I've come to think of coworking as an environment that promotes
self-actualization.
If you think about Maslow's hierarchy (food/shelter/sex/money at the base,
then a lot of higher things on top), coworking is an environment designed to
allow people to move as far up that hierarchy as they desire; and to
demonstrate that such upward mobility is possible.
Coworking also has some startling parallels to un-schooling.
Words tend to get co-opted by people with political agendas. I do not
subscribe to many/most of the political agendas associated with un-schooling
(my politics are generally post-partisan), but the concept has some validity
and taken just as a technical term is very similar to what coworking tries
to promote.
Whereas traditional school forces people into an outmoded model of
industrial production and rigid hierarchy, traditional work mostly tries
to do the same thing. Coworking and un-schooling both invert that paradigm
and put the emphasis onto the individual, allow room for self-actualization
and discovery, and promote serendipitous formation of bonds and exploration
of ideas.
Devin, I think your term thrive is good, but maybe could be expanded upon.
You're talking about self-actualization. How might we describe that more
completely, without necessarily resorting to that term?
Dave
On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Devin devinbalk...@gmail.com wrote:
The movement must go beyond the word 'coworking.' Words will always
be coopted by people who'll use them to benefit themselves.
Below is a quote I received on a metrocard.
The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are
caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey
ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can
I find a man who has forgotten the words, so that I can talk to him?
We should defend the term 'coworking' but we also need to strengthen
the language we use to describe this movement and develop a shared
mission statement and strong set of core principles.
I propose something like following for a mission statement:
The mission of a coworking space is to create an environment in which
autonomous individuals (prefer: independent workers?) thrive.
On Apr 1, 8:11 am, Tony Bacigalupo tonybacigal...@gmail.com wrote:
Apologies to Jay for swaying off topic.
Thanks for weighing in, Clay. I respect what you were trying to
accomplish
and find it regrettable that I feel compelled to use such harsh language
in
this forum.
I rather enjoyed your and Drew's presentations, and if the panel were
simply
about the future of work, I might have very much enjoyed the panel as a
whole.
Gary's abuse of the word coworking, however, was offensive to me and
should be to anyone who understands and espouses the values the word is
supposed to represent. He openly admitted to having hijacked the word for
his purposes, only after I pressed him on the subject myself. The notion
that coworking is not colocation is completely absurd; it's like saying
a
bicycle doesn't need wheels to be a bicycle.
It was apparent to me that he had no problem abusing the word to help
promote his brand, and I found it most unfortunate that he was given such
a
public forum to do so.
In terms of the future of work, I took away one very important and
valuable
lesson: we as coworking space owners may not be able to rely upon the
word
coworking to communicate what we do and what we represent in the
future,
because more people like Gary may likely come along and attempt to pump
the
word dry of all of its meaning for their own personal benefit.
An outside observer may be able to simply find this phenomenon
interesting,
but I find it rather unfortunate and certainly something I would not be
complicit in perpetuating.
My hope is that such folk will come and go, and their words will be
largely
ignored in the face of the larger movement.
On Mar 31, 2010 8:40 PM, Clay Spinuzzi clay.spinu...@gmail.com
wrote:
Sorry to hear that you felt that way about the panel, Tony. I do want
to emphasize, though, that the panel was *not* on the future of
coworking. It was on What coworking tells us about the future of
work.
So I wanted to get a wide set of perspectives on that topic. After
all, we've seen a wide set of perspectives on coworking here on the
Google Group, with not-for-profits, loss leaders, and for-profit
coworking spaces talking to each other. And in talking to Austin-area
proprietors and coworkers, I've seen similar differences in
perspective. Some people are in it for the community, some are in it
for the networking and subcontracting opportunities, and some are just
relieved that they don't have to manage an office and buy the toilet
paper. Maybe some of these aren't kosher motivations for coworking
from the movement's perspective, but that's what people are telling
me. And from what I've seen on the
