Democratic opponent Jerry Brown, surpassed the previous self-financed campaign record of $109 million dollars set by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on his 2009 reelection campaign.
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CNN: BP completes relief well in Gulf of Mexico
BP has completed work on a relief well that will allow the oil giant to permanently seal the well at the heart of the Gulf oil disaster, the government's commander in charge of overseeing response to the spill said. "Through a combination of sensors embedded in the drilling equipment and sophisticated instrumentation ... BP engineers and the federal science team have concluded that the Development Driller III relief well has intersected the Macondo well," said Thad Allen, the appointed national incident commander, in a statement released late Thursday.
CNN: Bitten, shot, spat on: Violence in hospitals common for staff
A gunman critically injured a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and later killed himself and his mother, police say - the latest violent incident in a health care setting. Hospitals are pressure cookers as people are often distressed, mentally disturbed or intoxicated by drugs or alcohol in a highly stressful environment. All of these factors pose possible dangers to health care workers.
CNN Money: Lifelines for the poor are disappearing
With more people than ever living in poverty, the government's unprecedented effort to strengthen the safety net for needy Americans is running out. Washington has spent tens of billions of dollars since the start of 2009 on programs to help feed the poor, house the homeless and support the unemployed. But much of this money has been used up or is about to expire in coming weeks and months.
USA Today: Number of uninsured Americans rises to 50.7 million
A record rise in the number of people without health insurance across the nation is fueling renewed debate over a health care law that could to work better at boosting coverage than controlling costs. More than 50 million people were uninsured last year, almost one in six U.S. residents, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The percentage with private insurance was the lowest since the government began keeping data in 1987.
Austin-American Statesman: State hammers EPA on science of global warming
Essentially putting global warming science on trial, Texas officials on Thursday expanded their arguments in a lawsuit meant to prevent the federal regulation of greenhouse gases. In motions submitted Thursday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott accused the federal Environmental Protection Agency of relying on faulty science for its proposals to regulate greenhouse gases.
Washington Post: U.S. cybersecurity plans lagging, critics say
More than a year after President Obama made a White House speech proclaiming that the protection of computer networks was a national priority, the federal government is still grappling with key questions about how to secure its computer systems as well as private networks deemed critical to U.S. security.
INTERNATIONAL
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CNN: Clinton pushes extended West Bank construction moratorium
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has proposed a three-month extension of Israel's construction moratorium on the West Bank, a diplomatic source told CNN Thursday. The proposal, which was made this week during Middle East peace talks being held in the region, was accepted by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but essentially rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two sides appear to be at a stalemate, the source said.
CNN: Pope addresses sex abuse scandal as he starts visit to Britain
The Roman Catholic Church has not been vigilant enough or fast enough in responding to the problem of sexual abuse by priests, Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday. "These revelations were for me a shock and a great sadness. It is difficult to understand how this perversion of the priestly ministry was possible," he told reporters aboard his plane to Scotland. "How a man who has done this and said this can fall into this perversion is difficult to understand."
Christian Science Monitor: Haiti election commission under scrutiny for ties to President René Préval
As Haiti gears up for its first-ever internationally televised presidential debate Saturday, confidence in the government’s ability to hold a credible poll is being undermined by allegations that President René Préval is attempting to sway the election.Details of an Aug. 16 meeting between Mr. Préval and members of Haiti’s election commission (CEP) has observers questioning whether the CEP rejected candidates based on politics instead of the Constitution.
Washington Post: As Cuba gives capitalism a try, experts ponder future
As Cuba embarks on a bold new experiment – firing 500,000 state workers and letting them plunge into freer markets – experts in the region are watching to see whether the communist government and its baby entrepreneurs can salvage the economy without sacrificing the nation's "socialism or death" model.
BUSINESS
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Detroit Free Press: GM CEO Akerson okay with U.S. government role, for now
Unlike his predecessor, General Motors CEO Dan Akerson says he knows the government will be a shareholder even after the initial public stock offering. And for a few years, that is OK with him. "I do think we have the goodwill of many American consumers," he told reporters Thursday. Still, he conceded, "I don't think any investor group has infinite patience."
