Office Forecast: Scattered Clouds
Coworking centers as the new third place
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Anybody over the age of fifty can recall a world without the personal computer. This age group watched new machines enter the workplace, change the mode of work, and eventually shrink in price and size until they were portable. Work has become more what you do than where you're at.
While most office space is still designed for the industrial age, its future role in the information era is clear. The office will become the new third place. In the past, you had home, the office, and hangouts like coffee shops that fulfilled the role of a third place. Today, you still have home, but your work is wherever you are so you still need a place to facilitate business connections and build relationships.
Coworking spaces have emerged as a solution for mobile workers and telecommuters to the resultant isolation of the home office and the ineffectiveness of free Wi-Fi spots for business. One example of these communities is Connect113 in the Washington, DC area.
Connect113 is a coworking center located in Old Town Alexandria, VA. The facility has everything you might find at a smart company in a clean, modern, comfortable setting. It is filled with Wi-Fi, meeting rooms, and desks. It even has a shower and changing room. You access the space via membership or on a hourly or daily basis.
The company is presently pursuing other locations in the DC metro area and basic membership to one will provide access to all of them. "We want to be your puffy cloud in the sky, your operating system," said Billy Winburn, cofounder of Connect113. "As you fly about in your daily routine you are free to land here and recharge."
Winburn also noted, "Our resources will not be limited to the physical space of each location. We are creating a virtual cloud as well including software, blogs, vendor discounts, insurance, best practices, and most importantly connections with each other, that can be accessed wherever members are located at the time - even at home or the coffee shop."
The future of the office will follow the genuine work patterns of the information age professional. Today's handheld tools give you more power than a 1980's office. Coworking clouds provide community and resources at an affordable level so today's independent professional is free to soar.
SOURCE Connect113
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