Professional Documents
Culture Documents
03 Introduction
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Chapter 1 - On Structure
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Chapter 4 - On Community
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Chapter 5 - Coworking
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Chapter 8 - On Conclusions
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Appendix 1 - Sources
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Appendix 2 - Resources*
INTRODUCTION
This report takes the form of eight chapters on different aspects of the
spaces, if you are reading this report as a resource in your research
to set up a coworking or other space you can utilise these chapters in
any order. They are as follows:
CHAPTER 1. ON STRUCTURE
All shapes and sizes: The spaces we work with others and the many
forms they take. Where I look at how the spaces we work in compare
to each other in structure, form and business model.
CHAPTER 2. ON THE PEOPLE
CHAPTER 4. ON COMMUNITY
Coworking: Where did it all come from. A look at the history, current
situation and rapid growth of coworking.
CHAPTER 6. ON THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS
Outward not inward: Communes for the digital age. A look at the
possible outcomes of the current situation and how it could effect the
future of work.
CHAPTER 8. THE CONCLUSIONS
CHAPTER 1 - ON STRUCTURE
The intro to this report states I will discuss the spaces in which we
work with others and heres where I should clarify. This is specific to
the kinds of spaces that replace our offices, spaces that have evolved
and new spaces that have emerged where we find ourselves working.
I have categorised these spaces and how they relate to each other
and how connected we are to the people around us from social or
neighbourly connection (purple) to new connections that have value
to our work (red). In this infographic. FIG 1 There are:
LABS
Not the science kind - These are innovation labs, where students
from a variety of disciplines, can come together, in a highly charged
environment to solve common problems, brainstorm and create
ultimately the future start-ups and transformative ideas. Currently
some of these are, The Harvard iLab, The MIT CoLab and Media
Innovation Lab, The Stanford Peace Innovation Lab.
INCUBATORS
Where the home worker often finds themselves. Or the office worker
looking for a Third space to cure the doldrums of a working day.
COFFEE SHOP +
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many spaces defy being pigeon-holed and can fall into more than
one of their categories. Because of this and limited information on
the subject one of the most common questions on the coworking
google group is about business models, many people keen to start
up a new coworking space or struggling with the workload, or the
finances of their current space are inquiring about the working
models of others. By thinking of this more as a combination of
similar things which make up the whole of a coworking space I have
created the coworking business model generator as a tool for anyone
trying to define their business as a work space, Instead of lumping
into categories it helps to define the unique qualities of a space,
centring not around how they do it but why they do it by asking what
do you seek to do? and how will you bring value to your customers.
I created this as a tool to generate new models and come up with
creative solutions for adding value for your members, and creative
ways of distributing that value in a way that will either make you
money, help improve your community or attract members to your
space. The idea is to decide based on each section what you seek
to or what value you want to provide your renters and how you can
deliver these, you can brainstorm around each section to come up
with creative solutions. You should reevaluate the model on a regular
basis, there are always new value gaps you can provide solutions to
for your renters. It is not meant as a tools to make you money, but to
guide you to your business model and help bring the right value to
the right people you seek to work for. FIG 5
FIG 5 Workspace business model generation tool
Then we have the spaces which dont fit into this pattern, for example
coffee shop plus and NextDoor Cowork Lab in the infographic above
- these which do revolve around coworking but are not coworking
spaces (within my model) because they didnt have an altruistic
starting point - the coworking space is a means to another gain,
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the coffee shop plus seeks to sell coffee and the value they bring is
coffee and coworking and they deliver it with late opening times and
power sockets, NextDoor in Chicago (See Appendix for Case Study),
the coworking lab as ive called it created by Statefarm insurance.
They seek to learn more about their customers, how they can better
engage them and give a better service they do this by providing cheap
coffee and coworking and free financial advice. They bring value by
creating a hub in the community. You can almost put these spaces
into the machine backwards - where a coworking space is a successful
byproduct.
As stated in the introduction coworking is yet to see its own failures.
There are however some spaces which have had to close. Megan Hunt
kindly answered a few questions about CAMP her coworking space
in Omaha, which closed in may 2012:
The biggest pitfall I had with CAMP was that the space came
before the community. I tried to build a strong network of
support around the few core tenants I started with. As is normal
for a coworking space, they all eventually moved on, outgrew the
space, found new gigs and moved into other offices, etc, and I
wasnt able to grow the membership roster beyond that. Megan
Hunt 3.2
Community-building is one of the most cited challenges for these
work spaces, the spaces have high turnovers because of the nature
of the way a lot of renters use the space, it offers them a temporary
home especially when it comes to start-ups. 1871 in Chicago
anticipate this and plan for companies to spend only 6 month in their
space and hope that they move on to bigger and better things. 3.2
Megans biggest problem though was that CAMP never had a
profitable month in the 22 months we were open. Funded by Megan
out of her own pocket the space didnt have a viable business model
that could keep them above water, whilst also loosing membership
without an outlet to promote the space. Megans problem can be seen
being asked about on the Google group often as people ask for advice
for similar situations. The value of this is that Megans lessons are
learnt publicly, as she shares her story of her space closure others are
able to learn from this.
