Hi Steve, It's an (understandable) shame that you're limiting the cataloging of spaces to those that self-identify as coworking spaces. Is that just a heuristic to make the selection process easier, or do you think there's something important to the classification if a space uses that term? For example, writers' spaces existed before the coworking movement had a name, but there's little if anything to distinguish many of them from other coworking spaces. The same could be said for many of the hacker spaces you brought up.
Will -- Will Bennis Locus Workspace Krakovská 22, 110 00 Praha 1 http://www.locusworkspace.com Tel: +420 223 017 593 Mob: +420 604 776 440 On Jul 15, 8:58 pm, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > Our research assistants have been working away developing a count of > the number of coworking facilities in the US. While we are not done, > it looks like our estimate will be in 250 range. Our estimate last > december came to about 215-220. > > Several interesting things about the count: > > 1. It is getting harder to do this. The main reason is coworking is > evolving, blurring, hybridizing and shifting. For example, incubators > are becoming coworking facilities, coworking facilities are becoming > incubators and lots of facilities of various types are adding (or at > least claiming to add) coworking features. Many of these "semi- > coworking" facilities share some or many of the attributes of a > traditional coworking space, but in other ways aren't coworking as we > tend to think of it. > > While I think the evolution of coworking and the growth of hybrids is > a good thing, it makes it much harder to decide whether or not a > specific facility should be counted as a coworking facility. It also > challenges our ability to do a consistent count over time. There is > already a risk our we are counting apples and oranges instead of just > apples. > > We will post our facilities list once it has been cleaned up a bit. > > 2. There is a fair amount of facility churn. About 10-15% of > facilities on our list in December have fallen off our current list > due to closure or shifts in direction. There are, obviously, a lot of > new facilities on our list. Some are green field and others are > existing spaces that have added and/or shifted to a coworking model. > > While we aren't focused on coworking business models at this time, it > does appear to be an area ripe for research:). > > 3. Coworking has moved beyond the major cities and is spreading > rapidly in mid-sized cities and smaller towns. > > 4. The number of niche or targeted coworking facilities (aimed at > writers, or telecommuters, or social entrepreneurs, or makers, etc.) > is growing. It is a logical extension of the "like minded people" > phrase we so often hear and use when discussing coworking. > > 5. There are lots of facilities under development with plans to open > in the next 6-12 months. It appears to us that the facility growth > rate is accelerating due to the addition of new facilities and re- > purposing of existing non-coworking facilities. > > Given how few facilities there are relative to the potential > addressable market, an accelerating growth rate is not surprising. > > Steve -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
