Pros and Cons of Coworking Spaces
money.howstuffworks.comSome of these social benefits can also be had at your local library, without the fees. It's nice to just go pull up a desk in the library alongside students studying for exams, curious readers curled up in comfortable chairs, and professionals working on their latest reports. It's especially nice when the library has separate areas for quiet, focused work and open discussions.
Libraries are great for heads-down focused work, but I can't imagine doing sales calls at the library would be allowed.
My local library blocks vpn and ssh, actually, so that makes it even worse.
My library blocks VPNs too, but I just set my PIA VPN to use TCP over port 443 and it works fine. You just need your VPN to look like HTTPS.
Crushing* sales calls. Please, show some self-respect.
Doesn’t your library have rooms for patron use?
Seattle Public Library has all kinds. They even have music practice rooms, with pianos and soundproofed walls. I used to go there after work.
Not a showstopper, as you can tunnel ssh over https. Also there's the option of using your phone as a hotspot (thank you unlimited plans).
Wait how? SSH runs on port 22, so how would you get it to switch over from port 443.
You can configure sshd to use any port you want.
And there are good arguments why you _should_.
My ssh is never on port 22 and although I don't know that this would help much against targeted attack, logfiles are so much quieter.
Mine as well. I don't see one good argument why one shouldn't.
And even share port with HTTPS https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8923092
Take a look at http://dag.wiee.rs/howto/ssh-http-tunneling/ for one example.
Essentially, you tell ssh to use another program to proxy the connection. That program (such as proxytunnel) connects to an http / https server on port 443, and issues a "CONNECT" method (such as "CONNECT anotherhost 22"). Then accept the status message, and pass the connection back over to ssh.
You need to configure the target HTTPS server to allow that connect method to the target host / port, and it is advisable to protect it behind at least https basic authentication.
And the best part of this, is that since it starts off as an SSL (https) connection, they can't even tell that you are doing a proxy (the "CONNECT" message is encrypted). It looks like a regular https connection at that point. The only thing they can do is either use a MITM proxy and require you to load their certificate (common in corporate and government environments), or do pattern analysis on the traffic.
> My local library blocks vpn and ssh
Where is this, and why?
It happened to me once. They just blocked all non http(s) traffic. By best guess was to block people torrenting made by someone that didn't want to spend more than two minutes working on it.
VPNs, torrents and games all run over UDP and torrent software loves to saturate your connection. They could well have blocked all UDP (except DNS).
Too bad mine's a de facto homeless shelter.
You misspelled homeless people.
Quite the dismissive mention of going 'back to the basement'. I work from home almost all the time (self-employed), and have quite a lovely work room setup exactly how I want, with plenty of natural light and fresh air. My wife knows not to bother me, so the only 'forced' interruption is our cat asking to be taken outside. There is no unnecessary noise or distractions, both things which have always put me off co-working spaces. If I want to socialise with respect to tech, I'll go along to a local meet-up or other event.
This might sound terrible, but I don't want to expend each days' stack of valuable clear-minded 'processing time' greeting people or talking about whatever is on their mind. Of course, I acknowledge that as a solo guy I have different needs to the people that find these places useful.
I've recently "seen the light" as well. Had been forced to work from home due to an injury - and it's pretty great. The PC setup is what I make of it. My chair is the one I like, not the allocated one. The coffee I drink is of my own choosing.
And there aren't any interruptions or work noise or being face to face in meetings with people I don't like.
Years ago my old work's Senior programmer got an expensive motorized standup desk, in a private room. And I was stuck in an exposed cubicle with extra narrow desk space, with no hope of getting that kind of treatment.
I thankfully work remote now. I dont have separate room but just a corner of our bedroom, with a standup desk. I hope I never have to go back to working in a normal office.
I work out of own of the first coworking spaces in the country, Indy Hall. I have been a member of it since 2012. I can say hands down that going there was the true catalyst to my professional career.
Unlike most high tech "fancy" workspaces, Indy Hall purposefully has the literal cheapest Ikea desks and an assortment of random chairs to use at them. I'm not saying it's a dump, but it does not have the "wow" factor that a WeWork has. Instead of coming to The Hall for the space you come for the community. It's the people who make it a place where you want to be at.
It has a super diverse community. There are obviously people in tech but there are also non-profit, journalists from USA Today, WaPo and Gizmodo, artists, and even a plumber. The collective experience of this community is awe inspiring.
One of the best parts is the lunch table. On any given day you can engage in surprisingly intellectual conversations about almost anything (from the Phillies to social issues to intricacies of the patent law with a lawyer member).
There is a big downside to the space though, distraction. It literally a giant open office plan and it is way to easy to get distracted. They have a quiet zone and I have noise canceling headphones which help - but it's not ideal.
All in all I'm happier at a coworking space than I am at home.
You've described my exact experience with coworking spaces.