Wall Street Journal: FedEx 1Q More Than Doubles; 2Q View Cautious
FedEx Corp. (FDX) said Thursday that fiscal first-quarter profit more than doubled and raised its full-year financial guidance, though international volume fell slightly short of expectations and the company announced a charge to restructure its domestic trucking business. The U.S.-based shipping giant also forecast "a phase of somewhat slower economic growth going forward" than earlier in the calendar year, although Chief Executive Fred Smith stressed that he views the trend as indicative of a normal economic cycle rather than precursor to a double-dip recession.
In Case You Missed It
CNN's Brian Todd looks at reverberations within the GOP after Christine O'Donnell's win in the Delaware primary.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/09/16/pkg.todd.odonnell.and.gop.cnn
N.Y. Gubernatorial Candidate, Carl Paladino discusses his stance on specific issues.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/09/17/ac.paladino.intv.issues.cnn
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Read our news of Facebook claims 200 million gamers.
After receiving a letter from the group Catholics for Equality urging a change to the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, the Archbishop for Military Services responded, saying that the archdiocese's position is “clear.
After the changes take effect, people who do not play games will no longer see news feed stories from friends who do play games — same goes for any other third-party app. Because news feed stories were a main way that people found games ...
robert shumakeRead our news of Facebook claims 200 million gamers.
After receiving a letter from the group Catholics for Equality urging a change to the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, the Archbishop for Military Services responded, saying that the archdiocese's position is “clear.
After the changes take effect, people who do not play games will no longer see news feed stories from friends who do play games — same goes for any other third-party app. Because news feed stories were a main way that people found games ...
This series is supported by RingCentral, the leading business phone system designed for today’s small businesses, entrepreneurs, and mobile professionals. Visit RingCentral.com to learn more.
Finding the right workspace is like dating — the class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet has made it a lot more complex. In essence, this means more options.
Whereas the traditional office once served as the default choice for effective communication and collaboration between coworkers, today’s businesses can be just as productive by collaborating on the web, with as little as $10 and a Google account. Entrepreneurs operate from coffee shops, kitchen tables, and coworking spaces in addition to the traditional office.
We asked three entrepreneurs with drastically different office strategies for their advice on choosing a workspace. Read on for their tips and add your own in the comments below.
What Kind of Office is Best to Start In?
“When you’re starting out, you should absolutely not be spending money on rent,” says Jason Fried, the founder of web-based software company 37signals. “It’s a huge waste of money.”
After Fried started 37signals, he and the other two employees working for the company at the time shared a room with another business. “Basically we had a corner of a desk,” he jokes. Assuming you can find another company that is willing to share, teaming up on a space saves cash while still providing a place to work away from the distractions of home.
Others see value in setting up their own offices from the get-go. After a brief stint at the virtual office, Anthony Franco chose a house in Denver to set up his company, EffectiveUI. It wasn’t an ideal workspace, but he got a deal on the rent. New employees were often greeted on their first day with an Allen wrench, to be used for assembling their own desks.
“We started at home, but if we were going to handle demand, we needed to have a place where we could come and work,” Franco said. He added that the extra value of being able to work as a team (in person) more than made up for the cost of an office.
While the lease route worked out well for EffectiveUI, there’s a certain amount of risk involved with jumping into your own space too soon.
“Most commercial leases are for three to four years, and so if you’re small and you’re starting out and you’ve got a couple people, you’re making way too much of a commitment,” Fried argues. “You don’t know where you’re going to be in three years.”
Is Coworking Right for Your Business?
One modern compromise between working completely virtually and committing to a lease is working at a coworking space. These office spaces provide a work environment and an alternative to coffee shops for independent workers.
Campbell McKellar discovered the value of coworking spaces when the company she worked for left their expensive traditional office and started working virtually. The move allowed her to work from anywhere, and she chose Maine. “I was trying to do work in a cottage with family members and dogs running around,” she said. “I loved being fully mobile and independent, but I also wanted to have a platform to do my work.”
LooseCubes, the company McKellar founded in May, runs a website that matches independent workers with coworking spaces and spare desks in other companies. Quite appropriately, it’s currently being run out of a coworking space. McKellar says that working from the space has helped her launch.
“Especially if you’re in a creative business, the best way to get ideas is to meet new people,” she says. “You can get stale by talking to the same five people every day.”
