Thoughts on Tech Superpowers’ Digital Lounge

Today, I decided to work in the digital lounge on Newbury Street, operated by Tech Superpowers.  I found them through a search for ‘Boston coworking,’ and they mention that they’re a casual coworking location.  They have a very small office with wood floors and wood desks; ten people could work here, but it would be really crowded.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re really a coworking space – it’s more like an internet cafe.  All but two of the desks have their own computers on them, which you can use temporarily.  It seems that most of their money comes from their Apple repair service, and no one really appears to work here full time.  Therefore, unlike WorkBar, this is very quiet and there’s not a lot of idea exchange.

Overall, it’s a fine place to stop in if you need to get online on Newbury street or are visiting for a day and need to skype, but I don’t think there’s a lot that i want to emulate here when I open Beijing Coworking next month.

Ideas from WorkBar

I’m spending the day at WorkBar Boston today.  Since Judy and I are starting a coworking space in Beijing, I want to visit as many as I can in America to see what other people are doing and get some ideas.

Workbar is about 2500 square feet in the basement of a building near South Station.  This is a really great location because it literally takes less than 5 minutes to walk here from the subway.  The inside is extremely colorful and has a lot of art on the walls, which adds up to make it very comfortable. They’ve separated their space into three main working rooms, each of which has about 10-11 seats (two per table generally).  One of them is set up sort of like a cafe.  In addition, they have one conference room, a lounge area with a couch, and a few little nooks where people can talk on the phone.

Today, I learned three great ideas from them:

1. Occasionally have a ‘free day’, but not let everyone have a free day anytime.  This is different than most places I’ve seen, and I really like it.  Today, WorkBar is really crowded and people are meeting each other, etc.  This probably makes it seem more lively than it usually is and helps people make relationships with each other that they then associate with WorkBar.  I still like the idea of letting people try out coworking, but maybe we could combine monthly free days with a 2-hours-free first time bonus.  That way, you can’t just get a whole free day anytime, but you can always try it out.
2. Bring in outside services for coworkers to talk to.  WorkBar concentrates on the tech industry, so they’ve brought in an associate VC to talk to startups today for 15 minute increments.  It’s totally free and can be about anything you want.  I talked with him about how to find quality contractors and cofounders and he had a lot of good advice.
3. Charge for extra services to reduce the normal cost of coworking.  This might be a big idea for me because rent in Beijing is so expensive that we’re going to have to charge a lot comparatively for memberships.  WorkBar charges separately for conference room space ($20 USD/hour, which is pretty high), but also has low regular membership fees ($150/mo).  You can also get memberships that include conference space and dedicated desks for more, up to the top plan for $500/mo for large companies that have a few people based in Boston and frequently need to host events.

Coming to America

I don't have a crown, and I'm not looking for a wife, but I'm still coming.

Next month is the MIT Pi Reunion in Las Vegas, so I’ve decided to go back to America.  Since I have to leave China for a day on July 10 anyway (because of my visa), I’m just going to fly to Boston on July 10 and stay in the US until the reunion is over on August 2.  In addition to Boston and Las Vegas, I’m also going to visit Ohio and San Francisco.

I already have a number of people I have to see in each city, but I’m not out of time yet.  If you’d like to get together, send me an email or leave a comment here.  I’m really looking forward to this trip and the chance to see all my good friends again.  The last five months have been exciting in China, but I know I must have missed out on a lot back in the States.

Here’s my detailed itinerary:

1. Saturday, July 10 8:30pm – arrive in Boston
2. Tuesday, July 20 noon – arrive in Stow
3. Sunday, July 25 11am – arrive in San Jose
4. Thursday, July 29 8am – arrive in Las Vegas
5. Monday, August 2 10am – depart Las Vegas for China

Staying Connected Overseas with Google Voice and Skype

When I first moved to China, I decided that I still wanted to stay connected to the US.  Part of that is keeping a US phone number that can both send and receive calls and text messages.  Luckily, thanks to products like Google Voice and Skype, doing so is now cheap and easy.

Exciting new running site

Those of you who run a lot and those of us that want to go running a lot but don’t have inspiration may be interested in my sister Erin‘s new blog. She’s writing up a lot of Boston running tours with historical information about the places you will run by. She’s also doing the same thing for San Francisco, where she lives now.

Eventually, I believe the idea is to turn them into podcasts that you can listen to as you run at 7-8 minutes per mile.

Anyway, I’m excited for her and thought I’d help her spread the news. Feel free to tell any of your friends in Boston or San Francisco to check out cityruntours.com.

“Summary”

Well, Alisha had a good idea with her summary of her recent trip through Europe, so I decided to give it a try with my Asia trip.

