James has a post on SoHo Solo and co-working today. There’s been a bit of chatter about co-working of late around the Irish blogs. The idea of co-working is sharing a friendly work space with other creative tech types who might not be part of your company/group. One definition is:
Coworking is a movement to create a community of cafe-like collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents.
In the States with lots of the San Fran crowd spending their days in coffee boutiques/shops, loading up on caffeine and cakes and taking advantage of the free power and WiFi, there is already that idea. Now with the cafes starting to shoo these people out to make way for more customers, these nomads need somewhere to go. There’s a blog about Co-working here and a Wiki too.
Here in Ireland people are coming from the other side. One person operations, working from home mostly who probably can’t afford a whole office in some centre but would like to work alongside other tech types and have a sense of community. It’s a very good idea in my view. Good way to get inspiration, help and encouragement from people and to do more networking. Going back to James’ post though, he talks about going on holiday-like trips to work in co-working spaces in other countries as a way of getting away from the usual workspace and getting inspiration in a new one and enjoying a holiday after the workday ends. Why not start twinning with the various co-working places worldwide?
We have cities that are twinned with each other. Cork does it with a different city every few years I think, so why not do the same with these co-working facilities? I wonder could a FON model work for something like this? Or something like the Couch Surfing model?
Sounds like a great idea for CIX Cork
Cowork Twinnings, nice idea! In a sense that’s what the SoHo Solo project appears to be doing (the twinning part) with Cork, Cadiz, The Canaries and a few more on the list. But I’m not sure exactly who it’s aimed at and if they’d expand their remit to embrace the coworking ethos so I think you should add this idea to the Coworking Wiki anyway. What cities would be top of your list for twinning with?
I wrote about this quite awhile ago — and is very much in line with what I’d love to see happen with the coworking community!
Just imagine — wherever you — a place to shack up in and work, meet with the locals, be inspired and have a good time… all while living sustainably. Not bad methinks — and can’t wait to make it over to Ireland to see what you guys have going on!
[…] Posted with the permission of Damien Mulley. Damiens original post can be found here. Dropped in: Coworking, Ireland, Freelance around 2:08 pm […]
I’ve just started working in a co-working space in Vancouver, Canada so I’ve been researching a lot on the topic to see if others use this work idea and it seems like it’s really popular all over the world. It’s definitely helped me develop new connections and expand my business circle. The place that’s harbouring me right now is called The Network Hub and it has a great location and very different people working together which really helps with bouncing ideas off each other and such. I think co-working is really taking over business. It’s the new ‘it’ thing in business right now…it will be interesting to see how it evolves in the future.
[…] interest in Coworking in Cork. Fellow Corkonian Damien Mulley has previously written about his ideas for getting coworking off the ground in the rebel […]