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More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

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Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#11
post #6

After working from a home office for five years, moving into a coworking space last fall was a game-changer. I'm not the kind of person that gets excited about much, but I couldn't help but wax poetic about it to every person I talked to for a solid month. The work-life separation, perks of being downtown, and network effects of being around other entrepreneurs has hugely amped up my productivity and opened doors for…

Isn't the third of the price of an office still quite a substantial amount of money? Can I ask what kind of space you get? I always imagined a small desk or cubicle for each person (individual renting). I ran my own business for awhile but jumped out because it was just so expensive and it was very difficult to separate life and work with a family.

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet still sucks in 2017. I still can't make a 3-way video call between people in 3 countries without having to say "Can you hear me" every 5 minutes and then having to repeat stuff all the time. Doubly forget having a productive meeting if one of those people is on Comcast, has a crappy Wi-Fi router, is in China, can't figure out how to get their microphone to work, or has babies yelling in the background. I…

Check out Zoom. We have 50+ participants on video conf calls weekly without any issues; participants are global.

I can vouch for Zoom, I use it daily in chats with 5-10 people in 5+ countries and frequently with more, it works flawlessly given a decent connection (basic DSL).

I wish the UI was a bit better though (e.g. consistently working way to see who is talking is a feature that is not there or, it seems, sometimes it is and then disappear).

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#13

A coworking space sounds amazing compared to our current office setup, somehow management has landed on the the worst of all worlds. Teams are in horseshoe shaped areas with managers in glass walled private offices facing into the horseshoe. The plain old worker scrubs like me, however, are in tiny cubicles that are about waist high within the horseshoe, and they have three people crammed into each cubicle in parts o…

Sounds like someone in your office read about Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon and they were like "This guy just might be onto something."

Do you plan to stay in that place? It doesn't sound like a very positive working environment.

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#14

A coworking space sounds amazing compared to our current office setup, somehow management has landed on the the worst of all worlds. Teams are in horseshoe shaped areas with managers in glass walled private offices facing into the horseshoe. The plain old worker scrubs like me, however, are in tiny cubicles that are about waist high within the horseshoe, and they have three people crammed into each cubicle in parts o…

[deleted]

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#15

A coworking space sounds amazing compared to our current office setup, somehow management has landed on the the worst of all worlds. Teams are in horseshoe shaped areas with managers in glass walled private offices facing into the horseshoe. The plain old worker scrubs like me, however, are in tiny cubicles that are about waist high within the horseshoe, and they have three people crammed into each cubicle in parts o…

[deleted]

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#16
post #11
post #6

After working from a home office for five years, moving into a coworking space last fall was a game-changer. I'm not the kind of person that gets excited about much, but I couldn't help but wax poetic about it to every person I talked to for a solid month. The work-life separation, perks of being downtown, and network effects of being around other entrepreneurs has hugely amped up my productivity and opened doors for…

Isn't the third of the price of an office still quite a substantial amount of money? Can I ask what kind of space you get? I always imagined a small desk or cubicle for each person (individual renting). I ran my own business for awhile but jumped out because it was just so expensive and it was very difficult to separate life and work with a family.

I pay about $20 USD a week for a desk.

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#17
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet still sucks in 2017. I still can't make a 3-way video call between people in 3 countries without having to say "Can you hear me" every 5 minutes and then having to repeat stuff all the time. Doubly forget having a productive meeting if one of those people is on Comcast, has a crappy Wi-Fi router, is in China, can't figure out how to get their microphone to work, or has babies yelling in the background. I…

Check out Zoom. We have 50+ participants on video conf calls weekly without any issues; participants are global.

Zoom is pretty awful, we have constant issues with audio quality.

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#18
I mostly love working in a coworking space, the one I'm in is something around 150-200 people.

I work in a small company (6 in the office, and 2 remote/roaming), and I think that working in a coworking space gives me the best parts of a larger company, and the best parts of a small company.

There are lots of social events and opportunities to hang out with other people in the space, we have different events and presentations on all the time. I also get all the nice parts of a smaller company, like knowing all my coworkers and the CEO personally, and a lack of office politics and a chain of command, I don't quite report directly to the CEO, but I am in regular direct contact with him.

Not everyone here is tech either, there's quite a few small non-tech startups and small businesses, which is great to get that contrast.

There are some disadvantages though. Some people are inconsiderate or ignorant of the fact that it is an open office and that you're sitting next to other people, and they have extend conversations, or phone calls (which are the worst, some people practically shout into their phone). We have dedicated noise dampened phone booths that work great, as well as meeting rooms and meeting booths for people that need to be loud, as well as a corner of the space that's for people that need to be noisy.

By and large the majority of people are fine though. Hot desking isn't too bad either, since most people are there every day, so everyone has a seat they usually sit in. I'm pretty minimalist too, so all I need is some paper and my laptop, I don't need external keyboards, mice, or monitors.

It's a great community, it sounds really cliche, but it's more than just a place to work at. It's a great community.

Re: More than one million people will work from coworking spaces in 2017

#19
post #3

I worked in one and it was awful. Always had to be hoping that your neighbor was respectful, and even if you got lucky and they were, then you had to hope that they stayed long enough, before some other neighbor came in and ultimately created an undesirable co-working space. It's 2017 and we have the internet. When will (internet) companies start embracing telecommuting more?

There are several people at my coworking space who work remotely for companies overseas, as well as quite a few individual contractors or 2 person businesses. They can work from home if they want to (and sometimes do), but they like coming into a space where they work around other people who are also working.

They work here because they get a clear separation between work and home, and because they get lonely working at home, as well as losing key networking opportunities. I don't mean networking in the "make me money" way, but just in the "meet other people who do the same thing" way.

Not everyone wants to work from home. I never could, I'd be spending in excess of 16 hours a day in the same little space, that sounds like a special kind of hell for me, it would be like prison. I think that there's nothing worse than sitting at home all day on just the weekend, I couldn't do it all week as well.

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