I just finished reading an excellent article today on "co-working" for small entreprenuers.  Instead of always having to go to a coffee shop or restaurant to get out of the "home office", co-working is a collaborative environment for like-minded entreprenuers to come together and work in a central place without the need of having a physical location or presence but with all of the benefits.  I personally know a number of small business owners who are their own employees (often just one) and they would never want to take on the additional financial burden of paying for rent or a utilities bill.  These kinds of expenses can really dip into a small entrepreneur's bottom line.  As consulting becomes more and more important in today's economy, flexibility is the key and co-working could be the ideal solution for those types of entrepreneurs.

The following article was referenced from http://smartregion.org/2010/02/co-working-makes-for-cool-cities/

"...these spaces have been shown to make significant contributions to the energy and robustness of the local entrepreneurial environment, and have become an increasingly common way for cities to promote themselves as supportive of the new breed of entrepreneurial venture."

– Marty Kaszubowski, President of General Ideas, a Norfolk-based technology venture consultancy

Like many regions throughout the U.S. and the globe, Hampton Roads continues to seek a more definable sense of place that will help engage and crystallize our “creative class” and promote new models of innovation, entrepreneurship, and business formation.

Meanwhile, even in a place as conservative as Hampton Roads, the nature of work continues to change, as more effective tools and ubiquitous communication infrastructures expand to support mobile and freelance professionals who can’t, or choose not to, spend their work time in traditional office settings or at home, alone, in their spare room.

The result is that our region’s coffee shops, libraries, and food courts are increasingly full of consultants, writers, marketers, programmers, budding entrepreneurs, and other creative professionals banging away at laptops and smart phones, meeting around cramped restaurant tables, scribbling on napkins, and dealing with the inherent distractions and limitations of trying to accomplish meaningful work in public spaces.  While there are obvious advantages to this sort of mobility, there is also a strong and growing need for an alternative that extends beyond the hour or two one can spend at Starbucks, but without the rigid and expensive commitment of renting a traditional office space.

One small, but important, contribution need is the need for a grass-roots group, with some support from our business community, cities, universities, and others, to begin experimenting with the growing national trend toward “coworking”, which melds the freedom and mobility of café culture with the collaborative and results-oriented drive of the new generation of free-lancers and entrepreneurs.

In short, a coworking space is a cafe-like office/community/collaboration space designed for those who don’t want to work in isolation, but realize the need to get out of the house, and beyond the coffee shop, to get some real work done.

The idea is not new; model coworking spaces have been successful in New York City, Austin, Portland, Chicago, Charlottesville and other cities where people have recognized a need to promote collaboration and “organic” interaction among freelancers and other mobile professionals.  Many are stand-alone, for profit ventures, while others are run as not-for-profits with volunteer staff and sponsorships from local cities and businesses.  Many are affiliated with universities or like-minded for-profit or not-for-profit organizations (sometimes even health clubs and coffee shops).  Some have fairly normal “working” hours, while others are aggressively unconventional, specifically aiming to attract people who already have “day jobs” and need a place to work, collaborate, and generally pursue their dreams late into the night.

Photo credit: Charlottesville’s Coworking Facebook Page

Regardless of the business model used, coworking spaces have been shown to be solidly self-sustaining. They include small comfortable work spaces that can be rented by the day or by the week, with no commitment for longer-term use, along with real conference rooms and white boards and that foster informal group brainstorming sessions and as well as meaningful, hard-nosed deal-making.

Coworking spaces also typically serve as a venue for related lunch-time and evening events of interest such as “Lunch and learn” sessions sponsored by local law firms, CPAs, and the like, and related evening events offer a chance for networking among the new generation of creative types who make little distinction between business and social relationships.

Most-importantly, these spaces have been shown to make significant contributions to the energy and robustness of the local entrepreneurial environment, and have become an increasingly common way for cities to promote themselves as supportive of the new breed of entrepreneurial venture.

It’s time for our region to start down this path, and explore how one, two, or even a dozen such spaces can help define and expand the “sense of place” that is so lacking in Hampton Roads.  A new, well-promoted coworking space will serve as the rallying point for solo entrepreneurs and creative professionals to congregate, collaborate, and generate the energy that is essential in a robust and creative entrepreneurial environment.

In the last few months, a few people in Norfolk have taken on the task of “socializing” this idea to see who’s interested, willing to help and to work out some of the strategies and tactics that, hopefully, will result in a functioning coworking space sometime in Spring 2010.

This blog post was written in the Starbucks on 21st Street in Ghent, in my library at home, and some of it came together in my car on the way home from Washington, DC.  Just think how much better it could have been if I’d had a place to go that was full of smart, creative people to bounce these ideas off!   If you’re interested in being part of the conversation…

Marty Kaszubowski is President of General Ideas, a Norfolk-based technology venture consultancy, helping early stage companies and solo entrepreneurs figure out what they want to be when they grow up.  He is a former Director of the Hampton Roads Technology Incubator and former President of the Hampton Roads Technology Council. Marty is a long-time participant in the on-going, regional efforts to promote a more robust entrepreneurial culture here in Hampton Roads.  Marty can be reached at Marty@General-Ideas.com.