"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
– Buckminster Fuller
First, Coworking was an experiment. Then it was an industry. Now it's a movement.
Those who chronicle coworking categorize its evolution in waves. And it’s very much worth looking at the history of these waves to help understand where a little cluster of happy coworking spaces like Commonplace fits into the movement.
All that remains for the first coworking spaces are fond memory and grainy internet photos…
The First Wave of Coworking
The initial, "first wave" was pioneered by the idealists and the avant-garde. The hippies and the hip. The hopeful. They envisioned a more communal and collaborative style of work and place. One unrestricted by walls and unencumbered by the myopic norms of convention and conformity.
But an unready market and a lack of business acumen led to the downfall of the first wave. Many of the early spaces burnt out and faded away. Gone are Spiral Muse and The Hat Factory in San Fransisco. So to Hub Islington in London. And dozens of others, their names only remembered by their now dispersed members. (Interestingly, Schraubenfabrik in Vienna--the "mother of coworking"--still thrives.)
A WeWork in Houston. Big. Beautiful. Empty. (Savy real estate purchase though…)
The Second Wave of Coworking
On the heels of these early spaces came the second wave. The industrial age of coworking. A new pantheon of commercial giants vying for supremacy. WeWork, Regus, Knotel, Venture X. They grew coworking from a fringe and fragile thing to a robust, open, and accessible product for the mainstream. "Real estate" rather than "collaborate" became the watchword of their wave. They swallowed smaller spaces and expanded at an exponential rate. But they were always smart enough to maintain a welcoming visage. Ping-pong tables and cappuccino machines up front distracted from the real machine in back.
Then multiple crises hit. Scandal threatened to topple WeWork. Covid shook the world. Consumer preferences shifted with each new variant. Failings of the second wave and its voracious growth became evident.
Photos from Cahoots, a groovy little third-wave coworking space in Ann Arbor, MI.
The Third Wave of Coworking
Which has led us to the third and current wave of coworking. Members of this wave--and the spaces they're creating--are marked by a return to the communal values and collaborative vision of earlier days. But they've also learned from the naivety and under equipped nature of their first-wave colleges. They have also internalized the dangers of the second wave's instability, and are instead opting for measured and intentional growth.
But the third wave of coworking is more than just the incorporation of lessons learned from predecessors. It's a whole new animal. Third-wave spaces understand where they are. And not just at a surface level-- local-chic decor which nods at the surrounding area. But in real and meaningful ways which reach beyond the immediate built environment they occupy. They are permeable places of community and impact. Steady ground for intersectionality and origination.
In their recent European Journal of Cultural Studies piece, Alessandro Gandini and Alberto Cossu sum up the third wave's changing tide:
"We show that resilient coworking spaces are organisational actors that interact with the surrounding context much more than their counterparts, blending entrepreneurial logics with forms of political and social activism. We argue their emergence might be the harbinger of a new phase in the evolution of the coworking phenomenon."
So what comes next?
#nailedit
Future Waves?
So what will subsequent waves of the coworking movement look like? Not shockingly, as an industry, coworking is struggling to adapt to consumer preferences post-covid. Many professionals who were lucky enough to have the sufficient resources or employer support quickly created comfortable home offices. This has decreased overall interest in using coworking spaces as a primary workplace; fewer people want private office in coworking spaces or even full-time coworking membership.
However, though a plush and familiar home office covers the functional basics, it also doesn’t address the deeper human needs for productivity, namely in-person connection and collaboration. The need to see and be seen.
“We show that resilient coworking spaces are organisational actors that interact with the surrounding context much more than their counterparts, blending entrepreneurial logics with forms of political and social activism. We argue their emergence might be the harbinger of a new phase in the evolution of the coworking phenomenon.”
- European Journal of Cultural Studies
Most coworking spaces generate the majority of their revenue from their office renters. Which creates a logical bias toward serving this limited group of members. But increased volatility in office rentals may lead space owners and operators to develop more flexible membership options. Some spaces are already starting to refer to themselves as a “work and social club” rather than a coworking space.
But as our community manager Becky likes to say, “More shall be revealed.”
So where does all this leave a humble little space Commonplace?
Well, we could all go get third-wave tattoos... but there are likely more productive ways to celebrate the time and place we're privileged to occupy in the history of coworking.
How can we challenge ourselves--as individuals and as a coworking space--to be not just in the community, but to be of the community; full participants in the good, the bad, and the ugly of our little town?
In what new ways can we marry our unique physical space,our individual efforts, and the strength of our collective network for the good of on another and for our broader community? (Every coworking outfit advertises "networking" as an amenity, but that just ain't good enough.)
We are one among many in an important series of increasingly viable and impactful experiments. Our individual actions in our space and are collective actions as a space directly contribute to a critical new wave of welcome work connection and contribution. What we do (or fail to do), even in our small space, helps influence the direction of the coworking movement. And the larger story of how we work as a culture and as a species.
Kinda grandious, huh?
But in the words of 19th century philosopher and psychologist William James "Belief creates the actual fact."
If we think our actions, how we show up, and how we treat one another matter to the big picture, then they do.
So together, let's push a global wave with just a few tiny, freshwater ripples.
