May 21, 2008 at 17:30By no means a business
As companies grow larger, they less and less reflect the views of their creators. They become less original in their actions, talk more about building a business and pay less attention to “little things” like a product. Business processes are beginning to take shape in companies, and intuition and fan are giving way to careful analysis.
It’s impossible to wake up with an idea in the morning and immediately start opening a laptop: first you need to study the market, develop a plan, allocate responsibilities ... I call it the “Dictate of lost profits” : when the enthusiasm of the creative process is replaced by anxiety for lost dollars.
When a fascinating ideology is translated into a practical plane, it loses its appeal. Rough monetization is ruining sociality. This happened with many promising startups, the same can happen with the “coworking” movement, if the desire of its enthusiasts to “earn extra money” overpowers the desire to unite and create.
What did young Paul Newman do in his first “The Hat Factory”? Has he created a profitable business? Did Google buy it for collecting 20 IT employees in a dusty attic? Not. Newman did a lot more - what I wrote about in a retrospective of success : I saw an emerging need, appreciated the emerging trend, and jumped into it first.
What did Hunt and Messina do at Citizen Agency? “We were pleased to create a place where people can come and work, to create things that serve the community,” says Messina. What did Thor Muller do in “Get Satisfaction”? “I opened several of these offices for friends, ready to come and work together,” he says. Coworking is not the place to cash in on freelancers. Such an approach violates its basic principles - such as cooperation, openness, sociality, sustainability and accessibility.
It is rather an open-source work and open-source ideas, a creative and productive atmosphere. And a community of professionals with a specific mindset.
Now the same trend is unfolding in Russia. It is necessary to develop it, fan the flame; simply turning coworking into a business will pay off the fuse. Therefore, I am very wary of the guys who are trying to earn extra money on a movement that is still new to us.
After all, in the same way as they corrupted the profession of manager, consultant or designer, calling each amateur indiscriminately, one can also corroborate the ideology of coworking, turning it purely into “providing a working space for rent”, “communal office” or something still like that. And I am afraid we will no longer have a second chance. Sorry Paul.
I am sure: coworking is not a business. By no means a business.
(via Munga.ru )
It’s impossible to wake up with an idea in the morning and immediately start opening a laptop: first you need to study the market, develop a plan, allocate responsibilities ... I call it the “Dictate of lost profits” : when the enthusiasm of the creative process is replaced by anxiety for lost dollars.
When a fascinating ideology is translated into a practical plane, it loses its appeal. Rough monetization is ruining sociality. This happened with many promising startups, the same can happen with the “coworking” movement, if the desire of its enthusiasts to “earn extra money” overpowers the desire to unite and create.
What did young Paul Newman do in his first “The Hat Factory”? Has he created a profitable business? Did Google buy it for collecting 20 IT employees in a dusty attic? Not. Newman did a lot more - what I wrote about in a retrospective of success : I saw an emerging need, appreciated the emerging trend, and jumped into it first.
What did Hunt and Messina do at Citizen Agency? “We were pleased to create a place where people can come and work, to create things that serve the community,” says Messina. What did Thor Muller do in “Get Satisfaction”? “I opened several of these offices for friends, ready to come and work together,” he says. Coworking is not the place to cash in on freelancers. Such an approach violates its basic principles - such as cooperation, openness, sociality, sustainability and accessibility.
It is rather an open-source work and open-source ideas, a creative and productive atmosphere. And a community of professionals with a specific mindset.
Now the same trend is unfolding in Russia. It is necessary to develop it, fan the flame; simply turning coworking into a business will pay off the fuse. Therefore, I am very wary of the guys who are trying to earn extra money on a movement that is still new to us.
After all, in the same way as they corrupted the profession of manager, consultant or designer, calling each amateur indiscriminately, one can also corroborate the ideology of coworking, turning it purely into “providing a working space for rent”, “communal office” or something still like that. And I am afraid we will no longer have a second chance. Sorry Paul.
I am sure: coworking is not a business. By no means a business.
(via Munga.ru )