Don't interrupt me - can't you see my red flag?

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Bill MacEwen of Workspace

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Bill MacEwen of Workspace

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We heard about this great place to have coffee but when we went to the address, there was nothing. 21 Water Street in the gaslamp district of Vancouver called Gastown. Nothing? except a building directory with a buzzer to a place called Workspace.

Buzzed up. Buzzed in. And discovered this bright funky shared office space with a lovely espresso bar and web 2.0 types talking on softphones, pecking into laptops, doing yoga.

"It's like a health club - we sell memberships to people who use Workspace as a meeting place the same way," said founder Bill MacEwen.

At the front of the space, overlooking a brilliant scene of Vancouver's north shore mountains covered with the icing sugar of an overnight snowstorm, a bunch of red and green flags. "If you are open to networking you put a green flag out," he said. Red means you're on a VOIP call with angry investors, your PowerPoint is overdue, your blood-sugar level has put you out of the range of civility.

It's a very interesting business case MacEwen has discovered. Unlike the older "boardroom" type of shared office space, with a generic receptionist and cookie-cutter cubicles, Workspace hums a soothing note of shared experiences, networking opportunities, coolness. Part Starbucks, part Apple campus.

Watch the video. Visit the website.