Luckily I wasn't self employed and all my colleagues also worked in the same space, so lack of productivity wasn't a huge bugbear for me. Everyone else was equally affected and they paid me peanuts anyway so I didn't really care.
My experience at DeskHub in Scottsdale, AZ wasn't great. There are a few larger teams that rent portions of the open co-working area. Those teams tend to be much louder than individuals working there, and they have a culture that permits F-bombs in casual conversation. I have a standup every morning and talk to clients briefly throughout the day, so I would have to find a quiet place for that stuff.
They have 6 or so conference rooms of various sizes you can use. The agreement you sign says you get so many units of conference room use per month, but it's not enforced. They tell you verbally it's unlimited as long as you don't abuse it. The practical result of this is that a few people camp out in the conference rooms all day. The staff, instead of confronting the abusers directly, just sends weekly emails to all users reminding them that conference rooms are not private offices. With no incentive to change their behavior, the conference room campers keep on camping.
I lasted almost a year, but now I'm back to the home office with occasional trips to a cafe down the street when I need to get out of the house.
It definitely sounds like they had staffing or policy issues. I work from a space similar to how you described DeskHub, including a few small teams in the common area. The noise policy in the common area is very clear and allows for relatively quiet talking among groups and brief phone calls. Longer calls or formal meetings should take place in a phone booth or conference room. The staff does a great job of reining things in if it gets too loud, and the conference rooms have to be scheduled and require a staff member to let you in. It's definitely a less casual space, but I feel like they have struck a nice balance between casual and professional.
You're right, that's the policy there, it's just not enforced.
Conference rooms there do have to be scheduled, but there are no locks on the doors or anything. I was 15 minutes into a 30 minute block once and some guy just opened the door and walked in. There are windows on the doors, he just didn't look. Then he looked surprised when he realized I was there. I put my meeting on hold and he told me he had the room at 2pm. I said something like, "I have it until 2, right?" He said he didn't know, turned around and walked out.
What do you mean by F-bombs?
Do you mean fuck as a word?
Thats an issue? Or are the people the issue?
He's talking about people like you working at a coworking space. Of course saying the word fuck while on a standup with a client is wrong regardless of their culture. It's unprofessional.
Obviously I mean the word "fuck". What other usage of F-bomb are you familiar with?
It is an issue when I'm in a call with a client and somebody in the same room as me yells the word "fuck". Do you struggle to understand why?
In my opinion, a better option (if you can afford it) is:
- Start your day at the same coffee shop, every morning. Get to know the people working there and the other regulars. Don't even try to get work done. Just hang out and talk to people for 30 minutes.
- Go to your own private office. Shut the door, have no distractions.
- Meet with friends or clients over lunch or afternoon coffee. Go to evening meet-ups if you feel like it.
This method maximizes both the ability to focus and social benefits, while co-working does a mediocre job of both.
What type of social setup is a coffee shop? I mean whut? That feels super superficial.
I've met some lifelong friends by going to the same cafe every morning. Both people working there and other customers.
I met my wife at a coffee shop. In fact someone I met at the coffee shop introduced us. Married 25 years. Doesn't seem superficial to me.
So where do you go to socialise with other folks, if not to a place where a lot of folks actually do their socialising?
With people i know? To a cafe.
With people i don't know? I really don't know. Perhaps a pub. Or a club (like sports club). Or political party groups.
I have nothing but positive things to say about coworking spaces after having worked at them for the last 3 years. I've met great friends, business partners and clients. I think they'll continue to be important as the freelance and remote working economies grow.
Could you share which coworking spaces you've used?
Coloft (closed), ROC (closed), and now Spaces - which is owned by Regus.
I have worked in shared/open-plan offices for almost 20 years and owned/operated a co-working space for the last few years. I prefer a more social office, so it suits me. Productivity is one thing, but I'm here for hours each day and I want to enjoy it. I have lifelong friends that have arisen from shared offices and would be very hesitant about working in a private room every day of the week.
I work in a small business environment, so having complementary businesses around me is useful, but also insightful - I've learned a lot from copywriters, graphic designers, marketers, etc.
At our coworking space, we fend off the types of tenants likely to be making a lot of sales calls, and most calls are made outside of the main space. I think it works pretty well.
"Back in 2007, there were a grand total of 14 coworking spaces worldwide"
Really? I mean I don't have any hard evidence to the contrary, but that seems really hard to believe.
Sure, it wasn't a thing yet. You could probably also say there were only 14 social media influencers back then too.
In all seriousness it has been common for a long time for attorneys who are solo-practitioners to share an office front and receptionist, but nobody ever called it a co-working space.
are coworking spaces a "solution" to the lack of community many people in the modern era seem to have, by turning work into one's community of sorts?
When I was working in a coworking space it absolutely was.
The tech population is very transient, or at least it feels that way to me. It seems that everyone is from out of town or an immigrant.
