New coworking spaces for entrepreneurs

2 min reading
New coworking spaces for entrepreneurs

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The coworking movement has become more than a way of working that allows independent professionals, entrepreneurs and SMEs have a space where they can develop their business projects independently. It is in fact another way to foster relationships between professionals from different sectors that may even lead to successful collaborations and customer-supplier relationships.

Coworking is indeed an option that involves a greater economic investment than working at home. However, this alternative offers an exchange of knowledge, experience, contacts, and a real chance to find partners, employees and customers that is worth gold for many professionals.

Its social aspect

Unlike the loneliness that accompanies you when you work at home, when you enter in the coworking routine you can get to find the support you need from other professionals, innovators and experts who are in your same situation, who are developing similar activities or are immersed in projects complementary to yours. You might even be working beside your next investor or business partner!

However, it is true that the speed of our day-to-day or our workload may be a barrier to the proliferation of such connections. For this reason, according to Manuel Zea, founder of Coworking Spain, “most centers include now in their programs, on the one hand, activities aimed at strengthening relations between the professionals who work in these spaces, and activities that connect them with independent professionals from other centers, on the other.”

According to Zea, the cultural events and training workshops that are held in these spaces are also essential in order to give them visibility, and therefore to its members, in addition to encourage coworkers. In his opinion, three main types of activities are established, according to the objectives pursued: the creation of the community, networking and training, even though most of the initiatives organized by these centers include all three parameters in a same activity.

For example, in the Coworking Spain website there is a special section listing the workshops held in different venues and nationwide events that may also interest the community. In this sense, the portal Comunidad Coworking should be highlighted as a point of reference, as it not only brings together information about the main coworking spaces throughout Spain, but also the activities, events and courses organized by them.

If you’re really interested in coworking, the most important thing is to get out and explore the spaces available in your community, see how they work and if any of their activities might be interesting for you and your professional project. These two websites, for example, include useful search engines where you can find spaces available.

Spaces for the future

The social aspect of coworking is precisely one of the engines that is driving the proliferation of these spaces. According to the 2013 Global Coworking Census conducted by Deskwanted, last year there were already 2,498 workplaces in 80 countries worldwide, almost double compared to the statistics of the previous year, when there were 1,320. These figures confirm the clear trend towards this type of collaborative spaces at the global level. And this figure will continue to grow for sure. Actually, some think that this movement (which is teaching individuals to interact with other professionals and is enabling effective business relationships) will probably end up redefining the future of how companies interact with each other.

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