What oils your gears?

[Lightspeed]

It looks like someone's been doing some forum maintenance!

[crocos]

Ssh! Don't say that - they'll figure out the forum is still valued and start charging us.

[Ab]

[crocos]

Thank you Daddy Ab.

I've been in a weirder mood than usual. I blame Kiwicon.

[Ab]

Oh behalf of the indigenous peoples of the world past and present, gears oiled.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/go...22-p50hou.html

[CCS]

What a fucken moron.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Ab

Oh behalf of the indigenous peoples of the world past and present, gears oiled.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/go...22-p50hou.html

Fair.

[Nich]

I love this quote:

"One of the juveniles shot at him with an arrow, which pierced his waterproof Bible, he wrote."

[StN]

Originally Posted by Nich

I love this quote:

"One of the juveniles shot at him with an arrow, which pierced his waterproof Bible, he wrote."

Yeah - I lost it at "waterproof bible" too.

[StN]

Sweet - Been listening to Penn's Sunday School for a couple of years now, which led to the Ice Cream Social, and PiffPod podcasts as well. So I know most of the in-jokes. Now it appears I may have access to meet Piff in January at the Christchurch Buskers festival. With any luck, he'll have his assistant Jade with him - cause a magic dragon needs his travelling showgirl.

[pxpx]

One assumes Mr Piffles will be prevented from entering the country

[StN]

Originally Posted by pxpx

One assumes Mr Piffles will be prevented from entering the country

Unfortunately I cannot comment. But there is more than one, you know...

[MadMax]

The cup steaming function on the new coffee machine at work.

[StN]

Goddamn IT Security issue causing me to miss my afternoon off where I was going to assist a co-worker with delivering a special chihuahua to Christs College for a rehearsal.

Oh well, I'll just have to get there really early on Sunday night to get good seats.

[Nich]

Modafinil oils my gears.

I am ready to body hack my way through the fourth trimester!

[Ab]

Ha! Did you get a prescription?

[Lightspeed]

Damn, super-jealous.

[Nich]

Nope, I had a "gift" delivered from India. But I will get a prescription if customs holds onto one of my orders.

[Nich]

*cough*

Can pay with Bitcoin / Ethereum...

[Lightspeed]

Guess what country you won't find in the checkout? It's really weird how hard it is to bring Modafinil into NZ. I've seen dark web sites that will ship LSD and cannabis to NZ, but not Modafinil.

[Ab]

Let us know how you get on... been thinking of having a crack myself.

[Nich]

on 70mg today. I had it this morning with butter coffee. I need to probably do 20-30mg.

It's very effective, but it's impacting my speech and creativity. I think this would be perfect on days where you know what needs to happen, you just need to get in and do the work.

[Nich]

This also oils my gears. We got a writeup in the local paper!

https://www.bordermail.com.au/story/...s=9686#slide=2

WITH more people than ever working from home, some are finding that it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be.

For some, home offices can be distracting or have unreliable internet while public spaces such as cafes can be too noisy.

Shared office spaces are gaining popularity on the Border among people who want to separate work and home life.

North East-based couple Nicholas Rogan and Robyn Butcher opened Avenue Shared Working Space at Yackandandah in August after moving from Melbourne earlier that year.

Mr Rogan said while the concept was popular in the city it was still gaining traction in rural towns.

“I enjoyed working in a shared office space in Melbourne so much that I looked forward to doing the same in the country,” he said.

“Then I went looking for a shared office space and I couldn’t find one.”

Mr Rogan, who is an audiovisual consultant and designer, said he knew what set apart the best office spaces.

“I’ve seen millions of dollars spent on good workplaces and millions of dollars spent on bad workplaces,” Mr Rogan said.

“You need internet, printing, coffee and a good vibe and good ergonomics.”

Mr Rogan said Avenue Shared Working Space was previously occupied by a hairdressing salon.

He said they changed the layout and added a kitchen.

“It was my foray into welding and furniture design,” he said.

Ms Butcher, who is a landscape architect, said she could do her job from anywhere but enjoyed the interaction of a shared office.

“I can be anywhere but Yackandandah is a really nice place to be,” she said.

“It’s a good opportunity to network with different small business people in the area.”

Workers travel from Beechworth and as far as Albury to use the High Street space while other visitors book a desk only during their stay.

Avenue has hosted a range of business workshops and in recent weeks was the venue for the Local Indigo Network Charity Drive meetings.

Avenue operates business hours, Monday to Friday, at 9 High Street, Yackandandah.

