Coworking Spaces Are Booming, Here Are Some of Their Good and Bad Sides

FREELANCER TIPS Coworking Spaces are booming - their good and bad sides More freelancer tips on www.freelancermap.com...

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24.07.2013

Coworking Spaces Coworking spaces are here to stay, current trends show. According to a survey conducted by the Berlin startup Deskwanted, coworking spaces are flying high, with 2500 being available worldwide as of February 2013, an 87% increase for the past 12 months. The idea of sharing a dynamic and creative office environment with like-minded colleagues seems to have quite a bit of appeal, especially for freelancers who feel their home office is no longer a place where they can efficiently work. Read on if you would like to know more about the reasons why coworking spaces are so popular among independent contractors and what their possible

Advantages Let’s look at some of the positive sides first. Coworking spaces offer some aspects of an office your home simply cannot provide. First and most important, a coworking space encourages social interaction with like-minded individuals who work in the same field as you do. A dynamic surrounding of professionals discussing their projects, clients and ideas can do wonders for your business. Whether you get important feedback from those around you, get in touch with new clients because of them or land a big project someone mentioned to you, the benefits to your professional networking can be immense.

Advantages The social interactions aspect is great on a personal level as well. Many freelancers get tired of the solitude of their home. Coworking spaces tend to be fun and laid-back, allowing you to connect with other people by having lunch, drinking a coffee together or even playing the occasional game of ping-pong. The contacts you make in this environment could gradually grow from colleagues you enjoy seeing and chatting with on a daily basis to amazing new friendships.

Advantages Renting an office space could give a boost to your professional image as well. Meeting clients at a restaurant for lunch is fine and all, but inviting them into your own office gives you that extra bit of credibility. Last but not least, coworking spaces tend to be pretty affordable, much more than an actual office is.

Disadvantages Coworking spaces aren’t perfect however; they do have a couple of disadvantages. First and most importantly, you will no longer be the only person in the room, which means you will have to take others into consideration as well. This means no sitting around in your pajamas, no loud music, basically no actions that will make others uncomfortable or distract them. While this could motivate you to act more professionally, like we mentioned above, giving up the freedom you have at home can be a hard thing to do.

Disadvantages This goes the other way around too. It is going to get loud. You can’t expect everyone to be quiet and not make any sounds just because you need to concentrate. Peace and silence can be difficult to get in a coworking space, which could be a deal breaker if you can’t properly focus in such conditions.

Disadvantages One of the things freelancers tend to mention when asked what they value most about working independently has to be flexible working hours. With coworking spaces, you won’t always get to work when you want. In case you like staying up working until late in the evening or get up extremely early, you might find the doors of your coworking space closed. However, some do give out keys, which could negate this disadvantage, at least to a certain extent.

Coworking Spaces Now that you know what kind of advantages and disadvantages coworking spaces have to offer, you can actually decide whether this emerging trend will work for you, instead of just going with it because it just seems to be so cool. That being said, it won’t hurt to look up some of the images of coworking spaces online, most really do look amazing.

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