Finding a suitable office space within your means is hard in Dhaka. First of all good spaces are rare because most of those spaces are already taken, and then any good space is expensive. If you are an early stage startup or a freelancer or an independent professional and looking for a space that you can use as your work station, that’s even harder. Most of the cases, you would not find a place that fits into your requirements. Luckily if you find one it would be too expensive to afford.
Due to this problem, freelancers, startups, independent professionals often work from home. Working from home is an option only for people who are super discipline. Unfortunately, creative people are not known for their capacity of self discipline. Furthermore, home is not a place that inspires work. At home distractions are abundant. Getting things done is difficult. What's more, working from home makes us isolated from the outside world. We don’t get the opportunity to meet new people and make new connections.
[su_note note_color="#f8f9f9" text_color="#25618a" radius="13"]This story is second of a four parts series we are running on coworking to better understand it, since we believe coworking is how we will be working in the future. Thank you, hubdhaka, for teaming up with us and supporting us to make this series possible.[/su_note]
This is where coworking space can help.
Coworking space is a shared office where people from different backgrounds, companies, interests choose to share space and other amenities with each other while they are not essentially from same company or team. In last couple of years, due to rise in the number of freelancers and independent professionals and startups, coworking has been growing at a rate of 400% globally. Using a coworking space as a workstation is a winning choice. It is fun, collaborative, inspiring, thrifty, friendly, and productive.
1) Coworking space is frugal for freelancers, independent professionals and startups. Offices are costly in Dhaka. For a freelancer or a three people team of startup, renting a huge office, preparing it and then maintaining is a huge burden. Alternatively, using coworking space saves money, time and hassles.
In last couple of years, due to rise in the number of freelancers and independent professionals and startups, coworking has been growing at a rate of 400% globally. Using a coworking space as a workstation is a winning choice. It is fun, collaborative, inspiring, thrifty, friendly, and productive.
2) Internet and coffee seldom go together in Dhaka. As a freelancer or startup you always have options: working from home or using a shared office with an established company. Downside of choosing either of these two options is that: wifi is not as prevalent as you need in Dhaka and everyone doesn’t appreciate coffee!
3) Flexible working hour: work when you work best. There is no rule to follow like many other places. You can work round the clock. You make your schedule and work around it.
4) Coworking boosts creativity and improve standard of work. According to Deskmag’s annual Global Coworking Survey: 71 percent of participants reported a boost in creativity since joining a coworking space, while 62 percent said their standard of work had improved. Creativity does not follow a linear path. You can’t be creative in an environment which is distracting. You need space to think and similarly opportunity to feed your thoughts with external materials to be creative. Ideas come from human interactions. Coworking makes interaction with other people easy.
[blockquote source]According to Deskmag’s annual Global Coworking Survey: 71 percent of participants reported a boost in creativity since joining a coworking space, while 62 percent said their standard of work had improved. Creativity does not follow a linear path.[/blockquote]
5) Coworking increases your productivity. The best part of coworking is that, it accommodates likeminded people, people who come to the space to get things done. When we see someone working hard to meet deadline it inspires us to get our own projects done. Furthermore, a coworking space is a place that inspires work. It is distraction free, fun, inspiring. All these ingredients help one to deliver at their best.
6) Get inspired, learn new things, and boost your confidence. We are largely influenced by people we spend time with. Coworking space gives you opportunity to work besides people from diverse background having diverse skills. It is an opportunity to learn new things from people around you. At the same time, it increases your confidence. Research on coworking supports this fact as well. Deskmag report found that 90% of coworkers said they got a self-confidence boost after joining a coworking space. This is a very realistic outcome since coworking space like hubdhaka is filled with supportive people.
7) Collaborate, share and make miracle happen. When great people meet miracle happens. Coworking gives you ready opportunity to collaborate with likeminded people, draw help when requires and exchange ideas. Coworking is not only about affordable office but it is about collaborating with other members when such opportunity arises. For instance, you need a designer, or a developer, or a copywriter, if you are working from home and using a traditional office you will have to go out, put an advertisement to find any of these people but if you are working at a coworking space may be the person next to you is a developer or copywriter.
8) Make connections without effort. The world is about who you know. Connection brings in opportunities. The biggest advantage of working at a coworking space is that it makes networking simple. You will find all sorts of people readily available. It inspires connection among members and helps building long term relationships. In his recent book, The Purpose Economy, social entrepreneur Aaron Hurst wrote how powerful coworking spaces are for cultivating community among a new class of workers who are driven to organize their professional lives around continuous personal growth, meaningful relationships, and the service of something greater than themselves.
CodaMajority of people who come to a coworking space work on their passion as a result a community feeling grows among the members and people remain very supportive to each other. For a freelancer or startup this support is a lot more important than many things. Self employed people often go through self doubt, support from peers and community helps them to get over their own doubt and pursue their passion.
According to Deskmag report, 90% of coworkers get self-confidence boost, 70% of co-workers reports increase in creativity and 62% reports improvement in quality of work, 64% people says they get things done when they use coworking space. These numbers tell something: coworking is the future of work.
In Dhaka we have our own coworking space like hubdhaka that allows freelancers, startups, writers and independent professionals to come and share space and opportunities and resources with others. Along with regular opportunities hubdhaka hosts events like: networking nights, happy hours, guest lectures and more to help members.
The world is becoming more open and collaborative. Why not how we work then? We spend a huge chunk of our days working in office. It is really difficult to put a demarcation line between our life and work. So, why waste time and work in a place that does not make us happy, more productive, confident, and offer us more opportunities?
[blockquote source]According to Deskmag report, 90% of coworkers get self-confidence boost, 70% of co-workers reports increase in creativity and 62% reports improvement in quality of work, 64% people says they get things done when they use coworking space. These numbers tell something: coworking is the future of work.[/blockquote]
Coworking is the future of how we work and this is going to change our ability in-terms of how much we can accomplish as humans as well because coworking is fun, collaborative, inspiring, productive and above all coworking is how we humans are made.
Credit: Image by hubdhaka
