Liz Elam

Liz Elam is an American businesswoman, entrepreneur, and is a prominent voice in the Coworking community. She is the founder of Link Coworking, President of The League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces (LEXC), the Executive Producer of the Global Coworking Conference Unconference, and a board of directors member of Coshare. Elam has represented the coworking community as a spokesperson through major media channels and government summits.

Early life and education
Liz Elam was born in Johnson City, New York, daughter to Robert and Mildred Elam. Her childhood was spent in Vermont and Virginia where her father worked as an IBM Executive. She attended Rice Memorial High School in Vermont prior to moving to Austin, Texas and attending Westwood High School. After graduating from high school, Elam went on to earn her Bachelors of Science in Journalism with a minor in Marketing at Texas A&M.

Early career
Elam began working for Dell Inc. in Austin, Texas in 1992 for their 1-800 sales phone line. In 1998, after a series of promotions, Elam was promoted to a Global Accounts Manager position, requiring her to relocate from Austin, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia.

In this new position, she was responsible for the overall strategic relationship with several of Dell's largest retention Fortune 500 accounts. By successfully managing relationships with executives, IT professionals, and buyers she was able to consistently exceed sales goals. One Customer, Cox Enterprises, bought a record high $40 million in hardware and service sales, including 14 high end EMC storage area networks. Elam was named Rookie of the Year in 1999 for Relationship Business and won the Circle of Excellence trips 2000 and 2002. Elam grew her sales division at Dell from $3 million to $40 million.

During the nine years she spent telecommuting from her home to Dell's offices, she experienced first-hand the isolation and distractions associated with working from home. In 2007, Liz Elam left Dell to pursue plans of starting a coworking business to provide a work space or telecommuters.

Link Coworking
After spending a year decompressing in Italy and an additional two years visiting coworking spaces around the country and 15 revisions to her business plan, she started looking for a site to start her new company. With abundant parking and a first floor location being a requirement for the site, a location outside of Austin's crowded downtown had to be selected. The 2700 West Anderson Lane address in Austin was chosen for its proximity to restaurants, retail, covered outdoor seating and its proximity to both I35 and MoPac. The 3,000 square foot space allows Link Coworking the ability to serve 150 members, just as long as they aren't all there at one time. She opened Link Coworking on September 2010.

While working remotely for Dell, Elam often encountered problems working from home or from a coffee shop. Working from home often meant isolation from the outside world. Coffee shops on the other hand were often too noisy to handle business calls and power outlets were often scarce. As such, her goal with Link Coworking was to create and curate a space that facilitated productivity and networking opportunities for telecommuters. Link Members have access to five meeting rooms, free coffee, daily treats, and discounts on business tools.

A plethora of power outlets are scattered throughout the coworking space to make sure that members at all times have access to outlets. Members also have access to Pop Phone headsets and a British telephone booth so that they may make calls in privacy. Tables on the east end of Link have white noise machines to reduce noise. The west end of the coworking space has a raised ceiling, decorated with white lanterns, and houses a conglomeration of desks allowing members to socialize without disturbing others. Elam has adorned her coworking space with a number of decorative white sculptures of animals and objects.

Rather than hiring a designer, Elam served as her own interior decorator. The interior of the 2700 West Anderson Lane was designed to maximize natural light and provide members with the optimum view of the outdoor courtyard. To furnish Link, Elam partnered with Turnstone, who uses Link Coworking as a showroom for their furniture, ranging from office chairs and group desks to lounge chairs and couches. Every Friday evening, the office furniture is rearranged in order to give members a new look for the upcoming week.

So far, six companies have launched from Link Coworking.

Link Coworking has been ranked the coolest co-working space in America by Business Insider.

Link Too
On September 2012, two years after the opening of Link, Elam opened Link Too across the courtyard from the original location. The new location was designed to facilitate members whose businesses had outgrown the scope of Link. Unlike Link Coworking, Link Too provides members with a 24-hour access facility that included open coworking space, dedicated desk space, and traditional offices. The new 3,500 square foot location has 20 designated desks and 10 private offices.

