Last year I tried out coworking at Lewes Werks on a couple of occasions and, even though I did not do this as often as I would have liked, I plan to do more of this in 2010. I have been thinking about this for a few days so I thought I would write down a few of the advantages of coworking (as I see it, from a newbie’s perspective).
Firstly, what is coworking? You may have read about it before but here’s the Wikipedia definition: Coworking is the social gathering of a group of people, who are still working independently, but who share values and who are interested in the synergy that can happen from working with talented people in the same space.
Basically, this means working in a shared or open office with a group of other freelancers. The others might be remote workers who normally work from a home office or they could be coworking aficionados. Either way, here are five advantages of coworking for freelancers.
New ideas come from breaking out of your comfort zone
The opportunity to work across a desk from someone with a different skill set can provide a source of new ideas. Equally, I often find that a new working environment causes my brain to work slightly differently (perhaps it’s just me) and in these situations I have come up with new ideas for existing problems. Either way, more ideas can only be beneficial if you are working for yourself.