Coworking Space for Women Opens in San Diego

The cool new way to work is the kind of office where there’s always fresh coffee and no office politics. And you can leave anytime you feel like it.

This is coworking: think co-op with wi-fi. It’s a new breed of flexible office spaces catching on globally by attracting independent contractors and work-at-home professionals as a communal place to gather at their own schedule with some of the best parts of working in an office. Networking, human contact to ease the isolation, more professional than Starbucks and industrial-sized copy machines.

Felena Hanson

Felena Hanson

A new coworking space opened in summer 2011 near San Diego’s high-tech corridor Biotech Beach area outside science-centric University of California-San Diego. Like many of these shared working spaces internationally, this one is built around a theme – women only, hence its name, Hera Hub, after the Greek goddess queen of Olympus.

There’s Chick Flicks and Chick Lit, why not Chick Work?

“I play matchmaker, connecting women entrepreneurs,” explains Hera Hub founder Felena Hanson, who ran her own

Hera Hub’s Advice for Entrepreneurs

1. Determination – anything is possible… at least for those that are dedicated to making it happen
2. Be passionate – nothing is worth doing if you don’t do it well
3. Be sincere – people see through right through you
4. Trust your instinct – your first reaction to something is always right
5. Take everything head on – don’t be confrontational but don’t avoid
6. Follow through – your word is everything

marketing firm before launching her latest venture.

Hanson calls her concept a shared workspace for entrepreneurial women. It’s members only, and women join at different priced tiers depending on their needs much like a gym.

There’s perks like videoconferencing to members-only breakfast networking sessions to meeting room space open to all genders and nonmembers.

It’s more collaborative than an executive suite, more professional than working from Starbucks, and more flexible and cost effective than renting and running full-time office space. While Hanson is an experienced networker, who has run San Diego’s venerable Ladies Who Lunch networking group, the mission of the Hera Hub is to open membership to all entrepreneurs, not keeping it exclusive to one profession or limiting how many members can come from any profession. Indeed, the collection of members displaying business cards – members can also post on the website – is eclectic indeed: financial planning, public relations, independent IT support.

San Diego’s first coworking space is downtown on A Street (http://co-merge.com/) in a more combination café-office.

More on coworking: http://wiki.coworking.info/w/page/16583831/FrontPage
For a global coworking directory: http://wiki.coworking.info/w/page/29303049/Directory

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