The Hub: A new way to make business good

Serendipity. Not a word one would usually associate with one?s work place. But try to imagine that you could rent office space by minutes instead of months. And that instead of calling your workplace ?office? you called it your habitat. Pretend that instead of surrounding yourself with the same colleagues day after day, your work environment became an unlimited source of innovation, flexibility and communication. Perhaps then serendipity and work would begin to share common ground. But where to find such a place? In London, Rotterdam and Bristol it already exists and is called the Hub. Lets take a look.

Islington, London. Welcome to the first Hub, founded in January 2005. The space, a 3 thousand squared meter warehouse in the heart of London completely refurbished and filled with stylishly recycled furniture. Petal shaped tables that revolutionise the concept of desk. Lots of empty space. Environmentally friendly heating. The highest quality software and hardware. And, great views on London. The concept? To mix talent from different spheres, to recreate both the efficiency of a high tech office and the laid back atmosphere of a library café, to make business good.

To enter the Hub you have to be a member, but the club is not as exclusive as it sounds. With 10 pounds you can book yourself 5 hours a month, £65 will buy you 25 hours and with £275 you can have unlimited (yes, 24/7) access to the building. And access to the building means more than just access to your work-space because the Hub means dinner, brunch, unexpected meetings with unexpected work colleagues, brainstorming sessions and the opportunity of creating new contacts and forging partnerships. This is what the Hub is all about.

At a first glance the Hub may look like yet another example of social networking, but Hub founder Johnathan Robinson points out that the Hub is ?social networking taken a step further, more seriously carried out. My objective is not just to connect people but to facilitate the creation of real projects between people?. Who can gain access to the Hub? Anyone. London?s Hub is frequented by students, graduates, professionals, lawyers, designers, stylists and activists alike. To be more precise, 60% of the Hubs clients are small social businesses, 30% are freelancers, 5% are NGOs like Amnesty International.

There are now 10 Hubs spread across the world, from Sao Paolo to Johannesburg modelled on the same principles that have made this London social enterprise so successful, and profitable seeing as the Hub has an annual turnover of 200 thousand pounds. But Robinson makes it clear that the other Hubs are not an ethical attempt at franchising: ? We are a partnership that all Hub founders own. Although we are all born out of the same need to create new work and existence spaces, each Hub has its own dna according to the geography and context that surrounds it?.

More info:
www.the-hub.net