Last night on the Colbert Report, writer David Sirota was on talking about his new book, The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington. I think his notion that there is a widespread uprising, indeed cultural revolution, going on today is spot on. In many aspects of contemporary culture, people are rejecting existing roles, expectations, and life-ways in favor of new and emerging forms of sociality and work. Coworking is one of those forms! It seems to me that what feels so powerful about the cultural impulse towards coworking is that it is part of a larger uprising that people in all walks of life are feeling and with which they are experimenting.
By this I mean that, in many quarters and in different generations (GenX, GenY and Millennials), millions of people are rejecting and resisting pre-set, generic, and dehumanizing excuses for careers. Thus the exodus from BigCo and the seeding of the clouds of independents (and coworking spaces).
Yesterday I reflected on what I see as some of the immovable objects that a maturing coworking industry faces. To some it may seem crude and abusive to talk in terms of coworking as an industry space, but it will become that whether any of us like it or not. It is one of the changing cultural forms that is accommodating the ‘uprising.’
Birth of a Salesman
When some road weary, pot-bellied, 55 year old sales guy in polyester golf slacks, golf shirt, and fake Italian shoes drops in for a day of coworking, what will he have in common with other members of the community? Will he be welcomed in? Will someone roll him a phatty and show him some love, or will he be shown the door?
I return to some of the big brands that have tried to retain a core idealism in their growth. Whole Foods, despite its size, still holds on to its core values and commitments. Sure, in most towns there is a small, more local alternative that might be more a comforting place to shop. I do that where I live. Similarly, look at Starbucks. People love to beat up on Starbucks, but, without Starbucks, the entire culture of the cafe experience in the US would likely not exist to the extent it does today if Starbucks had not helped design that experience and create a space for that in the US (and beyond…Of course, this is an experience knicked from European coffee houses, but prior to Starbucks most Americans drank watered down Folgers from the Texaco station).
My point, yesterday and today, is that a few nationally visible coworking brands are likely to cohere in the coming years. They will face the same sorts of challenges and criticisms that Whole Foods and Starbucks have over the past decade. Small, independent coffee shops and health food stores have gone out of business, to be sure, but just as many have benefited from the overall expansion of these industry spaces.
Likewise, the original, community-based coworking spaces that I enumerated yesterday will likely have a deep-well, trend setting influence on coworking forever. This is a good thing. I bet Howard Schultz (Starbucks’ CEO) still loves to anonymously go to small coffee shops in cool towns to get back to the roots. Things grow from roots. Roots have the mahda (essence) of a thing, but sometimes they grow into new things.
The Butcher
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