Good Evening All,
My name is Chris Stewart, and I'm currently a software developer
for an insurance company based near Dallas, Texas. I've been
passionate about coworking for over a year now, and decided to write a
2010 SXSW Interactive panel proposal on Federated Coworking. I was a
panel liaison this year and loved the experience so much that I
decided to put together a panel of my own. The term "federated
coworking" doesn't seem to be used at the moment, but my thought
behind it is the need for greater collaboration and resource pooling
between existing spaces to raise awareness of coworking to the general
population. It appears from reading posts on this forum and elsewhere
about the Starfish/Spider argument that coworking spaces are against
strong top-down organizational hierarchy, and are happy to work
independently from each other apart from knowledge sharing and
occasional meetups. My contention is that we need to respect the
desire for coworking spaces to maintain independent, unique
atmospheres, while at the same time embracing new levels of
connectivity.
From my perspective, federated coworking is an umbrella term used
to represent a centralized authority elected by the spaces to 1)
represent their interests amongst government, business leadership, and
the general public; 2) serve as a collection point for knowledge,
money (to fund awareness and development), and best practices; 3)
provide training to people who want to start a coworking space but
have no idea how to begin; and 4) actively develop new coworking
spaces in partnership with area business and government to house
creative collectives of individuals who will have the benefit of a
comfortable, warm office environment in community with other creatives
without the office politics of a traditional office.
Whether or not the SXSW panel is approved, I believe it's important
that we begin asking tough questions about the future of coworking, as
this movement will not grow to its fullest potential housed in loosely-
connected silos. I'd like to present several plans during the panel on
what federated coworking could look like, and allow the panelists to
debate the pros and cons of each strategy. Instead of making a lot of
noise during the event and then returning to the status quo, we can
make this panel a jumping off point to real-world change in the way we
approach coworking.
I'll add more thoughts on this subject as I listen to your
feedback. Respond to this post directly or contact me via twitter
@socialtopher.
Thanks,
Chris Stewart
Endaris (my iPhone stealth company)
http://www.twitter.com/socialtopher
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