I own a coworking space in Portland, Maine and we’re talking about forming a professional services co-op - we want to both share staffing support, and have a better system for exchanging professional services, bringing in outside work, and leveling out the feast/famine cycle of freelancers and consultants. Any models out there?
Hello Elizabeth,
A friend of mine, Phyllis Dealy is working on a similar concept out of New York City. Her twitter handle is @ShinyGirl if you want to see any synergies are there, especially early on; as you both build your communities.
Also, if you’ll execute on this idea, consider our High-Touch Call Desk solution for Startups like yours, includes switchboard, call patching, gatekeeping, appointment setting, customer service: www.officedivvy.com/call-desk/
Good luck with your project…
Ky Ekinci
Co-Founder | Managing Partner
Office Divvy
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on twitter: @KyEkinci
On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 12:41:16 PM UTC-4, Elizabeth Trice wrote:
I own a coworking space in Portland, Maine and we’re talking about forming a professional services co-op - we want to both share staffing support, and have a better system for exchanging professional services, bringing in outside work, and leveling out the feast/famine cycle of freelancers and consultants. Any models out there?
Hey Elizabeth - I just recently launched what I call a skill-exchange platform that I think is the same thing you’re talking about with a services co-op. It’s basically a barter system for professional services, and it uses a time-based alternative currency to facilitate bartering (so it doesn’t have to be 1-to-1).
The platform is called Goodnik.net and it’s live now. You can set up a community for free and check it out. If you have questions/thoughts/etc feel free to email me at [email protected].
-Nate
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On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 12:41:16 PM UTC-4, Elizabeth Trice wrote:
I own a coworking space in Portland, Maine and we’re talking about forming a professional services co-op - we want to both share staffing support, and have a better system for exchanging professional services, bringing in outside work, and leveling out the feast/famine cycle of freelancers and consultants. Any models out there?
very cool, tell me more about how this would work for my community!
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On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 3:41 PM, Nate Heasley, Goodnik [email protected] wrote:
Hey Elizabeth - I just recently launched what I call a skill-exchange platform that I think is the same thing you’re talking about with a services co-op. It’s basically a barter system for professional services, and it uses a time-based alternative currency to facilitate bartering (so it doesn’t have to be 1-to-1).
The platform is called Goodnik.net and it’s live now. You can set up a community for free and check it out. If you have questions/thoughts/etc feel free to email me at [email protected].
-Nate
On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 at 12:41:16 PM UTC-4, Elizabeth Trice wrote:
I own a coworking space in Portland, Maine and we’re talking about forming a professional services co-op - we want to both share staffing support, and have a better system for exchanging professional services, bringing in outside work, and leveling out the feast/famine cycle of freelancers and consultants. Any models out there?
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Liz Trice
207-776-0921
Founder & CEO, Peloton Labs
Portland Innovation Hub Manager, Blackstone Accelerates Growth
“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe / William Hutchison Murray
The way it works is that you as a community manager would set up a community on Goodnik, which allows you to add a logo, description and unique URL (i.e. goodnik.net/communities/peloton). You then share this URL with your members, who then create profiles and identify their skills and their needs, which they post as “projects” between 1-20 hours.
When members post projects, others in the community are notified of that project (depending on their notification settings). They can then review the project and apply to work on it. If they are hired to complete the project, they get paid in “goodnikels” which is a time-based alternative currency (10gn/hr). The person who receives the goodnikels can then use those to hire someone else in the community to help them with their needs. It creates a professional services barter economy (service exchange) that encourages members to hire other members, which reinforces community bonds and keeps “wealth” inside the community. Also, as a barter system it’s tax free which makes it beneficial for everyone. There is a cash option as well, but I haven’t really built that function out very much - simply a choice between posting a project that is barter for goodnikels or cash with the hourly rate set by the project poster.
Does that make sense? I’m happy to get more specific, walk anyone through the idea on the phone or Hangout. I’m also interested in talking to people about ways of integrating it a little more in to coworking communities, such as ways of making the community manager more of the “banker” for that community and using goodnikels to fund things that need to get done in coworking spaces. I’ve had some interesting conversations on this topic with Will from Locus workspaces in Prague - would love to explore that more.