Enterprise Nation

We first profiled Jelly in August 2008 when we heard about two New Yorkers who invited other homeworkers in to their home to work together. Jelly has made its way to the UK and Judy Heminsley has become its top champion. 

Judy loves Jelly

Judy Heminsley runs the website www.workfromhomewisdom.com and also hosts a Jelly in Frome, Somerset. She loves the concept so much she’s written a very useful guide on how you can get a Jelly started in your village/town/city. Here's an excerpt from Judy’s blog post/ advice.

What is Jelly?

Jelly is a casual coworking event, where freelancers, home workers and people running small businesses meet up in order to get out of their normal space, meet some new people and work together in a social environment. Jelly is a mixture of work, chat, comparing of ideas, passing on tips and help and maybe sometimes collaboration on the birth of a new project.

Where to hold Jelly

In the States Jelly began in someone’s apartment and there’s no reason you can’t have Jelly in your home. Except the whole point is to get away from home! So if you prefer to find another venue this is what you need:

• A central, easy to find location that won’t charge for room rental
• Free wi-fi
• Enough power points for everyone or your laptop batteries will run out before Jelly is over
• A room with table space, either several small tables or a large one everyone can sit round, and chairs at a comfortable height
• A constant supply of drinks and possibly food, although Jellyers can always bring their own snacks and sandwiches or pop out for them

You can consider coffee shops (bear in mind they can be noisy and may get very busy at peak times), established coworking spaces, serviced offices, business centres or community halls.

Ascertain as best you can that the venue satisfies your requirements (ie visit the coffee shop in question to see how many power points there are and whether wi-fi is provided free to customers). When you’re satisfied it’s a good prospect, contact the owner/manager to introduce the idea of Jelly.

Publicising Jelly

Once you’ve got your venue arranged and a date agreed:

• Start your new location’s page on the Jelly Wiki http://wiki.workatjelly.com by signing up for an account and then explaining briefly what Jelly is, who it is for and where and when you are hoping to start. This gives you a basic free webpage you can direct people towards when you start to publicise
• Spread the word among friends, colleagues, clients, suppliers, anyone who might be interested or know people who would be interested. Likely prospects – anyone who works in IT, writers, editors, VAs, coaches, trainers, people whose work is portable and who need some company
• Create an email list of the above people
• Put the word around at groups you already belong to
• Twitter – tweet about your forthcoming Jelly and ask your followers to retweet
• Put the word out on Linkedin and Facebook
• Local media – local papers and radio stations are always on the lookout for content for their publications and shows. Fortunately the name Jelly is always a good hook to get them interested! Send out a press release a couple of weeks before the Jelly date and follow up with a phone call to check it has been received and answer any questions. Write a concise and catchy press release and it will probably be printed verbatim, like mine for Frome Jelly
• Print out posters with the eyecatching red and yellow Jelly logo and put them up in places where prospective Jellyers will see them – libraries, coffee shops, community notice boards etc.

Wait for numbers to build and enjoy the gathering!

For details on how to organise the Jelly on the day and other helpful tips, visit Judy's full Jelly post on the link below.

• How to start your own Jelly