When I moved after university to start work in another city, I didn't know anyone else in my new city. The coworking space I worked in, with a whole variety of different companies (most of them non-tech), was a great place for me to meet new people and make new friends.
Work has always been a source of community.
nope. they are short term solution to high rent prices in certain cities. pure economics. sharing a space with a bunch of other people gets old fast and is actually annoying. (it doesnt work just like open floor place office spaces dont work/dont improve productivity).
almost everyone would opt for a private office if they could get it for $350/month. (good luck in NYC/Boston/SF!!!)
I work at a non-profit coworking space that strives to put community first. It is a registered art gallery and has programs for helping women and minorities get their ideas off the ground. The community has been great and the noise isn’t anything that a decent pair of noise-cancelling headphones can’t fix.
Coworking spaces are actually terrible businesses so they end up being real estate plays for most people. The non-profit model is the best, IMO, because it puts the focus on the community which ends up making the space great. The non-profit element also ensures that it isn’t a software mono culture: a couple of political campaigns, and the local ACLU chapter (to name a couple) work out of the space and it super interesting to chat with them.
Addendum:
I also think coworking spaces are one of the rare times when open offices don’t suck. I don’t work with anyone there, so if I have my headphones on no one bothers me.
I've been working off a space in Chennai, India for the last 5 months and the experience has been mixed. Got the chance to meet some interesting people there and me being on the introverted side, this was a nice opportunity to try networking and stuff, at my own pace.
Its cost effective and the facility is top notch.
But the downsides are similar to what other people are describing here. People camping out in Conf rooms / phone booths, speaking loudly over phone, and the noise and distraction that's ever present.
The concept of coworking spaces as a social space for a bunch of companies to work in is great.
From a business standpoint you have a whole variety of different people wit different skills and knowledge who can help you and can bounce ideas off, often for free. They're great for networking and gaining new customers/clients too. You also have this flexible working space, meeting rooms, and multimedia equipment (printers, AV equipment, presentation rooms) that you wouldn't get in a private office as a smaller company. If you're a member of a space that's in a network it makes finding a place to work out of a lot easier when travelling too.
That's the theory, at least. And there are a lot of coworking spaces that achieve this, or get close. The one I used to work in was pretty much this. I did have some complaints though about noise, privacy/distraction, and not having a permanent desk to sit every day and pile up my crap.
Noise was a bit of an intrinsic problem, it was a high roof warehouse and people had a bad habit of using their phones at their desks (annoying to have a salesperson sitting next to me all day), but I listen to music all day so wasn't too upset.
Privacy/distraction was caused by the problem that they didn't have adequate separators/cubical bits at the desks, so you felt like you were sitting at a massive dining table. Nice sometimes, but annoying at others when you're trying to focus.
The hotdesking thing was annoying as shit. This was only a problem because my boss was too cheap to pay for permanent desks, which would've also solved the other two problems as we would've been able to customise our space.
And that's the core issue of coworking spaces. There's the theory of what a coworking space is: this social collaborative etc. etc. thing. But in reality, far too often they are just a cheap working space, either because companies cannot afford something better, or are just too cheap to pay for something better. Hotdesks are fine if you work in sales and are always out of office or in meetings, or work as a solo founder. But they're horrible if you want to sit in the same place next to your colleagues and code all day.
Different work environments work for different people, and in an ideal world everyone would get the work environment they need for optimal productivity. But in reality this doesn't happen because employers are cheap.
Coworking spaces are great just from a network effects perspective. Worth the cost if they have they can make solid connections.
There is a great Portland based company helping people find viable alternatives to coworking spaces. It's called Workfrom. You can find them at https://workfrom.co/
> financial technology ("fintech") firm Barclays
One of the oldest and largest banks in the UK...
Is your argument that they don’t deal with finances or that they don’t use technology?
Fintech is typically used to describe non-banks operating in the finance industry (and presumably using technology). Before this it was used to describe layering technology into banking. Its not used to describe actual banks. As they have a name already.
I think their point is that it's uncommon to call a legacy bank a FinTech company, although they use tech and are in finance.
It's a very jarring introduction - would you say "the financial technology firm Wells Fargo", or would you say "the bank Wells Fargo"?
I just thought it was an interesting take; I don't think I'd call Barclays a Fintech myself, despite the fact they probably have a massive engineering effort and clearly being financial.
Coworking only works if you can find others that work in your space. If you're building database technology and most of the others at the co-working spot are bloggers and fashion-tech startups, you're not going to get much out of it.
I wonder how many coworking spaces have a slack chat or similar?
Anyone know of some solid coworking spaces in Seattle that are not WeWork/CloudRoom?
Atlas Workbase https://www.atlasworkbase.com/
Startup Hall in the U district has a nice community, is well located & well run, has lots of optional events, and is a great place to set up shop if you're going to hire UW students.
Office Nomads is a great coworking community and space.