What is Coworking?

We will split this answer into three parts, and we hope we will make it more interesting for you.

Part 1 – From where Coworking came

There are many stories about the supposed beginning of this history. However, the official version of it assumes that the American engineer Brad Neuberg is the creator of the notion. In his blog, he affirms:

At that point, I was confused because I had both worked for myself and worked at a job and was unhappy because I couldn’t seem to combine all the things I wanted at the same time: the freedom and independence of working for myself along with the structure and community of working with others.

Then, in 2005, Brad Neuberg released the very first Coworking in the world: The Spiral Muse, in San Francisco (California, USA). You can read it here.

Part 2 – The three waves

Alessandro Gandini (University of Milan) and Alberto Cossu (University of Leicester), researchers on coworking spaces, published a paper, in 2019. They suggest we are dropping the third wave of Coworking. According to their investigation:

– The first wave refers to the “avant-gard” phase, which focused on the social value of Coworking but letting behind (let’s say) a deep concern on the long-term financial sustainability of the space. This first moment, the communities were the centre, and the look was turned to the creative class and their needs of knowledge sharing.  We may qualify this time by euphoric. When the concept emerged, everything seemed very cool, but many people started to surf the wave without a clear vision of the sea. 

– Second phase events, so-called “neo-corporate”, is the current and stronger view of Coworking. In many levels, this perspective completely changed the meaning of the word, highlighting its economic aspects and guided by innovation aims.

– Arriving at the third wave implies a balance between economic and social impact. The Resilient Coworking promotes an approximation with the local community beyond the space. This amplified community view allows a deep recognition of the presence of this kind of organisational arrangement, from both social and economic practices.

Summing up: Coworking means a tripolar concept, sustained by an environment which gathers people who work collaboratively creating a movement aiming rethink work and its ways of life. 

Part 3 – What we advocate

In my PhD research (2015-2019) (text in Portuguese), among my goals, I looked a definition to coworking grounded on a communicative view, taking in account different levels of interaction that constitutes this kind of environment. What do I advocate?  

Coworking is an organisational arrangement, constituted by communicative practices related to the activity of work performed by individuals engaged to the purpose of working in collaborative ways to produce and share knowledge.   

Understanding this definition asks for some additional background. To provide it, we will break the sentence:

• Organisational arrangement – we understand coworking as a kind of organisation that is constantly moving. Its base is less on the fixed structures, and its main strength is the flow. However, coping with it is something that asks for evolved ways of conceiving what is an organisation.
• Being grounded on communicative practices – means include all kinds of interactions, from the institutional ones to the unpredictable ones that happen in daily life and which are fundamental to the activity of work performed.
• The activity of work – we must comprehend work besides its economical and productive view. Work is an important educative share of our learning process, including the worldview constitution. On this way, we should care about the values produced and encouraged by the decision-making at work.
• Engage – the openness to the other, learning from their values and purposes.
• Work in collaborative ways – we should go forward routines and procedures, besides networking on its weak view. It means effectively get close to people, being receptive to know them, sharing values and moments.
• Produce and share knowledge – we are talking about tacit and structured knowledge; practices, alternatives to entrepreneurship and innovation, paths to quality of life, finally: qualified knowledge from honest relationships which looks for the community growing (inside and outside the space).

Are you curious about it?

Since the first Coworking Day, managers and coworkers get efforts to spread the idea and share their translation of the concept, large and global, to their reality, specific and local. Open doors days, events, testing… many possibilities that cannot be explored this year, considering our current situation concerning public health.

Which are the possibilities, then? Using web resources! For example, the portal Coworking.com, a worldwide specialised channel, challenged managers, coworkers and researchers to share a 30 seconds video-message answering one of the questions they asked. The results will be shared soon on a video series. The Brazilian portal, CoworkingBrasil.org share news from all the corners of the country, including a special cover of the pandemic results on coworking industry. Also, the website Coworker.com publish lots of information for those who want to know the concept.

Are you asking yourself if it is the best option for you?

Like home office, many questions pop up on the mind when the point is choosing the best environment to perform work in both circumstances, partial and fulltime of a remote job. In my perspective, the best way to know if coworking is the best option for you is analysing your self’s behaviour: do you like to be among people? Do you want to challenge yourself on it? Or do you prefer to be by yourself? In this case, maybe coworking does not fit for you. Interaction is the core of coworking.

However, there are some pieces of advice you should consider: a shared workplace does not have to mean a noisy and disrespectful place. This dimension is also related to your availability of learning how to interact. There are rooms saved for conversation, for concentration, and so on. Therefore, I vividly suggest you: take some time and evaluate the architectural features of the space; not just the colours, the modern design, but the size of the rooms, especially the kitchen. The bigger is the magical room; bigger are the possibilities to learn how to have interesting conversations, ideas, and other quality moments.

Also, you should go beyond the networking stereotypes: being in touch with people just because somewhere, sometime you may need them and use this relationship to take some advantage is not the kind of mindset you should bring or learn from coworking. This is standard. Coworking aims to break the standards and help to build new ones. So, get to know people, learn with them, open yourself and let the others do the same. I believe this is the main and hardest boundary to break in coworking. And you know why? Because it means building trusting bonds, and, unfortunately, it is not an easy behaviour to learn.

After all, if you want to know more about the numbers of coworking industry, access Coworking Insights and take a look at a recent report forecasting the next years of coworking. We also shared a video on our Instagram profile (in Portuguese). We hope you have good thoughts from this text!

Have a nice week!