Coworking Advocacy
As a recognized expert in the Coworking field, Elam has been interviewed on the topic by The New York Times, Young Entrepreneur, CNBC, CNN, Austin Business Journal, Community Impact, The Austin American-Statesman, Information Week and other media outlets. Elam manages the Global Coworking Unconference Conference, one of the largest Coworking conferences in the United States. Her Space, Link Coworking, is one of the founding members of the League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces, an organization whose aim is to foster bonds between Coworking spaces across the US, allowing for shared ideas and access across spaces for members. Recently, Elam has co-founded CoShare with the aim of creating a platform of contact for government entities as well as lobbying agent for the needs of Coworking spaces.

Global Coworking Unconference Conference
The Global Coworking Unconference Conference, or GCUC (pronounced Juicy), began as a small pre-South by Southwest meetup. By 2010, it grew large enough to warrant its own conference. That year, Liz Elam played an instrumental role in orchestrating the recruitment of sponsors and bolstering attendance to 100. Elam was asked to take over managing and producing the conference in 2011. Since then, Elam has grown GCUC to a 2 day event with an attendance of over 300 from 11 different countries. This makes GCUC the biggest coworking conference in the world.

In 2013, day one of the conference followed a set schedule. It opened with a "State of the Union" and included panels such as working with large corporations that are making a move into coworking as well as how to finance a coworking space. Day two followed an unconference format and allowed for attendees to plan panels around their interests, giving them an opportunity to share their own discoveries.

Speakers at the 2013 Global Coworking Unconference Conference included Brian Meece of RocketHub and Gene Zaino of MBO Partners.

Elam plans to hold the next GCUC conference in May 2014 in Kansas City, Missouri. With a new fresh location, Elam is making adjustments to the 2014 GCUC conference. Based on the feedback from last year's conference, the 2014 event will have a greater focus on information and research on the development of coworking. The conference will also gear heavier towards unconferences rather than panels.

CoShare
CoShare was started by Elam and other like-minded Coworking Space owners in order to provide education, advocacy, community, support and collaboration for Coworking Spaces located in the United States. It is the first organization of its type in the United States and is modeled after earlier unifying organizations in Europe for shared space owners such as CoworkingCroatia and Italy's CowoProject.

The organization aims to work as a lobbying entity for the Coworking world as well as to act as a point of communication between Coworking spaces and government entities in the United States. CoShare's other goals include changing the AP style-book's spelling of Coworking and educating Google on how their one address one company policy on Google Places is detrimental to the Coworking movement. The organization also plans to release best practice reports and studies on Coworking, as well as produce workshops for shared space owners.

League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces
The League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces (or LEXC) was founded on January 2012 as a collaborative union between prominent coworking spaces across the United States of America. LEXC formed an early partnership with Liquidspace. Through LiquidSpace's mobile app, members of one LEXC coworking space can check in and book space at other LEXC locations.

The League's standard for excellence, ability to negotiate as one entity, and platform for extending membership from one coworking space to another has facilitated its adoption as a resource for corporations looking to expand their work-space strategy. In March 2012, Accenture partnered with LEXC to offer space to its mobile employee base. By utilizing coworking spaces, corporations have been able to reduce real estate overhead, allow employees to work closer to home, provide networking and collaboration opportunities, and have space across the United States for traveling employees to work from.

LEXC currently consists of 14 coworking spaces in 24 locations. Its founding members include NextSpace, BLANKSACES, Link Coworking, WorkBar, CoCo, and 654 Croswell. Liz Elam currently serves as the president of The League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces.

Speaking engagements
Elam spoke on Coworking at South by Southwest in 2009, 2010 and 2014. In 2011, she spoke on a panel at the European Coworking Conference in Berlin, Germany on "Getting out of the crisis thanks to coworking". She spoke at the conference the following year in Paris, France. Elam spoke and moderated at the 2013 European Coworking Conference in Berlin http://coworkingeurope.net

Elam was asked to moderate a panel on coworking at the National Empact Summit in Washington D.C in 2012. She will be the keynote speaker in Sydney for the Australian Coworking Conference in July 2014.

Austin cosmopolitan rotary
Elam is a 5th generation Rotarian. She is a member of the Austin Cosmopolitan Rotary and has served on its board since 2010. She is also on the board for the Bridge to Africa.