I know that a lot of us, including myself, prefer to keep our politics and our professions separate.
But over this weekend, I had a long conversation with one of my biz partners about the fact that people who promote entrepreneurship have a unique need to speak up. We can’t just promote entrepreneurial topics when it’s sexy and aspirational.
I also recognize that this seems like a US centric concern. But I know that our international community knows American community leaders who promote business and entrepreneurship. And even if you’re not in the US, but work with US businesses in any capacity, this has the likelihood to impact you as well.
And finally I’m not really here to debate politics.
But I am here because I’m I worried about the economic fallout that is essentially inevitable from the nasty healthcare bill that’s currently making its way through the senate, and how it’s going to impact our people. Our communities are packed full of entrepreneurial, aspirational, job-creating people.
People who, if this bill passes in the US, likely won’t be able to afford to employ people or even employ themselves. People who won’t be able to keep their coworking memberships, or worse will have to debate between keeping their memberships or paying for their healthcare.
My biz partner put together an extensive post outlining all of the potential impact specifically on the kinds of micro-businesses that thrive in coworking spaces. Even more important than the details and the research is what we can do, notably in the US.
https://stackingthebricks.com/code-red-gop-senate-health-bill-hurts-entrepreneurs/
I don’t have answers here, other than realizing that as much as it stresses people out to talk about this stuff out loud the result of not talking about it could be much much worse.
So if anything about this post this makes you anxious - please read and share my partner’s post. And if you’re in the US, pick up the phone and call your representatives. If you’ve never done it before, there’s great tips in that post.
I’m not the kind of person who worries easily - but I also can’t pretend that this will get sorted out without taking some kind of action as individuals or communities.
So I’m curious - is anybody mobilizing their coworking community to action around these issues? Do you have members doing activism work that other coworking communities can support?
-Alex
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The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.
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