Carrboro Creative Coworking

For me coworking is physical evidence of a serious work trend. Freelancers and other workers thrive on variety in their work environment. So its fun to read about a very successful young person who works this way.

From a Washington Post article about Jon Favreau, the 27 year old senior speech writer for President Elect Barack Obama.

[Jon] Favreau believes he will transition well if he focuses exclusively on writing, which is why he has buried himself in the inaugural address. He moves while he writes to avoid becoming stale -- from the Starbucks, to his windowless transition office, to his new, one-bedroom condo, where the only furniture in place is a blow-up mattress on the hardwood floor. He sometimes writes until 2 or 3 a.m., fueled by double espresso shots and Red Bull. When deadline nears, a speech consumes him until he works 16-hour days and forgets to call home, do his laundry or pay his bills. He calls it "crashing."

In part its this unconventional work style that helped create the amazing speech Obama gave on Race last year.

One Saturday night in March, Obama called Favreau and said he wanted to immediately deliver a speech about race. He dictated his unscripted thoughts to Favreau over the phone for 30 minutes -- "It would have been a great speech right then," Favreau said -- and then asked him to clean it up and write a draft. Favreau put it together, and Obama spent two nights retooling before delivering the address in Philadelphia the following Tuesday.

"So," Obama told Favreau afterward. "I think that worked."

Lots of different factors lead to this accomplishment. Yes Obama's mind has something to do with it. But the fact that young people like Favreau are rising to such positions of influences proves it. We've seen the future of work and its Coworking! (or something related to it) :)

Dante Cassanego, a coworker here at CCC, wrote a really insightful blog post about coworking. For him work-life equilibrium and the people make coworking valuable. It allows Dante to stay productive by finding new inspirations and meeting people with "different life experiences".

He also prognosticated about the future of Coworking. Something I'm obviously interested in. Dante thinks it'll grow because of the global nature of business and as a way for certain companies to save money by having distributed offices. His example for this was Journalism. [Media companies] "might actually benefit from have a more distributed workforce if they can find a cost effective way to have offices (or coworking locations) in different places". I am all for this. Hey McClatchy are you listening?

Very cool to see this excellent story (video) about Conjunctured Coworking in Austin, TX.

Alex Hillman of Independents Hall, a coworking space in Philly, has a post up at Mashable called 6 Reasons to Start Coworking. Here's the list to entice you.

1) You're Lonely
2) You Need Motivation
3) You Love to Learn New Things
4) You have no idea what’s going on in your region
5) Your work/life balance is out of whack
6) Sharing of resources is RAD

You should really read the explanations for each of these. There is so much wisdom within. Much of this is why I opened CCC.

Interested in coworking and live in or near Asheville, NC? Check out the wiki page for the Coworking Asheville. Much luck with this guys!

Nathan in Charlotte, NC has a blog up to explore the idea of creating a coworking space. Its called Catalyst704. If you're in Charlotte and interested go on over and help them out by taking a survey and leaving comments.

Just noticed on the Coworking Google Group that Doug in Greensboro, NC has a blog called CoWorkGSO. He's investigating the idea of setting up a coworking space. So if you live in Greensboro or the Triad leave a comment on the blog and help him out.