Kategoriearchiv: Meinung

In relation to our second birthday yesterday and as a general coworking challenge I like to launch the “Joint communication initiative for coworking”. Coworking never sleeps, so it would be very useful to give local coworking correspondents in every time zone access to the CoWorking News site to write and publish their articles. The successful launch of the “Open International CoWorking Calendar” provides a strong argument, that this can work very well.  

Exactly two years ago we started our site with this article. One year later we celebrated our first birthday with over 30.000 unique visitors. Today we have reached more than 90.000 unique visitors. With 378 published articles (see archive or use search function) we managed to write an article a little more than every other day. And this is only the start!!!  

Am Anfang war eine Idee, … und dann kamen die Menschen. Als einer der “Coworking-Opas” der frühen Stunde in Deutschland habe ich vorhin mit Erstaunen im Wikipedia-Eintrag für “Coworking” gelesen: “Ein Treffen von 13 Leuten in Meiningen besitzt nicht wirklich deutschlandweite oder gar weltweite Relevanz“. Ich kann anhand der IP-Adresse nicht nachvollziehen, wer dies geschrieben hat, daher nutze ich diesen Artikel, um als “Zeitzeuge” meinen Standpunkt darzulegen.  

As coworking in Germany grows more popular, we notice that more and more business centres start to offer a “package” that would “allow” for coworking, namely offer desks, internet and use of a kitchen, but offer no community (as yet). We believe though that “proper” coworking requires “a desk” AND “a community”.  In the past, the ”culture & communication” in a traditional business centre was very different to the ”eco-system” in a coworking space. A distinction of the two therefore has been easy. But in both areas, changes are rapidly taking place. Business centres are trying to adopt a more “open and communicative” style while coworking spaces start to offer more “professional” services. Our thinking runs as follows: To preserve the strength of what we most value in coworking, namely the importance of the community, and at the same time to allow coworking to enter into a broader context, we want to suggest a simple system to describe the various kinds of coworking, that are currently being offered. The first type of coworking that “historically” appeared, we want to label type “DC” which could stand for “direct” or “dedicated” coworking. The new type which is now been offered by business centres, we want to label “AC” which could mean ”about” or “allows” coworking. As in all areas of life a combination or mixture is possible, the  type we like to call ”AC/DC”. With this simple system we want to inform coworkers that coworking in a particular business center, that we might enter in the future into one of our coworking directories, will “be & feel” quite different to coworking in a dedicated coworking space. But if we successfully introduce such a system, we allow business centres to adopt and offer this “new style of work” to more and more coworkers by moving from type “AC” to ”AC/DC” or maybe one day to ”DC” (Desk & Community) coworking. Let us embrace and value everyone and all they have to offer! Please comment!

If you find something awesome, like the “Awesome Foundation“ it is a tough call to excel on it. Some might ask why should you anyway? Well, I would say because it is worth it. If we are happy with the things we have achieved, we get complacent and stop innovating. What an awesome idea to support “crazy brilliant idea(s)” with  $1,000 each and no strings attached. When you look at the website you can see that this is great fun!!! While the members of “Awesome Foundation” are happy to sponsor the universe by $1,000 at a time, I wonder whether the universe is able to return this favour. Here is the point where evolution or innovation is possible. Maybe in many cases $1,000 will not be enough to implement these “crazy brilliant idea(s)”.  What happens in that case? What does the universe think about this? Well, I think awesome ideas, need awesome funding. What about a feedback loop in the system? If recipients of “Awesome Foundation grants” could or would return to the chapters to report on the progress of the implementation of their idea, there would be a much bigger chance that the projects would inspire by their existence and not by their potentiality of existence alone.  For your clarification: Awesome projects, according to the “Awesome Foundation” are “not strictly defined, but tend to challenge and expand our understanding of our individual and communal potentials. They bring communities together, casting aside social inhibitions and boundaries for a moment. They spark an instant of joy and delight and inspire a long-term hope for a more awesome future.”