SC Sentinel – Felton work center expands to downtown Santa Cruz
April 29, 2010
From today’s Santa Cruz Sentinel:
SANTA CRUZ – Out of the coffee shop and into the cubicle.
That’s the trend in downtown Santa Cruz, anyway, as Felton’s Satellite Telework Center opens its second work space for telecommuters, independent consultants and the self-employed in the New Sentinel building on Church Street, next to Internet provider Cruzio and nonprofit Ecology Action.
Satellite, whose current location offers rentable cubicles, cafe tables, conference rooms and office necessities like printers and phones will be the second such business to open off of Pacific Avenue. NextSpace Coworking + Innovation offers similar benefits on the corner of Pacific and Cooper Street.
But the heads of both shops say their businesses are so unique – and demand so great – that they should be able to thrive just a few blocks away from each other.
“You hear a lot about work-life balance, and this is a part of it, separating between work and home,” said CEO Barbara Sprenger.
The difference between each business is palpable. Satellite’s Felton location is understated, with a noise cancellation system keeping cubicles quiet and tasteful paintings by local artists on the wall. The business’ target demographic, said Sprenger and Marketing Director Jim Graham, is telecommuters, consultants and startups who need to rent office space by the hour, day, week or month. They feature a key card system similar to a hotel’s that tracks time spent inside Satellite, what printers or other office machinery was used and bills clients accordingly. About 50 people work there.NextSpace features red trim and Santa Cruz artist Steve Hosmer’s wall-covering, whimsical paintings. Customers purchase flat-rate “memberships,” which CEO Jeremy Neuner describes as buying into a community. NextSpace’s target demographic is independent, creative professionals seeking like-minded folks to work with. Nearly 200 people work there.
While some telecommuters base out of NextSpace, they don’t comprise one-third of its members like at Satellite, Neuner said.
“The nature of work is changing. People are going to continue to seek alternative work arrangements,” Neuner said. “We provide work arrangements that will work for some people. Satellite provides work arrangements that will work for some people.”
Even expansion plans are different. Along with downtown, Satellite is eyeing other locations in Westside Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley, along with Pleasanton, Campbell and Morgan Hill. Sprenger and Graham said they research census data to learn commute patterns and income levels of communities where Satellite might be a good fit.
NextSpace, on the other hand, is seeking out “urban cores” where creative entrepreneurs now hole up in coffee shops with their laptop computers. Neuner declined to specify where NextSpace will open next, only to say that it will be in a major market outside Santa Cruz County.
With more commuters working from home and laid-off residents becoming self-employed, Sprenger and Neuner said demand for both types of space is only growing.
“We offer the same type of service, but it’s a slightly different clientele,” Graham said. “Both of us are taking advantage of this change in how people work.”
Comment on a “Telecommuting Success” story
July 8, 2009
Green Nation Today recently published an article on how telecommuting is helping the environment:
Telecommuting a Quiet Environmental Success Story
Green Nation Today
July 7, 2009 by Richard Blake
One of the most effective and certainly one of the easiest steps that can be taken to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and cut US dependence on foreign oil and the balance of trade, national security, economic and other problems directly associated with that dependence would be the widespread use of telecommuting or telework by US businesses.
I thought it was an excellent article and sent the writer the following comment:
“With the upsurge in telecommuting, though, we have to look at the implications of widespread work from home, the problems of both isolation and distractions, of kids climbing on your work and neighbors dropping by, of trying to work in a corner of your bedroom or on the kitchen table. A sizeable minority have said they’d prefer to work in a center NEAR home, rather than in home. That’s what we’re trying to do: set up neighborhood workspace so people can avoid the commute and be in their community but still be in professional, ergonomic, welcoming workspace.”
New words and new names are appearing for what we do
June 28, 2009
Check out “Worldwide Workplace: The Web Commuting Imperative”. The report was commissioned by Citrix, makers of GotoMeeting and related products. Instead of telecommuting, we’re now “web commuting” and “work-shifting”. Actually, there’s some interesting stuff in the survey on telecommuting patterns and issues.
Telecommuting grew by 43%, to 34 million workers in the US from just 2003 to 2008. This group is expected to grow to 63 million by 2016, and there really isn’t a concerted effort to look holistically at the impacts these changes mean for workplaces, communities and families. Citrix is supporting the formation of the Worldwide Workplace Council, which has some interesting names on it (although I can’t find a website for it yet.)
As I’ve been calling on tech companies, the similarities are noteworthy: everybody has telecommuters; most allow it unofficially and look the other way; most managers still want butts in seats.
We need a concerted effort to look at the 21st century workplace. It’s dispersed, it’s connected. It can also be isolating, if we’re not careful, while on the other hand, filled with distractions. I wonder if most of the productivity gains from telecommuting come from people just working longer hours…
Telecommuting Could Save Billions of Gallons of Gasoline
June 19, 2009
According to Telework Exchange, “If white-collar employees who feel they could do their jobs from home began to telework twice a week, the United States could conserve 9.7 billion gallons of gasoline and save $38.2 billion a year.” These calculations are based on 50 miles round trips in vehicles getting 24 miles per gallon, with gasoline at $3.94/gallon.
Who’s driving Highway 17?
May 20, 2009
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The data is a couple of years old, but Greg Larson’s study of Highway 17 commuters still rings true today. The study, completed in September 2007, reported that long trips into Silicon Valley generated substantial auto emissions, that Santa Cruz County residents spend a significant amount of time on the road and that while the high paying jobs are over the hill, people want to work closer to home. Larson, who is now the Los Gatos City Manager, compiled the data for Santa Cruz Planning & Community Development with support from the city Economic Development & Redevelopment and Santa Cruz Next. Some of the highlights of the report include:
And, lastly,
For those commuters who are on Twitter, consider following @hwy17traffic, a repeater set up by @jonassink that aggregates Tweets and CHP updates on the daily commute. |
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The Satellite Twitter
- 6 days ago--What's new with Satellite Telework Centers - September - link #coworking #telework
- Aug 6th--It's a free #coworking / #telework day here at the Satellite in downtown Felton. Come on in and set a spell.
- Aug 3rd--Just fired off our August email newsletter: link I <3 Constant Contact analytics.
- Jul 29th--We're hosting a free seminar on protecting small businesses from data theft tonight at 7 p.m. - link
- Jul 28th--Someone's doing a model photo shoot here at the Satellite
- Jul 26th--Our mid-month email newsletter, now brought to you by Constant Contact: link
- 6 days ago--What's new with Satellite Telework Centers - September - link #coworking #telework