Total Distance (not including to and from America): 3020mi (4860km)

Number of different types of transportation: 6

Friends visited: 3

Map of my trip in Korea and China

Best Places to get pictures taken:

1. Tiananmen Square (Beijing)
2. The Bund (Shanghai)

Tastiest food:

• Hongdong Garden (Gimhae, South Korea)

• Huangting in the Peninsula Hotel (Beijing)

Most surprising food:

• Duck Heads (Shanghai – I thought we were ordering shrimp)

Best meal for the buck:

• Jianbing (Beijing and Shanghai – almost a breakfast burrito for 30 cents)

Best Restaurant slogan:

Check out the logo - Mr. Pizza is a player

• Mr. Pizza – Love for Women (South Korea) Also winner of the best pizza ingredient: crust stuffed with mashed sweet potatoes.

Sketchiest transportation:

• Halfway between a vespa and a motorbike.  With three people.  And all our luggage.  But it was only 5 kuai! (70 cents?)

Most appropriate exit from a museum:

• Leaving the Urban Planning exhibit in Shanghai into a giant underground mall from which it took over 45 minutes to find an exit.

Most surprising meal (for someone else):

• Taking a girl I had just met ten minutes before to a 5-star restaurant (Huangting) because I had budgeted too much money and had decided to take the first person I met to the most expensive restaurant I could find.

Best hotel feature:

• Renting a cell phone for $1.50/day.  Wow, what a great idea.

Best Club:

• Coco Banana (best fellow dancers, too)

Most awesome and intimidating Chef:

• KungFu Pasta Chef making longevity noodles on my birthday.

Best Athlete:

• Michael Phelps

Best conversation:

• 35 minutes of talking to a taxi driver in Beijing who guessed that I’d lived in China for two or three years.  That was the moment when I really got Chinese.

Most frustrating 20 minutes:

• Getting stopped on the great wall by men from the army and not having a ticket because my tour guide was trying to scam us and having to speak for the two guys from the Netherlands as well because I spoke Chinese.  We eventually just paid them again, and then I had to convince the tour guide to give us our money back at the end.  Haha.

Best choice for what to pack:

• A week’s supply of Immodium AD

Place most likely to return:

• Beijing

Hmm, I guess that’s enough for now.  If you want, I’ll put more up later when I think of them!

Asia

Well, the whole “blog my trip thing” didn’t work this time…  Internet access was spotty in China to say the least.  I did write a journal, though (I’m almost done!), but I haven’t decided if I’ll publish it or save it for me.  Perhaps I’ll put up a few stories.

Sorry for the unanswered expectations, guys!

My passport’s back!

Quick update:

I just got my Chinese visa!  I dropped the application off at A. Briggs Passport Expetitors near Downtown Crossing last Friday, then just had to wait.  I’ve heard some horror stories from people whose visas got stuck in the consulates for weeks or months, but I was optimistic (and perhaps foolhardy).  Today, it showed up at work at 10:00!  My passport is back with the actually-quite-attractive Chinese visa on page 12.

The only strange thing is that it was issued in 华盛顿 (Washington D.C.), even though I thought I’d have to get it from New York…

Regardless, it’s here, and this trip is really happening!

Off again!

Well, I know, I know. I’m a terrible blogger (thanks, Gemma!). However, I’m leaving for another long trip soon, so I’m planning on updating from internet cafes, etc. like I did last summer. That was actually a lot of fun and I enjoy looking back on the stuff I did even now.

This time, however, I’m headed to East Asia. Specifically, Korea and China. My flight leaves Boston the morning of August 9th, heads to Chicago, where I’ll pick up my sister, Laura, then goes direct to Seoul. From there, we’ll head to Busan/Gimhae, back to Suwon, and Seoul again for one day. Then, I’ll leave Laura in Korea with her friend Diana, and I’ll fly to Beijing. I’m not going to stay long, however, because I’m going straight to Shanghai for a few nights, before returning to Beijing to watch a few Olympics events and visit my friend Mike from high school.

Right now, I’m trying to work out how to travel between Beijing and Shanghai. I’m thinking about the Z5/Z6 sleeper trains, but am unsure of how to book them online. I’ll make it work, though.

Finally, if anyone wants a postcard, just email me your address and I’ll put you on my list. Wish me luck!

Korea. In France.

Monday morning, I packed up at the hotel and headed over to the B&B on the Metro. Younghee met me at the station to help me move my stuff to Mr. Lee’s house. My bed was one of ten six-foot-long bunkbeds in the basement. After we filled up our waterbottles, we left for the city.

The same company that runs the free Berlin walking tours also organizes free NewParis walking tours starting at St. Michel Plaza, so we wanted to go on it. Again, the tour guide was very eloquent and excited about her city. We saw Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Seine (we smelled it, too), more churches, the Champs d’Elysee, and more museums. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate this time, so partway through, the rand became unbearable and everyone was soaked. Soon after the tour was over, though, the sun came out again. We decided to walk to the Eiffel tower, since we were so close.