A few weeks back I wrote up a piece exploring the question: To what extent can/should coworking be conceptualized and managed as a business?  My view- that the business-ization of coworking is an inevitability and the sooner we recognize this the more sustainable the movement part of coworking will be- proved to be rather controversial.

Apparently, we lost some friends in running that piece, but hopefully we gained a few as well.  However, that piece continues to receive a lot of traffic, so it is obvious to us that it hit a nerve of some kind.

My own guess as to why that article has resonated (positively and negatively) is because it has surfaced some of the critical constraints that the scene faces as it matures.  Financing. Negotiating leases. Fee structures. Real estate. Social capital v. capital., etc.

Living and Working Independently in a Recession

Even since that piece first ran (a few short weeks ago), we have now entered a recession proper.   Between the ever rising price of oil and gas (and the knock-on effect that that has), the collapse of the Dow and Nasdaq, and the black hole in value that sits in most people’s homes (down some 20-30% in some places), web 2.0 now faces some real challenges.

Whether you are Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, or one of the thousands of other 2.0 dotcoms waiting for just the right time to ‘monetize eyeballs’ via an advertising-led business model, that wait may now be a rather long one.  Try 2-6 years…

The Value of Value

A measure of sobriety and maturity is now upon us.  At the end of the first dotcom era (2001 ish), someone at Fast Company commented that that party might have worked out better had there been more adult supervision.  I don’t think that ‘adults’ really have anything to do with it, much less ’supervision.’  I think that the real deal now is value.

Put simply, if there is value in an offering, then you should feel comfortable charging somebody something for that.  That’s business.  An ecology where everything is free, as long as everything is…free, is good until things are no longer free.

That’s where we are now.  I love reading Chris Anderson, and his Long Tail thesis is spot on.  But his Free Economy piece in Wired befits an era that has now passed.  Blame here should not fall on those technologists building business on the free model, blame here goes to the money farmers who got carried away in this era of radical deregulation.  Too much mortgage origination and ’securitization’ to be for real, and this has finally caught up, with everyone.

Indies as Value

Which returns the discussion to Indies (Independent Entrepreneurs).  Unlike many of the VC-funded tech frat parties that promised this or that service via an emergent, user generated platform (and a partridge and a pear tree) for free, many independent workers exchange value for money.  Rails developers. Database architects. Web designers and graphic artists. Project Managers. Technical Writers. Creative writers.  Ad copy writers. Journalists. These workers deliver something tangible at the end of the day, and charge for their time and expertise.

Riding the Wave (Independently)

Simple economics, but honest business.  And workplace trends are in their favor.  Large firms are disaggregating as they realize they often don’t need so many full time employees (benefits leaches), that they can get along just fine by working with a growing army of creative independents on a piecemeal, project basis.  Many Indies don’t want to work full-time at BigCo anyway.

*Greater efficiencies for BigCo

*Better work/life balance (thus a better life) for Indies

This said, the nuts and bolts of building fully independent careers are still being sorted out:

*Defining one’s differentiation and value proposition

*Negotiating projects and securing a deal pipeline

*Basic financial management  

*Marketing and self-promotion

*Long-term financial planning

*Insurances, etc.

*Networks for collaboration

These things make up th Business of Independence. 

Now let’s brew a pot of coffee and get to work!

The Butcher