Coworking allows McKellar to “unintentionally network” with the other people in the space, to seek advice from other entrepreneurs, and to host meetings and work with her team at a place that isn’t her living room.
On the other hand, coworking has its challenges and might not be a great fit for every company. Coworking spaces can be distracting, and most of them are set up in a way that requires people making phone calls to seek silence in the hallway.
“For us, quiet and privacy is very important,” Fried says. “So, coworking spaces and coffee shops don’t work for us.”
McKellar admits that on days when she’s “under the gun,” she chooses to work at home. And there is a point at which a company outgrows a coworking space. LooseCubes, for instance, plans to move to its own office space sometime in the next three months.
When Should a Company Transition to a Traditional Office?
“We need to be in a room with a whiteboard that isn’t erased every day, where we can have a conference call in an open environment,” McKellar says of her hopes for transitioning to an office space. Before she commits, however, she wants to wait to see how her site’s public launch goes. In the meantime, she’s renting a room at a Manhattan coworking space called New Work City.
All companies should do something along these lines before committing to a lease, Fried says. “You don’t know if you’re going to be successful,” he says. “And if you are, you might need more space than you have right now…You don’t want to lock yourself into anything when you’re getting started. You want to be as flexible as you possibly can.”
For some people, this means staying virtual for as long as possible. For others like McKellar, it means launching from a coworking space. For Fried’s 37signals, which is based in Chicago but has employees in 11 cities, it meant working from a variety of shared office spaces for about ten years before finally opting for an office of its own in August.
But how do you know when it’s time to make the switch?
One obvious factor is space: “We were only able to rent five or six desks in our last office,” Fried says. “We had nine people in Chicago. We were out of desks at six. So everyone couldn’t come in at the same time, and that was problem.”
Another factor is work environment. If the space you are working in is interfering with your work, it might also be time to opt for an environment you can control. “We work very quietly,” explains Fried. “So our whole thing is be as quiet as possible, don’t talk throughout the day, just have a very quiet setting like a library…You can’t impose those kinds of rules on another company, especially if it’s the other company’s space.”
What are the Benefits of a Traditional Office?
For EffectiveUI, the traditional office was always a great fit. Having grown from a couple of founders to 100 employees since 2005, the company long ago left its house-office behind. They now work from a 12,000-square-foot office space.
But both spaces fulfilled the same requirements: “Whiteboarding, talking with each other and eating lunch together: It’s part of the team culture,” Franco says.
The more traditional office, however, has given him some additional perks. “We have clients come to visit us. We’re able to brand the building and the space, and when people come they can see we’re a real business,” he says.
A lot of people associate traditional offices with being trapped in a cubicle, but Franco maintains that it doesn’t have to be that way. “Just get creative and make it fun, but also give everyone a place to go,” he says.
Can I Have an Untraditional Traditional Office?
Fried thinks of his new office as more of a home base than a traditional office. Employees are free to work at home whenever they want, and half of the company still works in other cities.
“We feel that a combination of both is the best route,” Fried says. “Because we all do want to get together occasionally, and sometimes small teams of five or six people want to get together for a while.”
The home base strategy combines the benefits of virtual and traditional workspaces. When people want to work from another city or find they work better in their pajamas, they can stay home. When they need to collaborate or want to get out of the house, they have a great place to work.
“Our office is highly customized for the way we work,” says Fried. For instance, it has soundproof walls, phone booths for people to make uninterrupted calls, and rooms for small teams.
Most employees who work from Chicago come into the new office about three or four days a week. “We want people to work wherever they work best,” Fried says.
What are your tips for choosing a workspace? Add them in the comments below.
Series supported by RingCentralThis series is supported by RingCentralclass="blippr-nobr">RingCentral. Power your business with a phone system designed to meet the needs of today’s small businesses, entrepreneurs, and mobile professionals. With RingCentral, you can take control of your phone system anywhere — using your existing phones, smartphones, or PCs. Sign up today for a special 60-day free trial.
More Startup Resources from Mashable:
- 8 Funding Contests to Kick Start Your Big Idea/> - HOW TO: Run Your Business Online with $10 and a Google Account/> - 5 Startup Tips From the Father of Gmail and FriendFeed/> - 6 Ways to Recruit Talent for Startups/> - 10 Essential Tips for Building Your Small Biz Team
Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, francisblack
For more Business coverage:
class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad
The CNN Washington Bureau’s morning speed read of the top stories making news from around the country and the world.
