Co-working facilities

Years ago I setup a collaborative working environment for my team, the idea was for the environment to be really social, we had lots of breakout rooms, large tables where people could sit together, comfy seats, whiteboards everywhere a library area and of course quiet space for when you needed to concentrate.

Lots of people would ask if they could come and hot desk in the office and in the end we said no because it was getting too crowded.  When I saw this article – and the photo above – about co-working facilities for people who wanted to get out of the house, but not into the office – it reminded me of those times gone by.

I really like the idea, of a space where you can pop in and meet like minded professionals in a great working environment with food and drink.  For me that’s not the office, I work on global projects with virtual teams so I have little in common with the people in the nearest office, and theres no desk space anyway.

The hat factory is a great example:

The Hat Factory is community office space for geeks and media hackers. We’re a group of open sourcers, video bloggers, Drupal developers, and more who are tired of working from coffee shops and home every day

It’s a really cool idea, and I bet a lot of real social networking goes on here, not just sharing contacts, sending messages and reading blogs!  There’s even a video.