TAKE AWAYS
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that can be moulded for its actors. The structure of a good space
should consider its membership, you can build a framework or
business model around what you know you can provide for your
members needs and they themselves will become your community.
Some spaces are not for everyone, and one size fits all will never
apply, people will find the work space that suits their needs and vice
versa, spaces should be aware of this kind of turnover. There is never
a right answer, our best lesson is to make use of the lessons learned
by others and the information provided by the community, kindly
people share their stories and their methods it would be rude not
to listen.
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When you cross digital natives with knowledge workers what you get
are individuals who are ready to engineer their own opportunities.
People cowork because other people cowork, its biggest selling point
is social, the idea benefits all parties, when you choose to work on
what you love and you choose to do that around people who can
broaden your mind then you have a happier work life balance. The
benefits are also starting to be seen by other industries and big
companies and coworking could become something you are asked
to do a few times during the week or month as part of your future
employment.
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TAKE AWAYS
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CHAPTER 4 - ON COMMUNITY
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The key thing is to get the social engagement. Communitybuilding has to happen first; people need to articulate whats
broke, and then what they want.
(Dr. Jackson Designing Healthy Communities) 4.26
In creating that community the desired effect is one of
decentralisation, where there is no one person who can leave the
space and destroy the community much like a city according to Steve
Johnson 2.6
The power of a city is their decentralisation from function.
Theres no one place you could destroy to make it fail. The system
still thrives after 9/11. The web as a city Steve Johnson 2.6
In-fact the coworking movement use this decentralisation in their
group logo they use the starfish and the spider metaphor, inspired
by the book The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A.
Beckstrom, which explores the phenomenal and unstoppable new
power of the starfish organisations and will change the way you look
at the world.
The metaphor:
Cut off the leg of a spider, and you have a seven-legged creature
on your hands; cut off its head and you have a dead spider. But
cut off the arm of a starfish and it will grow a new one. Not
only that, but the severed arm can grow an entirely new body.
Starfish can achieve this feat because, unlike spiders, they are
decentralised; every major organ is replicated across each arm.
1.6
The coworking movement itself is decentralised but the spaces
themselves should strive for the same ideals - Empower people
to build their own community, everyone in your space should be
an instigator of something, of starting random conversations, of
being the one who sends funny links on you tube of being the party
starter, the cake bringer, the luncheon organiser the lecture giver the
networker there are many roles to play and a space is full of people
with many talents for instigating community. The benefit of our
current state is that we dont have to be all doing the same thing,
every coworking space has a different mix of vocations.
For too long we have had doctors talking only to doctors,
and urban planners, architects, and builders talking only to
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Its kind of like when you were in high school and you were
part of a team; you know youre part of that soccer team or that
football team and youre wearing your letters with pride, Johnny
enthuses. 1.2 Working in the Unnoffice
TAKE AWAYS
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CHAPTER 5 - COWORKING
Coworking:
Where did it all
come from.
I explored at the beginning of my research some of the background
that has lead to the movement around coworking. Here I look at
the key developments in the short history of coworking. Examining
some of the past and current circumstances which have lead to
impressive growth over the past 7 years. In the past 5 years New
York City has gone from having one coworking space to having 80.
4.28
Coworking has a fairly short history and its difficult to pin down as
Alex Hillman told me when we chatted, there is the more commonly
cited story in America and many variations worldwide due to similar
circumstances concluding in a natural evolution to coworking.
Speaking of Citizen Space identifying heavily with open source, Alex
told me:
They created Wikis and discussion groups to get the word out
and this, I believe, is a large portion of the DNA of why it has
turned into what is is today, it is spreading like wildfire and
the people that do it are more likely to share than to contain
knowledge in any one silo. Meanwhile, simultaneously to that
entire story going on, similar stories where unfolding in other
parts of the world. Theres a European lineage, an Asian lineage
and they sound very similar with different characters Alex
Hillman Interview 3.11
Because of the difficulty in establishing a true history of coworking
as an activity I have drawn up a timeline of what has been interesting
and stood out as important landmarks during my own research.
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FIG 9 Timeline
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TAKE AWAYS
The history of coworking is short but the concept has proven itself in
the past. An emergence of new tools and supporting infrastructure
around the movement could lead to further growth in the near
future.