WASHINGTON/POLITICAL
For the latest political news: www.CNNPolitics.com
CNN: Obama: GOP relying on fear, frustration instead of offering new ideas
With Tea Party protesters gathered outside, President Barack Obama said Thursday he understood the anger and frustration in the country but insisted his policies would move the nation forward. Speaking at a fundraiser for Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Connecticut, Obama said Republicans and special interests were spending millions on negative ads against Democrats instead of offering any new ideas or proposals to spur economic recovery and job creation.
CNN: Pelosi Sends Mixed Messages on Tax Cuts, Clarifies Her Position
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemed to send mixed messages Thursday about whether she is open to extending the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. Numerous times in her weekly press conference she strongly argued against the tax cuts for Americans making more than $250,000. … But responding to a question about whether there is any chance the top tax bracket tax cuts will be renewed, she appeared to not rule it out. "The only thing I can tell you is that the tax cuts for the middle class will be extended this Congress."
The Hill: Maxine Waters's aides are expelled from event of Speaker Pelosi's
Three staffers working for embattled Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) were asked by security officers to leave an event in downtown Washington on Thursday after they tried to display large campaign signs just as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was about to speak. The aides were holding lawn signs that defended Waters from the ethics charges she is facing in the House.
Politico: John Boehner: No government shutdown under GOP control
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) rejected the idea that Republicans will shut down the government if they come to a legislative impasse with President Barack Obama, even as some conservative activists have predicted and even pushed a shutdown next year. “Our goal is to have a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government here in Washington DC. Our goal is not to shut down the government,” he said.
Los Angeles Times: No winning in economy blame game
Democrat Lee Fisher knows exactly who's to blame for Ohio's 10.3% unemployment rate: It was George W. Bush who dug the state's economic hole, he tells voters, and one of those shoveling right alongside him was Rob Portman. "He helped create the recession," Fisher says of his Republican rival for the U.S. Senate. But Peggy Swope, for one, isn't so sure. There are plenty of reasons the economy tanked, says the 68-year-old independent, and it's not like Obama has done such a great job turning things around. "He was so fixated doing what he thought he needed to do on healthcare that he let everything else go," said Swope, a Columbus retiree.
Washington Post: The 'tea party' gears up for 2012
The playbook for winning the Republican presidential nomination begins with a set of inviolable rules: Start early, raise millions, build an organization, and trudge across the country seeking the blessing of mayors and money men. But in a world where the most careful plans can be rendered obsolete by a Sarah Palin tweet (see: Primary, Delaware), many in the party have begun to question whether those old, pre-"tea party" rules still apply.
CNN: Ousted in GOP primary, senator seeks advice from colleagues
A day before she declares whether she will mount a write-in candidacy to preserve her Senate seat, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski spent several hours in and around the Senate chamber Thursday talking with her colleagues about the difficult decision she faces. After unexpectedly losing the Republican primary to Tea Party-backed Joe Miller, Murkowski is scheduled to be in Alaska Friday to announce whether she run in the general election.
CNN: Dana Bash: Snowe sounds off
Few Republican lawmakers were as stung by Rep. Mike Castle's surprising loss to his conservative GOP opponent as Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. In a hallway just off the Senate floor Thursday afternoon, she sounded off about her place as a moderate in the GOP, and voter anger she says she understands. Visibly sad, Snowe called Castle "an outstanding public servant who was committed to the common good of his state and country."
CNN: O'Donnell's post-primary fundraising nears a million
Christine O'Donnell's campaign tells CNN it raised $850,000 in the first 24 hours after her upset victory in the Delaware Republican senatorial primary. Spokeswoman Michelle Lauren says the campaign's website crashed Tuesday night due to the large amount of traffic generated in the wake of her surprise win. The site went back up Thursday morning, she says.
CNN: Delaware Senate candidates set the stage for November
Delaware voters were treated to a markedly different tone Thursday night as they watched their two Senate candidates together for the first time since the primaries. During a candidate's forum, Republican Christine O'Donnell and Democrat Chris Coons displayed little of the animosity that came to define O'Donnell's bitter primary battle with Rep. Mike Castle. Rather, the night was marked by polite discourse and even agreement as the two candidates sought to lay out their position on many key issues.
