Work. Better.
We can think of many reasons why working at a coworking space would be beneficial in general, no matter the season. However, this time we want to focus on the winter season, especially this one, since living costs are getting higher and higher. So here are 5 reasons why you should join Locus Workspace (or some other workspace):
Here is Brad Neuberg’s original conception (this blog post represents the first public expression of the term as it is used today), which we think captures the spirit as well as any other definitions out there:
Traditionally, society forces us to choose between working at home for ourselves or working at an office for a company. If we work at a traditional 9 to 5 company job, we get community and structure, but lose freedom and the ability to control our own lives. If we work for ourselves at home, we gain independence but suffer loneliness and bad habits from not being surrounded by a work community.
Coworking is a solution to this problem. In coworking, independent writers, programmers, and creators come together in community a few days a week. Coworking provides the “office” of a traditional corporate job, but in a very unique way.
Here’s one of our favorite definitions, from Coworking.com, managed by a team of coworking space managers and owners who have been central to the coworking movement from its early days:
The idea is simple: that independent professionals and those with workplace flexibility work better together than they do alone. Coworking answers the question that so many face when working from home: “Why isn’t this as fun as I thought it would be?”
Beyond just creating better places to work, coworking spaces are built around the idea of community-building and sustainability. Coworking spaces uphold the values set forth by those who developed the concept in the first place: collaboration, community, sustainability, openness, and accessibility.
Coworking spaces offer dynamic locations of exchange and sharing. Freelancers, entrepreneurs, and creatives from diverse fields enlarge your network, but more importantly serve as a resource of experience and knowledge and potential collaboration or inspiration. For many members, however, the most important benefit is purely the positive social energy. Members often feel more motivated surrounded by other focused, hard-working members. Most coworking spaces also organize events that help facilitate both the social relationships, motivation, and professional development. Locus, for example, organizes weekly coffee breaks and lunches, and monthly pub nights and game nights to facilitate meaningful social connections. For motivation, Locus hosts weekly Work Jams, where members sit together at the same table and use a timer to work together for a half day with planned breaks, and weekly critique-free writing meetups to help provide a sacred time and place, and positive social energy, for focused writing.
Coworking spaces promote sustainability as key players in the sharing economy. They allow members to dramatically reduce commute times because they are often located in the neighborhoods where their members work, and they reduce operation costs and startup time by providing great office infrastructure to members who could never justify having meeting rooms, data projectors and other high-quality office equipment in central locations if that space was not shared among many other location-independent professionals.
Many coworking spaces also serve as a kind of landing zone, helping to connect global and local. About 70% of Locus’s members, for example, come from countries other than the Czech Republic (nearly 30 different countries), with the language of the space being English. This allows newcomers to Prague a ready way to form a community with other people like them, and also with English-speaking Czechs who are welcoming to an international community and reading to share local knowledge. Czech members, who make up about 30% of Locus’s members, get the complementary benefit of ready access to a friendly international community and a workplace where they can practice their English on a daily basis.
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According to global research by Deskmag and Deskwanted:━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
We’re excited to be able to share her blog post here…
while men wide and shallow ones.) I’ve added several women to my network from Locus, and started an informal dinner group to encourage young professional women to support each other, over a glass of wine.
Once I’d had that moment of realization, that my co-working space was my community, I started to look around for other ways to participate. Engaged in the social media connection and found easy, fun ways to stay involved. I am looking forward to the Christmas Party catered by Ethnocatering, a social enterprise of migrant women that serves authentic food from Georgia, Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Armenian. You can’t find this deliciousness in restaurants. I know, I said it, that bad M word. Well, I must own it because here in Prague, I’m a migrant. A tax paying, law abiding expat seeking shelter and new beginnings.Name: Gerardo Robledillo
Hometown: Madrid, Spain
Occupation: Web Developer, Website Owner of International Schools Database and Expatistan.com
Gerardo is the owner and founder of International Schools Database, a website that helps relocating families find the right English-language schools for their children, and Expatistan.com, a crowdsourced price comparison website that provides current information about the cost of living to both companies and the employees that they relocate.
“Expatistan is a cost of living calculator that allows you to compare the cost of living between cities around the world. The comparisons allow you to get a better understanding of the cost of living of any city before you move there” (Expatistan.com).
This database is compiled from information received from it’s users. The more data is entered, the more accurate and reliable the information is. Gerardo’s website is a unique and useful tool that arguably outperforms the best cost-of-living indexes otherwise available.
Why did you choose to make your own website?
“At one point, I was moving a lot in a very short period of time, and I was working for other companies. They would offer me a salary, but I wouldn’t know if that was enough to sustain me in that city. There was nothing that was reliable for me to find online, so I built it myself.”
What is your favorite part about working for yourself?
“Freedom. I have much more freedom. Freedom of working when and where you want.”
What brought you to Prague?
“I started working in Madrid right after university, but I was looking to go abroad. I have always traveled, but I have never lived abroad for a long time. I wanted something different and interesting, but not too different. Central and Eastern Europe was distant enough, yet close enough to home. The first offer I accepted was in Prague, and I loved the city so I remained here. I was briefly in Frankfurt, then I moved to Barcelona, and then I came back.”
How did you get into coworking?
“After two months of working at home it didn’t work as well [as I wanted]. I tried the library and cafes but it didn’t work that well either. I started sharing an office with a friend for a while, but it didn’t work. Then I found the concept of coworking, and it was the perfect balance: really nice office, interesting people, social benefits of an office without working at a big company, and freedom.”
How did you find Locus Workspace?
“I was looking for different coworking spaces and I tried locus because it was very close to my place. Will gave me the tour and I tried it, and it was perfect, so I stopped looking.”
What is your favorite part of the city?
“Vinohrady.”
What is one interesting fact about you?
“I love planes and flying.”
Interested in finding out how much it would cost to live somewhere else? Check out Gerardo’s website here.
If you would like to be featured on a Locus Workspace Member Monday in the future, contact Dani Crepeau at dcrepeau@bryant.edu.