- JODIE BRUTON

[CCS]

Yackandandaroo you say? /looks at map.

Sheeit, my brother lives up the road in Albury. There's a decent military museum there (well, Wondongaroo) and if you don't mind a drive, Puckapunyal has a tank museum. You like tanks, right?

[Juju]

Wiki tells me Yackandandaroo has a population of less than 1000. Surprised that there is a market for shared space in such a small town? How does the business case for things like this stack up?

[StN]

Also, one would expect they would be Australian as well. Is literacy high enough to make it viable, or are there enough ex-pat Kiwis to reach a tipping point?

PS -

[Nich]

I was not aware of the tank museums. I like a good piece of military hardware, we'll get along one weekend.

As far as business case / population / literacy rate goes ...
Yackandandah is small, when we have an event with 20 or so people, I joke that we have 2% of the population in attendance!

Regional towns such as Yackandandah are in a massive growth surge that may double the population in the next 2-3 years. Lots of curious tree-changers come through our doors saying they are looking to make the move from Sydney or Melbourne, and having an office where they can continue their work + meet people is a huge bonus.

When we moved to the area Robyn and I needed an office space for each of our businesses. There was no way in hell we were going to run 2 businesses from home. Also we needed a way to meet people in the new town.

I executed on the idea because of the immediate need, but all my research and business case came after.

Here's my findings on running a co-working space:
- Co-working is on the rise in regional areas due to under-supply, and it is on the decline in major cities due to over-supply. WeWork is doing a massive landgrab, but isn't adding any value to draw out the kinds of people that need a co-working office. There is no way WeWork is making a profit in Australia because there is no startup culture that has generated an army of "founders / CEOs" who like to get their hustle on and throw money away. They have the majority market share, so smaller / better providers are removed from the market. A logical co-working market would cater to sole traders and small business owners first, and treat entrepreneurs as the "special needs" customers.
- The co-working office must be a 10x improvement over the typical home office, cafe, or library.
- Pick a "thing" that you're all about (software development, creative professionals, virtual reality, incubator, business accelerator, et al). We're all about ergonomics by day, and community building by night.
- Run multiple events each month that are on-brand, and help promote the "thing". Get people in the door for a personal / community purpose and cross-sell the main reason you want them there (memberships)
- Even an established co-working brand (eg WeWork) will take 12 months to reach full capacity.
- You need an anchor tenant! In our case, it's me and Robyn here doing our work every day. But there are some regional coworking spaces where they just fit out the space and hope people will start filling the space up. People will choose to stay home and work alone if they know your office is usually empty.
- You want regular members, but also you don't want your office full of assholes. So make sure to curate the kind of people who will improve the vibe of the office.

[StN]

Sounds excellent - you've gone full Erlic Bachman!

[Nich]

hah nailed it.

Sometimes when we turn up in the morning I say "Avee-en-you" in the way Erlic says Aviato.

[crocos]

Offer on an apartment just got accepted Hand-over mid April, but that's fine.

[Ab]

Unf! Gen X highfive!

[Nich]

I don't usually click ads on Twitter, but I do enjoy reading the replies to the ads from NAB, ANZ, Westpac, Commbank. Especially the "I'm fully corrupt" gif reposts.

[StN]

Hmm - so the daughter was in science class on Friday in her brand new shiny co-located single-sex girl's school that shares a campus with my old stomping ground. It's a curious setup, where two (point one - there's a small special needs adjunct as well) schools have been built with shared facilities for Gym, Library, Café and auditoriums. But definitely two distinct schools.

Definitely distinct.

Except maybe for the WiFi - perhaps that is shared infrastructure? You would, of course, assume the two schools would decide on a different classroom resource naming scheme.

So the girls were sitting in School A, Science room X, doing a spot of Chemistry, when all of a sudden, School B, Science room Y decided to Chromecast slides onto the telly. But they got the wrong room.

Once embarrassed lady teacher was seen scrambling quickly to turn off the big screen in chemistry, displaying a huge koozer for the Boy's health class.

Heh - can't wait for parent teacher night next week.

[pxpx]

Gold

[BoyWonder]

Now that's a bit of a cock up.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by StN

But they got the wrong room.

I think they got the room they meant to get

[StN]

Originally Posted by BoyWonder

Now that's a bit of a cock up.

That's what I said!

[xor]

Just finished my Masters program.

[Lightspeed]

Damn, well done.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by xor

Just finished my Masters program.

DING, gratz mate!