A Deeper Look At Co-Working

With more companies beginning to open up their offices to share workspace with outside firms, we decided to explore the reasons why companies open up and share their space. We asked This-Aint-No-Disco - a project that profiles some of the most creative workspaces in the world – to ask its contacts about the extent of co-working at these spaces. From the answers we received back, we found that they shared their workspaces for many reasons from bringing new energy into the space to having partners at hand in case there’s a business development opportunity.

Internet consultancy Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com) in San Francisco shares a quarter of their office with several other companies: three online development companies, a software sales company, and a government services web development company. Tara Hunt, co-founder, told us that they coworked for the energy, sociality and community.

Sydney based creative agency There shares their space with 3 companies, offering most of their office to ‘external’ web developers, interior designers and event organizers. Paul Taboure the owner of There (www.there.com.au) says that beyond rent he shares his space for cross-pollination of creative skills and inspiration and an opportunity to work/drink/play with like-minded highly talented creatives. He also admits it adds another string to their creative-bow and expands they offer to clients.

Ricardo Migliani in Brazil didn’t have such a good experience when he tried to share the office of his agency Agevole (www.agevole.com.br) . “The biggest reason we tried co-working outside of rent, was to work with other companies to find new new business – but although we found it easier to sit in coexistence, we couldn’t work together on the two occasions we tried,” he told TAND.

Andy Budd is also a little hesitant too. He says that Clearleft (www.clearleft.com) in Brighton only shares his kitchen and a spare desk to friends. He said, “We don’t share our office with any other companies. However we do have a bit of an informal ‘open co-working’ policy of allowing friends and contacts to drop by our office and work when they are in town. So we often have people who don’t work for Clearleft sharing a desk free of charge for a day or two. We do this as a favor to our friends and because we enjoy the dynamic of having new people in the office. And they do occasionally feed ideas into our projects that we never would have thought about independently.”

British agency Creative Action (www.creativeaction.co.uk) purposely designed the studio office environment for creative collaboration. They share with about half their space with a mix of creatives, consultancies, IT companies and recruitment. “We always try and focus on creative collaborations,” founder Ian Silverstein says. “It works for us as we can share creative thinking and work with like minded people. This all adds to the mix and experience within our business.”

Finally, The Happy Corp in New York seems to be a little like refuge for professionals away from their home base. They lease space and rent desks to numerous other companies including Modern Sky - a Beijing based record label; Atelier Management - an LA based Photo Agency; and Arieff Communications - an SF based PR agency that specializes in fashion and green products and more

Matthew Spangler, Chef Strategy Officer at the Happy Corp (www.thehappycorp.com) says that although its nice to have other companies share some of the rent, their experience of co-working has helped them expand their offering. “We have found like minded companies that we collaborate with - often providing complimentary services in a close proximity that we can offer to our clients or provide as a value add to certain projects we take on,” Spangler says.

What may be surprising is the openness of these companies. There seems to be little worry about security or privacy issues and if there are, any risk seems to outweighed by the opportunities that creative collaboration offers.

If you share workspace, add to the discussion by leaving your experience in the comments section below - and do add your pics to This Aint No Disco too.