We did a census of US coworking facilities last year and collaborated with Deskmag on their global count. We quickly learned your definition of "coworking" and "coworking facility" has a big impact on the census outcome. After discussing the definition with a number of folks from the coworking community, we decided to use the following:
"For the purposes of this census, a facility will be deemed a coworking facility if it meets four criteria: (1) the facility self- identifies as a coworking facility; (2) the facility offers public membership options commonly associated with coworking; (3) the primary business of the facility is coworking; and (4) the facility is currently active." Using this definition, 19 NYC facilities met this criteria as of last August. We haven't looked at NYC since the census, but a quick guess on my part is there are around 25-30 today in NYC that meet this definition. We've seen a surge in the number of spaces across the country since last summer. The definition we used excludes a variety of spaces that could easily be considered coworking facilities. Most incubators, for example, are available by invitation only. Because of this, we excluded them. We also excluded most office suite companies that offered (or claimed to offer) coworking because coworking was not the primary business of the facility. And we excluded a number of companies/facilities that offered limited shared space for the same reason. We are in no way suggesting our definition is the only way to define coworking. One of the clear findings from our research is that coworking is rapidly expanding, evolving and mutating. There is almost a Cambrian Explosion of new types and forms of coworking occurring. Because of the growing awareness and popularity of coworking, new spaces that don't fully meet our criteria but still could be considered coworking are springing up all over the place. We are planning on doing another census this summer. We will use the same definition so our results can be compared with the prior year. But we will also be trying to develop a broader measure to capture the broader number of shared spaces and coworking hybrids. With a broader definition than the one we used, I have no doubt there are over 2000 coworking spaces globally. Using our more restrictive definition, my guess is there are about 1100. On Apr 10, 8:34 pm, Stephanie Wiegand <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > I'm Stephanie and I'm an intern at the Sarapis Foundation located in > New York City. > > This week Devin (my supervisor) asked me to find as many coworking > spaces in NYC as I could. DeskMag says there are 12 self-described > coworking spaces in NYC but I found about 35 spaces that can easily > qualify as coworking spaces. These spaces foster community, support > entrepreneurs, freelancers, and even sometimes label themselves as > coworking. There are a few shared office spaces that look like they > could qualify as well. I will look into each to see whether or not > they share the coworking movement's values. > > I found these spaces by Googling "coworking + nyc", "shared office > shared + community", "co-working + nyc", and a few other combinations. > Some spaces were over eight pages into the search, so I really had to > sift through each search with a fine tooth. I am sure there are more > spaces out there, but I think identifying about 40 spaces is a good > start. We're going to merge our spreadsheet with that of the > CoworkingRegistry and encourage other coworking space members to > collect links to the spaces in their area for inclusion in the > registry as well. > > If NYC is an example of a place with about three times the amount of > listed spaces, then what does that say about the rest of the world? > There are 700 known spaces. If we assume there are three times as many > spaces (at least) as there are 'known' spaces, then there are likely > well over 2,000 coworking spaces operating around the world. > > There is little doubt that coworking spaces will continue to open up > around the world as networked technologies make these spaces only more > valuable, but how can we ensure that these spaces embody the values of > coworking and use the term to describe themselves? Coworkers need to > reach out to their community and try to encourage people to make > themselves known, and the coworking community as a whole needs to > continue creating valuable products and services for 'coworking' > spaces. -- 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.
