So I was browsing Google News one day when I stumbled upon this article about something called “coworking” (note the lack of a hyphen).
Evidently in big cities like New York, entrepreneurs have been collaborating to rent office space to use together. Sounds normal, right? Here’s the thing: none of them are actually working together. They’re all starting their own businesses and working on their own projects independently while sharing the workspace.
They do this for various reasons. For one thing, it’s cheap. Instead of buying a workspace for yourself when you’re trying to start a company, you can just rent a small part of this communal work area. Secondly, the people working in this shared space give each other motivation, support, and allow for the exchange of free ideas. Sound familiar? It’s just like the internet, but in real life! People can get together to get things done, but not necessarily the same thing. It’s like the internet but even better because instead of coldly communicating through typed words, they can actually speak to each other in person.
I thought this was a really great article, and I really wanted to share it with the class. If you have time, please read it!
Great article, Erin. What appeals to me about this idea is that there is still a pretty strict division between “work” and “home”; one of the things I’ve always worried about in the emerging digital age is the possibility that our entire being would become consumed by work, given the constant bombardment afforded by email, cell phones, and the like. Here, unlike telecommuting, there is still a designated work space that is distinct from home, but all the advantages of telecommuting are combined with the brainpower resources inherent in being with other “workers,” even if they aren’t working on the same project.
I think there’s a sharp contrast between this kind of work environment and the kind you find in a company of 300 to 400 people. In a corporation of even that relatively modest size, there are gobs of different departments running around, all working side by side in fields of cubicles. One has the illusion of achieving a kind of “coworking”: network administrators may be in the set of cubes next to copy-editing, but their jobs are entirely different. However, the only thing they’re going to share is paperwork for a given job. Tina won’t lean over to Bob with a “big picture” question – “Hey, we’re dealing with X right now, and I know you guys had an issue with Y and Z last month…” – because everything is top-down and the interdepartmental work-related activity is pretty minimal. One hopes that some of at least the concepts behind coworking can filter into extant corporations to make the workplace a little more open with ideas.