Collaboration Economy Starts With Where You Sit
Contributed by Callum Laing August 9, 2016
With remote workers and outsourcing on the rise, location-independent professionals are increasingly choosing to work in these shared spaces. Spaces with their fast-growing community of entrepreneurs and digital nomads illustrate why coworking spaces are more than just funky decor, ambient tunes, and good coffee.
Coworking is about community, connection, and sharing with focus on flexibility, productivity, and collaboration. So why should you consider using a coworking space?
1. Community
As we fly into the digital age on the wings of mobile computing into the vast interconnectedness of a networked world, business and community are morphing. Whilst you may be location-independent, you still want to be a part of a community.
Coworking space provides a semi-social melting pot for human interaction not found on the Internet. Sharing, collaborating, finding synergies whilst getting a coffee amongst similar types of professionals is what happens in coworking spaces. Meeting potential clients and partners is highly likely when working in niche coworking spaces catering to similar types of business.
2. Flexibility
Change is a given. Your business needs to be fluid and flexible to the evolving market requirements. Coworking spaces are tailored to this evolving marketplace and understand the changing nature of digital business.
Whether you’re chasing just a few quiet hours with good bandwidth or a legitimate meeting room where you can regularly gather clients or contractors, there’s a coworking space that will fit your requirements.
With this flexibility comes economy; you only pay for what you use. Cutting out unnecessary overheads of the old fixed-office space is a good way to free up resources. It is also more likely these spaces have a more energised ambience than traditional office spaces, allowing for better focus and greater productivity.
3. Enterprise
Coworking spaces are gathering points for entrepreneurs. There’s boldness sitting right next to you. Highly energised people are magnetic. They attract one another. Coworking spaces are hives of enterprising individuals alive to opportunity. Creativity and ideas are the natural bi-product of shared experience.
Leveraging the creative energy of a coworking space is good for business and has a far-reaching ripple effect into other areas of your life.
4. Growth
Even if you’re happy with the size of your business and not interested in scaling up or out, there’s growth to be found in coworking spaces. Conferences and presentations are regularly run at these spaces and the general open source attitude of coworkers lends itself to an atmosphere of learning.
By sharing, learning, and growing from each other, it makes good business sense to reach out and connect in such environments. Attending seminars, meeting and befriending people with similar interests, and finding new avenues of knowledge that you wouldn’t get working at home or in a café are what coworking spaces promote.
So next time you consider staying at home to crunch out some work on your own, why not take your laptop down to a shared office and see for yourself? In this digitally interconnected world, real human connection is still the substance from which real growth arises.
—
Interested in working with a #ConnectedWomen remote worker? Check out Connected Women Jobs.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.