So I was up early today and was watching a new show where they were talking about a new thing called Co-working. What this is, is people that usually work at home get together in a communal space where they are able to work in a office environment that is outside there home.
Based on the research I did, it is spawned from meet up groups and groups like my Drawing Frenzy where people literally meet at a cafe just to work and have some human interaction while doing so. The only difference is that it isn't in a cafe. It is in a space that has things like a photocopier, desks, computers if you can't provide your own and all the great benefits of working with other people in an office so you don't have to spend all your time alone in your house.
One of my biggest hang ups of working at home is I never leave my house. I literally spend all my time in one small space and there is no one to talk to. On have long wanted to rent a studio space but it costs about $2 - $300 a month but you are still pretty much by yourself unless you are renting from a place that rents to multiple people. But in my opinion it i still expensive cause the people owning the building are the ones charging the fees. so even if there were multiple people using the space they can still charge you guys individually an arm and a leg.
I think it could really be a cool thing though if you rented an office space and everyone payed a fee to make sure that things like lights and gas and water and copiers and etc are all available. then you just Work.
It is also a great way to share ideas and get opinions from people you are working with, as well as it can be a creative work space for people of like mind and industry.
There is a group called Gajin Studios which follows a similar model. They are a group of Comic artists that all rent a space together and they work on all the same things they would work on at home but in a studio environment. Everyone pays to be there and they have there own tools and so forth but the benifit of a being able to share ideas and sometimes workloads when necessary.
I have always wanted to do this. Only thing is finding reliable people that are professional and serious about maintaining the space.
