The Pros And Cons Of Coworking

@infmom: Are you me? That's exactly like the setup my husband and I have arranged except we work from different rooms. (If we were together, I think we would either distract one another or I would throttle him.)

sintari

@GA TechWriter: We're neighbors! I live in Inman Park and sometimes go to the San Francisco Roasting company, though they have a prominent sign limiting internet use to two hours.

I may have to find your Atlanta Bread Company. :)

sintari

I can't work from home. I worked in a "temp" office cluster for two years and loved it. You see people on the elevator and at the coffee machine. The holiday decorations, which always seemed goofy before, were nice. And then I could go in my office and close the door when I needed privacy or to really concentrate. Most of the time, I left the door open.

Judgy McJudger

@irish_stickman: lol

redcrayon

@nwilliams: You don't live in downtown Chicago! I work from home, my balcony door is wide open, and at this moment, I hear not just traffic going by 200 feet below me, but also drilling, construction workers shouting, a garbage truck beeping as it backs up, sirens from the firehouse down the street, and, of course, cabbies firing off their car horns.

The funny thing is, it all becomes background noise and I don't notice it unless I'm listening for it - usually when a client or coworker calls and asks what "that noise" is.

I do sometimes miss working with other people, but they call enough to compensate. And I live in a building with a thousand other people, so I just have to walk out to the lobby for interaction with neighbors.

All of my work consists of Business Development for numerous corporations. That being said, networking is the most crucial aspect. I have picked a local Starbucks located in a high networth area to spend most of my time in. After a while a community started to establish based on networking and mutual respect which has produced wonders. When it's time to sit in front of the computer and send emails or draft contracts, I just put in my ear buds which is the equivalent of closing the office door. No one tends to bother me. The ear buds are key, with out them I would never get anything done.

shuneycutt

Coworking is my dream.
I spent half a year working from home, and to tell you the truth, I hated it.
It was too lonely and my house is to small to have a proper separate work area.

tuckertuck

I've been self-employed for about 6 years, and recently discovered coworking in the last 2 years. It has completely transformed my business. Not only does the social interaction help break up the day, but when you are surrounded by passionate people, you can't help but be inspired. Inspired to push yourself to new heights, and Inspired to just plain kick ass at what you do. And when you've got a few bucks on the line (in the form of coworking membership fees), it has an incredible motivating effect on you, since the time you are there you want to get stuff done and make some money that day.

Even when it gets chatty at the space, the hours that you spend focused on your work is done at such an increased velocity that your productivity soars.

The other benefit, especially if you are used to working at home, is that you are 'out there' meeting people in real life. Almost every week I walk out of our coworking space, I come away with new leads and new work. This essentially makes my membership 'free' because I would not have landed these projects doing the solo thing in the home office.

To quote a friend of mine, trust isn't built on facebook, its built in the bar. That is, if you aren't out there in the world mingling with your colleagues, it will be hard to make new connections, meet new collaborators, and establish new friendships.

If you're ever in Orlando, look me up. I'll be at: [colaborlando.com]

-e

Eric Marden

@PhineasEnemarexia:

He's correct, barista is Italian for bartender. So, next time you are in Starbucks, be sure to yell out "Oh, Bartender!" before ordering your next cup...

charnov

I have basically gone the other route in the past. I have rented what is more or less a prison cell with nothing more than a table, a desk chair, a lounge chair, an all-in-one "copier", a locking cabinet, a mini refrigerator, and a desktop.

Coworkers are annoying, libraries too interesting, coffee shops are distracting, home too restful, ...

zolielo

Cool you used my pic. A little background perhaps; the office in the picture is our The Hague coworking office called Nomadz. Feel free to check it out when your ever in The Netherlands :)

ClaraAntiope

Wish I COULD work from home instead of dealing with the check-collecting, 60-year old (across from me) slacker's daily work avoidance routine thrown in my face each day! Then maybe I could avoid her 'organ recital' in order to justify why she called in sick the day before.

z974647

I co work at the local Hooters (the have free wifi)once a week in the evenings. It was rather funny when the boss called me with a problem, and able to fix it as needed instead of having to break out the modem.

I generally eat at establishments that have free wifi, Hooters once a week, and Panera two days a week.

DrRiAdGeOrN

I've been working remotely for almost 6 years now -- first as a contractor, and for the past 3+ years full-time -- and coworking kinda saved my life. I was going batty at home, where isolation magnified feelings of being cut off from my team and out of touch. Indy Hall ([www.indyhall.org]) changed that by giving me the next best thing to working in my company's office: namely, interesting, creative, technical colleagues. Yes, sometimes it gets loud. Yes, the commute up the stairs to my home office is more convenient. But the random conversations and organic brainstorming that occur at Indy Hall are often as good as what can occur in the office.

LoriHC

@PhineasEnemarexia: You're right, barista sounds a whole lot better than the term we used in the 50's/60's for the server at the local watering hole - the soda jerk.

bobbo33

I am a member of a co-working space in Philadelphia called Indy Hall. The conversation level ebbs and flows. I find that if I'm doing production work (I edit video). I can really focus on that with headphones on. When I need to read something lengthy and really try to understand it (like right now, I'm making video about a complex business process), I move to a quieter area in the co-working space, or I step out altogether and work from home. All in all I am very happy with the experience of co-working. Much better than being isolated at home, and in the long term leads to much better network building than working in a cafe.