CNN: Biden to Delaware Friday to help Coons
Vice President Joe Biden's heading home to Delaware to try and help keep his old Senate seat in Democratic Party hands. The vice president is scheduled to appear with New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, the Democrat's Senate nominee in Delaware, at an event in Wilmington Friday, according to a Thursday evening e-mail from the Coons campaign.
CNN: Clinton talks tea party
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out about the Tea Party movement Thursday, drawing a contrast between the rhetoric of campaigns and how candidates eventually govern. …"When they have the burden of holding office and the responsibility that goes with it, I've seen them become very sobered very quickly," Clinton said. "Sometimes the poetry can get kind of hot and a little over the top, but the prose brings you down to earth."
CNN: Jimmy Carter blames Ted Kennedy for health care delay
The late Sen. Ted Kennedy is widely hailed for devoting his political career to the cause of providing health care to all Americans. But in an interview set to air on 60 Minutes Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter says Kennedy is the one to blame for delaying legislation to provide such care. "The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed," Carter told CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl. "It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill."
Los Angeles Times: Wall Street ties are a major player in midterm election
As Democrats seek to focus voter attention on the nation's economic problems that existed before President Obama took over, they have begun wielding a sharp new tool: the Wall Street reform law and Republican opposition to it. Large GOP gains in Congress could allow Republicans to hinder, or in some cases block, the ability of regulators to implement the law's stricter oversight of the financial industry.
CNN: Midterm TV ad spending could top $1 billion
Nearly $285 million was spent by Democrats, Republicans and advocacy groups on political television commercials in the 2010 primaries, and when the dust settles on this midterm election, the final tally could reach $1 billion. Evan Tracey, president of Campaign Media Analysis, notes history shows that three quarters of the money spent on political TV ads occurs in the final 60 days of the campaign.
Miami Herald: Crist lashes out at U.S. Senate race opponent Marco Rubio
Under attack on television and losing traction in the U.S. Senate race, Gov. Charlie Crist lashed out Thursday at front-runner Marco Rubio for his spending with a Republican party credit card and for trying to stuff "pork" into the state budget. Rubio periodically used his party-issued American Express card to pick up personal expenses, though he says he later covered them.
CNN: Whitman sets all-time spending record
Former eBay chief executive and current California gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman, has broken the all-time personal spending record for an American political candidate, dishing out $119 million in her bid for the governors mansion. Whitman who is running against Democratic opponent Jerry Brown, surpassed the previous self-financed campaign record of $109 million dollars set by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on his 2009 reelection campaign.
NATIONAL
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CNN: BP completes relief well in Gulf of Mexico
BP has completed work on a relief well that will allow the oil giant to permanently seal the well at the heart of the Gulf oil disaster, the government's commander in charge of overseeing response to the spill said. "Through a combination of sensors embedded in the drilling equipment and sophisticated instrumentation ... BP engineers and the federal science team have concluded that the Development Driller III relief well has intersected the Macondo well," said Thad Allen, the appointed national incident commander, in a statement released late Thursday.
CNN: Bitten, shot, spat on: Violence in hospitals common for staff
A gunman critically injured a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and later killed himself and his mother, police say - the latest violent incident in a health care setting. Hospitals are pressure cookers as people are often distressed, mentally disturbed or intoxicated by drugs or alcohol in a highly stressful environment. All of these factors pose possible dangers to health care workers.
CNN Money: Lifelines for the poor are disappearing
With more people than ever living in poverty, the government's unprecedented effort to strengthen the safety net for needy Americans is running out. Washington has spent tens of billions of dollars since the start of 2009 on programs to help feed the poor, house the homeless and support the unemployed. But much of this money has been used up or is about to expire in coming weeks and months.
USA Today: Number of uninsured Americans rises to 50.7 million
A record rise in the number of people without health insurance across the nation is fueling renewed debate over a health care law that could to work better at boosting coverage than controlling costs. More than 50 million people were uninsured last year, almost one in six U.S. residents, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The percentage with private insurance was the lowest since the government began keeping data in 1987.
