Over the past half year, something most interesting has been happening. Independent-minded and independent-working professionals, largely GenXers and Millennials, have cohered in distributed communities literally around the world. NYC, Austin, Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Diego, London, Perth, and...Birmingham? England, right? No, not England, Birmingham, Alabama, USA, heart of dixie and all that. A place that has been a part of many more problems than solutions (to put it mildly), now has plugged into Jelly. Jelly love is spreading in Alabama, where arguably it is needed most. Consider it missionary Jelly.
Communities forming around Jelly and other coworking spaces are demonstrating what Vivien Hodgson, Professor of Networked Learning at Lancaster University Management School (in the UK), writes about as the exponential nature of knowledge creation that occurs when 'discovery' is shared, networked, and readily distributed, particularly digitally. As the network of like-minded coworkers around the world grows, the potential for both business creation and for solving wicked social problems grows as well.
Already, businesses are emerging from the cosmic sauce that is coworking, with CommandShift3 being online and happening already. We are so excited about this that this is the second time in a day that we have written about CS3. At least two others, in Austin and Philly, are beta-izing as we speak, and who knows what else is percolating in the clouds.
On the business front this is truly exciting. On a larger and probably more important front-i.e culture, society and the environment- there is perhaps even greater potential. Think Google Foundation, which was initially capitalized at over $1B, and has huge ambitions including being the repositoryand processor of data for the human genome project and the world's largest digital library. Google's foundation captures the company's idealism, and puts it into play to make a difference in the world well beyond business.
In light of the briliiant- and I mean brilliant- minds we are meeting on our cross-country journey into coworking, the potential for supra-business things and solutions to come out of the global coworking grassfire is equally exciting.
Jelly Foundation...I like that.
The Butcher
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