QueenJapants

My husband and I share a home office and do reasonably well together, although the only possible arrangement doesn't leave quite enough room for both our desk chairs.

The main distraction here is one small cat who needs reassurance for just about everything and who will sit here by my feet till I get up and deal with whatever it is she wants. Of course, I should be getting up periodically anyway. :)

@PhineasEnemarexia: Wow. Congratulations on being a douche.

A good coffee shop will have professional baristas who pride themselves on making an extremely good cup of whatever-it-is-you're-drinking. To wit, a cappuccino is as much about the pull as it is about the beans.

I know of maybe three or four such coffee shops in my state.

Also, you should find some better bars.

@PhineasEnemarexia: An you're basically a bartender who also serves coffee based drinks?

As the founder of a Coworking space in Rochester NY - coworkingrochester.com - I can share that I've found myself FAR more productive lately now that we're beta testing and having people come by semi-regularly. The momentum, energy and small distraction of having others around actually lets me focus MORE on what I'm doing. It's also nice to have fresh eyes/ears to bounce ideas off of, and its a good way to have a much more professional self-presentation if you have to meet with a client than "meet me at Starbucks" says. Not to mention the networking opportunities - its like being at a tech incubator without the "shove you out of the door" stuff. My company has already gotten several new clients from word-of-mouth referrals that came from Coworking visitors, and that's just in a handful of months.

It's probably not for everyone, some people prefer being alone and others need the greater structure of a company/office, but as someone who's been telecommuting doing the equivalent of freelance (without the having-to-find-the-work aspect) for the past 7 years, its a nice breath of fresh air - I flat out missed PEOPLE and this fixes that for me.

David Moffitt

Times are getting close to my perfect telecommute setup. I can now WiFi and jog. I can WiFi and fish. I can do my chores like shopping and house chores and mowing the yard with an arrangement to let me know immeadiately if the server needs me so I can respond fast enough to appear to have never left my seat.

BUT I havent yet seen a laptop I can use in a steam room or a hot tub. THATS the CoWorking location I dream of.

Gandalf Parker
--
Did you ever stop to realize that between WiFi and Bluetooth we are closer to Borg than you think.

gp1628

Does I get the proximity benefits because Google has their San Francisco offices in my condo building in San Francisco (I'm on 15th floor, they're somewhere on floors 2-8)? Does the proximity benefit only work if you can piggyback off their wifi signal (I can't)?

I love working from home. I'm in Sales, and have a pretty sweet setup, gym below, walking distance to great restaurants, and mascot (cat, but I swear I'm not a 'cat guy') in the apartment.

I do miss an office sometime, but really, if I went there, how would I keep up on my LH fix?

Biggest productivity killer: Productivity blogs.

hhumbert

@FreeChaos: He must be a stock broker. According to the news, everyone on Wall Street is doing it.

It's definately a neat idea. The company I work for shares office space with a few other small companies (technically we sub-let to them), and we find it great to be able to utilize everyone's various strengths. We share knowledge, pass clients back & forth, work together as necessary, and in the end all of our clients get a better result.

saffyre9

I have worked in variety of office spaces (cubed, open plan and my own) and also from home.

Home is good for cranking through a very well-defined bit of work e.g. cranking out code or a write-up.
It's NIT good for figuring out requirements, collaborative design.

A few studies have compared "communication frequency" as it correlates to physical difference between the parties. It drops through the floor after 30 ft !
E.g. [tinyurl.com]

As a manager I have personally had to frog-march two geeks from one desk 40 ft over to another because they over-relied on electronic communication instead of occasionally walking over and talking through an issue. Instead they misinterpret emails/IMs and get into a flame war and slow down the project progress.

As an ex-developer, I really wanted electronic communication to work but it's just not a substitute for proximity.

Mo strong opinion of open plan versus dedicated offices. Would lean towards open plan and have people work from home when they need to put their head down.

nivekNYC

I think the biggest thing that I miss when I'm working from home is the noise of the office. I have gone to great lengths to extend access to office chatter to employees I work with who WFH but there is really no substitute for being in the office.

I'm starting to list some of my WFH findings on my blog:
[nickprojects.com]

nwilliams

The picture is awesome because of the guy facepalming in the background.

FreeChaos

My office isn't really an office at all - everyone sits together in a big room. We do have light banter and talks, but it makes us super productive to have other people right there to bounce ideas off of. Overall, I think it's a great setup.

I've never heard of coworking. Interesting. Is there more to it than hanging out in a cafe or coffeeshop? I wonder if people get territorial over the furniture?

"Excuse me, I was using that table yesterday. You saw me. I, you know, kind of sit there all the time."

@David Chapdelaine: Rohs is a great coffee shop. I've been in it for a couple meetings, but I haven't used for work. My friends love it because it's so close to their department on campus. Glad to know it rates high on other people's radar too.