Austin-American Statesman: State hammers EPA on science of global warming
Essentially putting global warming science on trial, Texas officials on Thursday expanded their arguments in a lawsuit meant to prevent the federal regulation of greenhouse gases. In motions submitted Thursday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott accused the federal Environmental Protection Agency of relying on faulty science for its proposals to regulate greenhouse gases.
Washington Post: U.S. cybersecurity plans lagging, critics say
More than a year after President Obama made a White House speech proclaiming that the protection of computer networks was a national priority, the federal government is still grappling with key questions about how to secure its computer systems as well as private networks deemed critical to U.S. security.
INTERNATIONAL
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CNN: Clinton pushes extended West Bank construction moratorium
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has proposed a three-month extension of Israel's construction moratorium on the West Bank, a diplomatic source told CNN Thursday. The proposal, which was made this week during Middle East peace talks being held in the region, was accepted by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but essentially rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two sides appear to be at a stalemate, the source said.
CNN: Pope addresses sex abuse scandal as he starts visit to Britain
The Roman Catholic Church has not been vigilant enough or fast enough in responding to the problem of sexual abuse by priests, Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday. "These revelations were for me a shock and a great sadness. It is difficult to understand how this perversion of the priestly ministry was possible," he told reporters aboard his plane to Scotland. "How a man who has done this and said this can fall into this perversion is difficult to understand."
Christian Science Monitor: Haiti election commission under scrutiny for ties to President René Préval
As Haiti gears up for its first-ever internationally televised presidential debate Saturday, confidence in the government’s ability to hold a credible poll is being undermined by allegations that President René Préval is attempting to sway the election.Details of an Aug. 16 meeting between Mr. Préval and members of Haiti’s election commission (CEP) has observers questioning whether the CEP rejected candidates based on politics instead of the Constitution.
Washington Post: As Cuba gives capitalism a try, experts ponder future
As Cuba embarks on a bold new experiment – firing 500,000 state workers and letting them plunge into freer markets – experts in the region are watching to see whether the communist government and its baby entrepreneurs can salvage the economy without sacrificing the nation's "socialism or death" model.
BUSINESS
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Detroit Free Press: GM CEO Akerson okay with U.S. government role, for now
Unlike his predecessor, General Motors CEO Dan Akerson says he knows the government will be a shareholder even after the initial public stock offering. And for a few years, that is OK with him. "I do think we have the goodwill of many American consumers," he told reporters Thursday. Still, he conceded, "I don't think any investor group has infinite patience."
Wall Street Journal: FedEx 1Q More Than Doubles; 2Q View Cautious
FedEx Corp. (FDX) said Thursday that fiscal first-quarter profit more than doubled and raised its full-year financial guidance, though international volume fell slightly short of expectations and the company announced a charge to restructure its domestic trucking business. The U.S.-based shipping giant also forecast "a phase of somewhat slower economic growth going forward" than earlier in the calendar year, although Chief Executive Fred Smith stressed that he views the trend as indicative of a normal economic cycle rather than precursor to a double-dip recession.
In Case You Missed It
CNN's Brian Todd looks at reverberations within the GOP after Christine O'Donnell's win in the Delaware primary.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/09/16/pkg.todd.odonnell.and.gop.cnn
N.Y. Gubernatorial Candidate, Carl Paladino discusses his stance on specific issues.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/09/17/ac.paladino.intv.issues.cnn
Subscribe to the CNN=Politics DAILY podcast at http://www.cnn.com/politicalpodcast
And now stay posted on the latest from the campaign trail by downloading the CNN=Politics SCREENSAVER at http://www.CNN.com/situationroom
robert shumakeRead our news of Facebook claims 200 million gamers.
After receiving a letter from the group Catholics for Equality urging a change to the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, the Archbishop for Military Services responded, saying that the archdiocese's position is “clear.
After the changes take effect, people who do not play games will no longer see news feed stories from friends who do play games — same goes for any other third-party app. Because news feed stories were a main way that people found games ...
robert shumakeRead our news of Facebook claims 200 million gamers.
After receiving a letter from the group Catholics for Equality urging a change to the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, the Archbishop for Military Services responded, saying that the archdiocese's position is “clear.
After the changes take effect, people who do not play games will no longer see news feed stories from friends who do play games — same goes for any other third-party app. Because news feed stories were a main way that people found games ...
