The Voices of Coworking is a video where members of coworking facilities discuss why they cowork, the benefits of coworking and where they see this new style of work going in the future.
The video is the the synthesis of over 80 interviews with coworkers conducted by Emergent Research over the last summer. Over 40 of these interviews were filmed, and we believe the 17 people in the film provide a broad and accurate perspective on this new way of working.
This research was an extension of the Intuit 2020 research series, which isconducted with our research partner Intuit Corporation. In this work we forecast that over the next decade the growing array of Web-based technologies will reinvent the workplace, making these “third places” (including coworking facilities) for work outside of the traditional office and home more commonplace.
For those not familar with coworking facilities, they are shared workspaces that offer the amenities of a traditional workplace with the convenience and sociability of your neighborhood cafe.
While their configurations vary, coworking facilities offer everything from desks and meeting rooms to social areas, high speed Internet access and office equipment.
Most facilities offer memberships by the day, week or month and appeal to the freelancers, entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, big company telecommuters and other laptop nomads who are tired of working alone at home or in crowded and noisy coffee shops.
More importantly, coworking and coworking facilities are much more than just a place to work. Coworking facilities create a community of workers who socialize and, more importantly, collaborate. They bounce ideas off each other, share expertise, join forces on projects, refer business to one another and even join to create new companies.
Our recent post Coworking at a Growth Inflection Point explains why we believe the next 2-3 years will see accelerating growth in the number of people coworking. The Voices of Coworking provides more ammunition for this forecast.
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