Bethany Nummela-Hanel

i also prefer working on my cube in my office, since i often have to ask our machinist-guru questions regarding the machines i build on CAD!

when i am @home,sometimes i get a brainstorm on problems regarding my machines, then i use VNC to access my machine-drawings in CAD!
but most of the time i am happy that i donthave to think about my work @home.....

I've been working from home for the past 4 years. Love it. I travel to the office (another state) once a month for face-to-face. I'd probably start yelling at people if I tried to work from a public Wi-Fi spot... I hate coffee. I need to find a good Coca-cola house.

TheOtherHalf

A real barista is basically an alcohol serving bartender who also happens to make coffee based drinks. Why do people persist in this push to give the low life self-important liberal college idiots who can't find real work and get a job at a coffee shop so they can feel enlightened a fancy sounding Italian title? To impress their mothers a little because they don't pay rent? YOU ARE NOT BARISTAS. There I said it.

PhineasEnemarexia

i'd love a job working on the internet, instead i just do a half assed job and spend my day on the internet anyway

A friend and I cowork from a local coffee & video store, more coffee than videos these days. Usually just plugged in with headphones on, the biggest distraction is the oddball customer base they draw. If I have another meeting the same day, then I'm guaranteed to be the only person there with a collar.

lowercase

I've been frequenting a local Cincinnati Coffee Shop in a college town that has "endless cups" of coffee. It's good coffee, too. I find that getting out of the house one or two days a week helps me focus. During finals week, the spirit of the shop was studying, which made this my favorite spot. Free wi-fi (not N...but it works!)

www.rohsstreetcafe.com

David Chapdelaine

Second paragraph, second sentence: 'write' should be 'right'.

ansaphone

My home office gets too quiet... frequently. Fortunately there's an Atlanta Bread Company about 1 mile down the road with free WiFi, good teas, and the music is always subtle and the temperature is never too hot or too cold to scare away laptop users. I try to buy a breakfast at least once a week there to thank them for letting me use a booth 2-3 times a week to work. It's the best coworking solution I have right now...

@zolielo: Sounds a little lonely to me, zolielo. What if coworkers were not folks you actually did work with, but were just other people getting work done around you? Would you see benefit in sharing your office overhead fees (such as the copier, toilet paper, couches, etc.)?

susan.c.evans

Awesome post! I am one of the owners of Office Nomads (www.officenomads.com) in Seattle - we've been open for about a year and a half now. I can tell you that it has been an awesome adventure. We find that so many of the folks who come in to work here have hit some serious walls attempting to work by themselves. Finding an office space with other people in it (who are NOT their bosses or coworkers) makes them more productive, happier, and allows them to connect with a group of folks they might not have met otherwise.

I am so lucky to be able to work alongside of such cool people. I'm also lucky enough to be able to be part of another startup that is launching from our space - Re-Vision Labs ([re-visionlabs.com]). This is another great perk a lot of coworking spaces are seeing - not only are people finding cool colleagues to team up with on projects, but entire new companies are forming out of coworking spaces.

I think we're onto something pretty incredible, actually. And I'm not too shy to say it. :)

susan.c.evans

@PhineasEnemarexia: Somebody didn't have their coffee/ is jealous he didn't get a "liberal worthless college education"?

I work, less than full time, in a virtual company. There is no "office", but we meet face to face with local employees every week or 2 at centrally located lunch and coffee shops during off-hours. We also meet at different customer locations when there is need for more than 1 person there and we're working a project.

Pros:
-Silence or noise, whatever you like. Screaming is ok too.
-Deep concentration time by just disabling the phone.
-Zero commute; bathroom and slippers
-Provide your own systems, keyboard, mice, monitor(s)
-Provide your own chair, lighting, distracting window views
-Cooking at home is cheaper
-Home office Tax deduction
-No need to shower daily
-Flexible schedules
-Shopping almost whenever you feel like it
-Going hiking on a workday, because you feel like it; probably not a telecommute thing, rather a "I'm the boss" thing.

Cons:
-House noises; other people in the house interrupting
-Lifehacker "interruptions"
-laundry, dishes and other household chores
-Getting started working everyday when there's nobody forcing you or checking up on your effort/time.
-Creating relationships with new virtual employees is harder
-Smelling the crockpot meals cooking all day!
-Twice a year or so, the ISP is down for 4+ hours
-Meeting and mixing with different/new people requires effort
-Limited local food choices compared to working in mid-town or other commercial areas of town
-Home and work lives get mixed
-No good way to "check up on" coworkers or reports. Perhaps this is a pro?

TheFu

@askj113: The adjective Liberal is not insulting.

rockhopper

@hhumbert: Yes, it would be so un-macho of you to actually like your cat.

rockhopper

Ask any artist collective. Workshops. Coworkers, conversations, no bosses and no distractions, just work. I can't get a damn thing done in the office, but gimme twenty good minutes in the garage/workshop, I'm churnin' out the Eiffel Tower.

MagnusAhala

@PhineasEnemarexia: English is a living language. :)