For the past week and a half, I've been exploring the coworking side of the Alchemical Nursery, right here in the belly of the beast Alchemical Spaces in the Gear Factory, a five-story warehouse on Syracuse's Near West Side.

Central New York has a bunch of people in it who work out of home offices or coffee shops or bars or other places with free wifi. So, essentially, you have a bunch of creative people working in isolation, except for people they happen to run into. And those with home offices have to remember to vacuum the living room and clean the bathroom if they want to invite a client to that home office.

Meanwhile, there's an office in the building with a bunch of desks and just the li'l ol' Alchemical Nursery in it. Why not get a bunch of those creative people together to feed off each others' energy, put their heads together for new projects, and share expertise, like they do in a "normal" corporate office? I've loved this idea since I first heard about it, and I know there's a call for it here. Here's my space – I love being around all these old books!

I found out about the coworking opportunity through Giffordslist, a local organization that is a service buy-sell-swap exchange (like Craigslist, only local and easier to navigate). I followed the instructions, had a meeting and a tour, and totally got on the bandwagon.

I do have a day job, but I do lots of things on the side, like blogging, web design, social media consulting, etc., and working out of my home can lend itself to distractions (oh look! a piano! oh look! a guitar! oh look! dishes that could be washed!). So I really appreciate the opportunity to have space to go to.

I signed my coworking lease on Thursday, December 17, and came into the Spaces for the first time to work on Monday, December 21. Since then, I've been uber-productive. I completely overhauled my personal site, and launched two new blogs.

I've also been blogging here on the Alchemical Nursery site, and helped get the Twitter account and Facebook page started – and hopefully you'll help make those awesome.

I've met a couple of our other coworkers, too, including accomplished artist Charlie Sam, who put on a communal pot of chicken soup last night. How awesome is that?

I could go into a bunch of details about how coworking is good for a city, as well as for people, but someone's already put together a highly polished presentation for that. Here it is, via Frank.