Open innovation is a concept of individuals and companies sharing resources to develop their business. To make this happen, we need a system and space where people meet and collaborate in a new way. We visited The Hub, which started in London and has since extended business locations around the globe to discover how this can be accomplished. The Hub attracts diverse talent and has spawned many new business. We saw a vision of office in the future in their open shared office, where people constantly interact.

Englishman Jonathan Robinson created The Hub with three partners in 2005. He believed that there are many people with new ideas that would be feasible given the right opportunity, and place where people could gather to share and bounce ideas off each other would facilitate the conversion of dreams and ideas into reality. The new shared office project started in London, and has since spread to 20 countries around the world. The Hub Kings Cross in London is a successful case.

The Hub was established in response to a local need and adopts a management style that suits local users. The Hub provides a co-working platform rooted in the community as a package of four elements – the open shared office; members-only service business model; hosting, which brings members together; and design ethics – a way of designing space around human behavior patterns and psychology, and their relationship with the rest of society.

The Hub Kings Cross has around 700 members, of whom half visit the office several times a week. The permanently staffed café counter is near the entrance, serving as a social space for visitors. The Hubs design is centered around a story told in space and created in workshops.

He first floor has an open feel to encourage collaboration, while the second floor is a quiet space where people can concentrate on their own work, with a meeting room on the mezzanine floor in between The open office, with no partitions, allows members to see each other and builds trust and collaboration.

The hosting system, which is the main feature of The Hub, underlines the design of space. Hosts do everything from planning events to introducing members a providing business support. By communicating the brand, The Hub naturally attracts members with a high aspirations an ethical values in diverse business areas.

The Hub’s members find values in being able to collaborate with a diverse memberships by working in this shared office. There have been many cases of people from different backgrounds meeting and setting a business. One of these is the smart energy meter that instantly displays power and gas meter readings and charges, which developed into a business in which Scottish & Southern Energy plc invested £7 million Reference Tree – a project started up by a young accountant and former Deloitte Management Consultant. Amil Toria. That allows users to download the content of books on university reading lists – begins distribution in earnest in 2011.

The Hub, which encourages a flexible way of working, aims to evolve further. Members can currently use offices in a different location once a month, but the company is planning to offer a service that allows the use of offices in multiple locations and build a network connecting them, since doing business globally is becoming the norm.

From WORKSIGHT Preview Issue（Nov.2010）