How we got Cohousing Tours in the NY Times... and how you can help

As the old saw goes, the aspiring musician, lost on the streets of New York, asks a passerby "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" And is told "Practice, Practice, Practice!"

If you were to ask how we got the wonderful, colorful extensive in-depth Cohousing Tours coverage in the New York Times last month, I'd say: "Connections, Community, Cooperation." Read on to learn more about the history.

And as for how you can leverage this opportunity to benefit your group and further build The Cohousing Movement, another 3 C's are the keys: Correspondence, Comments, Conference. We'll explore these in part two.

Join me below the fold for a short journey to explore how the article came about and what you can do about it, with some perspective on the power of working together as a movement.

The Coworking Connection: LaidOffCamp

Early this past March, I sponsored a table at and participated in a San Francisco "unconference" participant-driven grassroots event attracting recently downsized technology workers and freelance creative professionals: LaidOffCamp. I wasn't there pitching cohousing, but rather wearing my "Coworking Coach" hat, helping people use cohousing-style methods to create shared workplace communities, where members rent desks by the day or hour and run it as a cooperative business with extensive common facilities and community social activities -- sound familiar? Several area coworking spaces have benefited from lessons learned from cohousing, including shared decision-making tools and our group process experience.

The event attracted extensive local and national media attention in part because, I believe, it connected with powerful "memes" linked to current events of general interest:

• Lots of people are out of work
• Neither Corporations nor Government are going to take care of us
• We can organize to come up with our own creative solutions
• Technology and creativity mean that this isn't your Father's Oldsmobile Depression

A follow-up article in the San Francisco Chronicle I was quoted in looked at the event and the phenomenon from the angle of whether us sponsors/exhibitors were unethical or merely misguided in trying to make money off of the poor laid-off and underemployed attendees. I engaged in the lively comment thread that followed, to defend my reputation and that of my fellow "corporate sponsors," making it clear that I provided free coaching at the event and got valuable leads, connection, and exposure.

By engaging in the conversation online, I attracted the further attention of the article's author, Chris Colin who turned out to be a freelancer who called me to explore the cohousing movement that I cited and linked to as inspiration and model for my coworking work, and he said "I bet I can pitch this to the New York Times."

Sharing Solutions: The Magical Mystery Tour

I let the writer know that the first of the year's Coho/US bus tours was just a few days away, and would provide a rare opportunity to get rapid exposure to a wide variety of communities and people living in them, as well as seekers and professionals; if he was looking for validation that it's a national movement, not just another "Aren't those Californians weird?" story, then the Massachusetts and DC-area tours in May would provide a New England regional "local angle" (relative to the Times' readers) and diversity of perspectives.

Now at this point, a greedy businessperson or PR agent in my shoes might say something like: "Mwah ha ha! I've got a NY Times Reporter eating out of my hand! I can steer him to my clients and skew the perspective to get the credit and monopolize this opportunity. World domination through media manipulation is assured!" However, I didn't do this because:

• It would be wrong.
• It would create enemies, rather than support friends.
• It wouldn't work.
  By ourselves, the story wouldn't be interesting enough to get as much exposure, if it ran at all.

Instead, I connected him to some key people working in service to the movement who I knew would be able and willing to scramble to support the article:

• Craig Ragland
  Coho/US Executive Director at Songaia in Bothell, WA
• Neil Planchon
  Coho/US National Tours Director, at Swan's Market Cohousing in Oakland, CA
• Ann Zabaldo
  Mid-Atlantic Cohousing Regional Organizer at Takoma Village in Washington, DC
• Laura Fitch
  New England tour leader at Pioneer Valley in Amherst, MA
• Karen Hester
  East Bay Bicycle Tour Leader at Temescal Creek Cohousing in Oakland, CA
• Ellen Bicheler
  North (SF) Bay Area grassroots sustainability group regional carpool tour leader

I've served on the Coho/US national board with many of these folks and worked with the others on tours and events, so i knew they'd welcome the connections and opportunity, and would have relevant info and opportunities to take full advantage of it.

Neil was able to make arrangements in time to get a photographer and the reporter onboard the bus that Saturday, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In my next post, I'll explore what we (and yes, that means you) can do to maximize the value of opportunities like this for the movement, as well as for your own group. In the meantime, your comments and insights are most appreciated. Just log in with your free cohousing.org account to add replies.