The watch-phrase of the moment is "Work Hub", every county council wants one, every business centre wants to be one but why and what is one?
From a local authority economic development point of view a Work Hub is a nursery where new companies can be nurtured and fed with the business equivalent of Baby Bio ready to plant out in the greater economic garden, fit and strong enough to fend for themselves and grow into larger local employers. It may seem a lot of effort and resource to plough, to continue the horticultural theme, into a one-man business that may or may not succeed but you only need to produce ten successes and assume they will each grow to employ ten people and you've created one hundred jobs. From the 200 businesses currently under the wing of the Aylesbury Hot Office Business Centre, the business growth and employment possibilities could reach into the thousands.
Generally Work Hubs have links to business support groups such as the local Chamber of Commerce, Business Link and other regional development agencies all falling over each other to help the fledgling firms. Any Work Hub with access to these resources on site and on-tap will produce a steady flow of success stories.
Human Interaction
For the people using the Work Hub it provides necessary human interaction, I hesitate to use the word 'social' interaction which is more associated with intangible web based communities, whereas a human environment is more likely to provide practical direct business benefits.
Many people who start their own businesses have come from a corporate background where working alongside colleagues, perhaps in a large open plan office, is the norm. Whether this is an arrangement we feel comfortable with because we are used to the concept from generations of doing it or whether we are naturally inclined to this format because of a primal need to be around others is not known.
It is certainly the case that working in a shared office environment is significantly more productive than working in isolation at home or from a small enclosed office.
Cherry Campbell, Operations Director of The Hot Office says "I can guarantee that a new member, after their first day or after a free office trial, will tell me that they got more work done in one day here than in a week working from home". Cherry continues to give examples of how community working has directly helped her members; "I could draw a plan showing all our members and interconnecting lines where relationships have been forged, this diagram would look like a giant spider's web"; the collaboration between members ranges from informal discussions to long term business contracts.
"However, we made a conscious decision not to force these relationships by enforced socialising such as networking events, there are enough local networking groups in the area to cater for that, we would rather these relationships grew organically in a relaxed and 'no pressure' environment"
£25k Saving for a chat over the water cooler!
"My favourite example of how this works is where two members where chatting in the kitchen about a software development problem one was having, the other, a software programmer, offered to have a quick look at the problem and as a result saved the first over £25k and very possibly saved his business, Gareth did this as a favour and Paul lived to trade another day". [A copy of the 'thank-you' letter from Paul is available to see in our reception]