Come one! Come All! Office Nomads is celebrating its six-month anniversary tomorrow, May 30 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. with an open house at the space (1617 Boylston Ave. on Capitol Hill). It’s sure to be a rocking good time with food provided by Elemental Catering, free beer, give-aways of passes for free days of working in the space and of course, tons of great coworkers that you know and love. Or will know and love after the party.

It’s hard to believe it’s been six months already. So much has changed, but somehow, it still feels like just yesterday when I met Jacob at a Halloween party and he told me all about coworking. Looking around the space though, it’s easy to see how long it’s been and how much has happened here. You should come down and check it out. For reference, here’s a shot of Office Nomads’ Grand Opening Party so you can see what the place looked like back then.

See you tomorrow!

Remember on Friday when I told you about the from KING5 coming to put together a story on coworking here at Office Nomads. It aired yesterday and is on the tubes today. Check out the Office Nomads TV news story.

It’s the Friday before Memorial Day and that means it’s pretty quiet around these parts. Most people seem to be taking the day off to make a super-long weekend and those of us that aren’t don’t seem to be working all that hard.

There is some cool stuff going on today with the coolest being that a crew from KING-5 News came by to interview Susan and Jacob (and me!) for a piece on coworking they’re going to run on Monday. I While they were here, we took some pictures to document our teevee moment.

Pretty fun, eh? I personally like the shot where the camera is right in Erik’s face. It’s not easy to pretend you’re working with a camera breathing down your neck. Erik’s could at pretending to work though.

Watch KING5 morning news on Monday morning or check back here. We’ll link to the video when they put it up.

Also today, Alison from MassageWorks came in and gave us all free massages! Apparently she saw the story in Seattle Business Monthly that features Chris (member #1) Haddad and wanted to drop by and offer her services. Hopefully we can get her to come back again. If you’re curious about it, you can check out the video Chris shot with is new Flip Video.

If watching me get a massage isn’t all that exciting (it’s not), you can instead watch the below which is a response to Charlie Bit My Finger – Again!

Though I’m a writer for print and online outlets, I’ve got a deep love for radio. That makes me particularly thrilled to report that one of my favorite radio shows did a piece on what they termed, “Something called ‘coworking’” this week.

Marketplace covers all aspects of business. Wait! Before you yawn and turn the dial, give it a listen because Marketplace covers business in a very colorful way. Somehow, even as they stick to the roots of business reporting (numbers, business trends and the like) they craft interesting and intricate story arcs that regularly engage my imagination.

Marketplace’s coverage of coworking, may not be a prime example of their best work because it is so short. Still, it’s an engaging piece with a few good quotes that, I think, really helps illustrate the feel of being a coworker.

At Nutopia, in New York, people are there “sharing the workspace, but not the work.”

The reporter also visited one of the most popular Jelly meetups (and possibly the originator of the concept) in New York City where he reported that people were “working together thigh to thigh” (that’s hot!) and even sitting on the floor to be a part of the scene.

Finally, he interviewed one person at that Jelly meet up who had an interesting take on that version of coworking: “I’m not more productive, but I’m happier.”

Nice.

The picture is courtesy of Flickr user petroleumjelliffe. Thanks!

Who loves community educators? We do! Today we were lucky enough to have the whole gang from Teach Street in the office for a big brainstorming meeting. What a crew! These guys do amazing work – make sure to check them out.

Thanks to Dave, Katie & the rest of the gang for coming by and making great use of the conference room.

One of the great groups who regularly descends upon Office Nomads is Sustainable Capitol Hill (SCH). From their website:

SCH is a network of neighbors, businesses and community groups dedicated to making Capitol Hill a sustainable community. We are working to create a vital neighborhood — one with strong connections between people, place, and the local ecosystem. Through education, organizing, and action we can make our neighborhood a model for a sustainable future.

After only a short time of existing as a formal group, SCH jumped on the scene and is officially the recipient of a Department of Neighborhoods grant! SCH received $15,000 from the city to host “Imagine Capitol Hill,” a sustainability festival on July 20. This event will be held in conjunction with the Broadway Farmers Market, and will include a ton of interactive activities to engage the residents of Capitol Hill and to get them fired up about sustainability issues on the hill.

Office Nomads psyched to have SCH in our space regularly to organize and plan this great event, as well as to host their monthly potluck dinners & meetings. You can read more about Sustainable Capitol Hill on their website: www.sustainablecapitolhill.org. If you want to get involved, SCH is always looking for more volunteers! E-mail sustcaphillATgmail.com to get on the list to receive updates and information about the group!

Congrats to our South-Sound brethern and sistern at Suite 133 in Tacoma who had a glowing article about their Tacoma coworking space publshed in the Tacoma News Tribune today:

For $250 a month, tenants rent space at a work table, schedule client time or sensitive telephone calls for one of two private conference rooms, share a common couch-coffeepot-refrigerator area and come and go as they please. If tenants prepay their rent, they can get a drawer in a file cabinet. Otherwise, they pack in and pack out whatever they need each day.

The story quickly sketches the history of coworking focusing much more on Suite 133 and its founders. We love Tacoma anyway so it’s nice to see the coworking space there get some of media love!

It’s also nice that the story mentions Office Nomads, though it’s a bit weird to be identified as the “upscale”
coworking space:

Others, like Seattle’s Office Nomads, which opened more recently, offer an upscale feel, storage and fax amenities, higher prices ($475 a month) and daily drop-in rates ($25).

I mean, we use a blackboard to announce our events such as our upcoming Open House on May 30 at 5 pm which you should come to.

CNN covered coworking again this week calling the movement “The Next Phase of Working at Home.”

I love this story–which highlights less-formal coworking arrangements such as Jelly in Atlanta and a more-involved model called Less Distracted in Portland–because the author illustrates quite well how weird it is for freelancers and other indpendants to realize that we don’t actually want to work at home, we just want to work on our own:

“The reason people work alone, is because they’re looking for freedom,” said Bachman, a 34-year-old Web developer who telecommutes part time. “It may be ironic that you crave isolation, but you also want to be socially interactive with others like you.”

I also love it because that quote makes me think of the excellent movie Clerks when Dante reminds Randall “You hate people” and Dante responds “But I love gatherings. Isn’t it ironic?” I do love that movie.

It’s Friday and folks are starting to get a bit nuts here at Office Nomads. Enough so that Susan is emailing Ellen DeGeneres and watching clips of her show. Not sure what Susan is emailing Ellen about, but the video she’s watching is hilarious. For your Friday pleasure, I’ll share it here. Enjoy.