GangPlank is Rockin

Its been a long time, however, its been an adventure. I have been getting the blog itch again so I thought I would share. As everyone grows in business and in life, different ideas come and go. They are usually thin and quick to vacate the mind thanks in large part to how busy life has become. I learned an interesting statistic while in Europe. The average work week in most of Europe is between 32-36 hours. America, in many metropolitan areas has risen to 46 hours on average. Then commutes added to that and its crazy. Are we as a community really better off? Yeah we can buy more stuff, but when can we use it? It doesn’t seem to make sense. A somewhat quirky boss once told me, during one of our many 40 minute talks- in whice more time was spent trying to figure out what was crap and what was real, anyhow, he threw me this gem. “There is alot to be said about quality of life.”

That instantly stuck with me. I was on hour 55 in the week, along with full time school, a new baby, a new marriage, and a weekend moonlighting gig as a painter. Life was busy and I wanted it busier, well I wanted the money that comes with busier. I realized I was in that race, but didn’t understand how to to get out. Nobody really gets out, it will always be a rat race. Quality of life can come from many areas. Mine is freedom to make my own decisions and schedule. Yes I like to work, and I am lucky to be able to stay motivated without someone breathing down my neck. Working in an environment that gives me flexibility is amazing, more importantly gives me a shot at the quality of life that I want. We all want to be on the beach somewhere with umbrellas in our drinks without a worry in the world but its not realistic to most of us.

Work environment is really the only freedom that can be reached with a little effort. Enter gangplank…I am assuming here but the conversation must have been easy to have when this idea was hatched. I know how annoying it gets when one client is in another building and email and phone is the only answer. Team members are in another room or cubicle or another floor for that matter, and you say out loud, “I wish we were all here together to answer questions as they come up”

I know for me I have a bad habit of coming up with an idea and sending one or two sentence emails quickly outlining the idea, such as “what if we could get the rumba to deliver coffee?” Unfortunately for my friends this happens all too often. I had been hitting many of my sounding board peeps about getting together, or work in the same place. It never seemed realistic, until now.

Gangplank is just that, an open community of collaboration. In short, its a giant room (soon to be enormous) where many different small business and entreprenuers have a free work station. No walls, no barriers, no egos. Simply a group of people sharing ideas and bouncing things off of eachother. All of your outsourcing needs in one space. Need a video marketing campaign, need print marketing, need some database management, need someone to do something silly to lighten the mood. Look no further, gangplank is the answer.

The days of companies doing things that nobody else can, or being unwilling to share what they are working on are over. Technology squashed that years ago, so why not get together, create a work environment that is open collaboration, not boundries. Essentially the freedom to be who you are and have fun. Its that quality of life thing we talked about at the beginning. Not the ultimate change but a huge step in the right direction

If you work in the chandler area for yourself, a company, or whomever, ask to work from gangplank for the day and you won’t be disappointed.  Its not a golden ticket, you have to be open to this and willing, but it is worth it.

More Info

The Gangplank offices are typically open from around 9:00am to 6:00pm, Monday through Friday. Gangplank offers FREE collaborative space M-F. If you are in the area, drop on by and get your work on.

On Wednesdays, you can come over for Hacknight which typically runs from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. (It’s a great way to work on your side projects after hours.)

Historic Downtown Chandler

260 South Arizona Avenue

Chandler, AZ 85225

info@gangplankhq.com – Parking

Tags: chandler az, cool places in chandler, gangplank