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Sharing is caring:
An economy of trust
and other things.
Some people have heralded coworking as part of the solution to
fix our broken economy, to understand why we need answer a
few questions: How does coworking fit into the bigger picture of
economic ebb and flow? What economic effect does it have on the
individuals involved? How can it serve the economic climate in the
future?
Text: Daniel H Pink tells us:
To truly understand where the economy is heading, you need to
get to know free agents who they are, what they do, how they
work, and why theyve made this choice. 1.3 Free Agent Nation
This was 2002 how much of this still applies and why, how much does
coworking play a part in this?
This rise of coworking and collectives and other new work spaces
all come under the bigger banner and current trend of collaborative
consumption - why buy my own in the current climate when I can
share with others a resource we all need and can effectively share
with the new ease of access. But this trend doesnt look like its just for
the current economic climate, we are changing our habits and going
back to some basic values that had gotten lost a little in our dense
urban areas, where distrust didnt allow us to share and a history of
commercial propaganda encouraged us to own.
When I talk about neighbourhoods in chapter 5 I talk about the
problem of disassociation and distrust in urban areas, that people
need to be empowered to take action within their community. Trust
needs to be reinstated locally in the way it is being established in our
online world with our online communities. In her recent TED Talk
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Rachel Botsman states that the currency of the new economy will be
trust that our:
Reputation is becoming a currency that will be more powerful
than our credit history in the 21st century **2.5**
A big statement from Rachel but its not hard to see this becoming
a reality when we look at the success of airbnb, TaskRabbit, Uber,
Zipcar and other peer to peer services.
At the MIT Centre for Big data conference quoting Airbnb CEO
Brian Chesky, Mike Olson told the crowd that, by the end of this year
(December 31st), the company will be filling more room nights than
Hilton Hotels. This is a huge milestone in the trend, Airbnb is the
catalyst that will help more and more people change their behaviours.
But not only is Collaborative Consumption driven by consumer
motivations that extend far deeper than cost savings, the habits
started to stick and spread before the financial collapse of 2008.
Economic necessity has just made people more open to new ways
of accessing what they need 1.1
These platforms, Airbnb, etsy, Taskrabbit and Zipcar, are enabling
what is known as micro-entrepreneurship - monetising your
personal resources and creating new financial opportunities on a
individual scale. And this in turn has other effects on local and global
economics,
Airbnb guests contributed $56 million USD in economic
activity to San Francisco between June 2011 and May 2012
4.30
We do though need to be careful when looking at this trend of
collaborative consumption and the economy of trust that Rachel
Botsman talks about as some things are currently the privilege of
the middle classes and those who have ready access to the internet
that they can make the best use of these services. Also it remains
to be seen that similar patterns would work in other industries.
Interestingly the people who could sometimes benefit the most from
the ethos of the sharing economy have the least ability to access the
services, to get online to find free furniture on Freecycle, to have a car
to pick up the furniture, to access information on clothes swaps and
home help from Taskrabit (useful for the elderly).
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CHAPTER 8 - ON CONCLUSIONS
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AND FINALLY...
THANKS TO...
Sam Rosen and everyone at Desktime and The Coop, Chicago. All my
Interviewees. My family and to Jesper Brring for their support.
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APPENDIX 1 - SOURCES
Sources
As this was an academic paper it is a requirement to list the
sources of relevant information. If you are looking for more info
on coworking and the Case Studies please check out the Resources
section.
1 BOOKS
1.1. Whats Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption Rachel Botsman (Author), Roo Rogers (Author)
1.2. Working in the UnOffice: A Guide to Coworking for Indie
Workers, Small Businesses, and Nonprofits - Genevieve V DeGuzman
(Author), Andrew I Tang (Contributor)
1.3. Free Agent Nation: How Americas New Independent Workforce
Are Transforming The Way We Live- Daniel H. Pink (Author)
1.4. Digital Vertigo: How Todays Online Social Revolution Is
Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us - Andrew Keen (Author)
1.5. Here comes everybody - Clay Shirky
1.6. The Starfish and the Spider the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless
Organisations - Ori Brafman (Author)
OTHER
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2 VIDEOS
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4 ONLINE LINKS
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5.2 - The Coffee Shop: Social and Physical Factors Influencing Place
Attachment - Lisa Waxman, Ph.D., Florida State University - 2006
5.3 - An ethnography of a neighbourhood caf: informality, table
arrangements and background noise - E Laurier, A Whyte, K Buckner
- Journal of Mundane Behaviour, 2001
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APPENDIX 2 - RESOURCES
Resources
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