What is Coworking? It’s All About Community Leadership

Coworking is all about community, community, community.

But this community doesn’t happen by chance or arise spontaneously.

As discussed in Chapter 5 of my book [2] “What is Coworking?”, the contemporary coworking phenomenon is characterized by a cadre of community leaders, who combine roles and skills from a number of other professions.  The success of a coworking space and its community depends on great community leadership.

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This month Sensei Cat Johnson illustrates this point in “An Open Letter to Community Managers”, which is surely addressed to her own community leaders [1].

As usual, Sensei Cat says it so much better than I could.

Essentially:

“Without you, this whole coworking thing would fall apart.”

Sensei Cat calls out many roles these professional “community managers” play in her coworking space, including technical IT support, orienting new workers, and office management.  The “manager” also organizes social events (“what about those happy hours we all roll into without much thought”), deals with personal conflicts, talks to everyone, and generally “connects’ everyone.

“You balance badass, cruise director, networker extraordinaire and all around kind/thoughtful/fun person, and you do it with style and flair.”

Besides the vital social glue that is so important to the happiness and well being of the workers, the community leader fosters networking and collaboration, which is one of the key benefits workers find in their coworking space.

“Your knack for connecting people has led to more collaborations and friendships than we could ever count.”

Indeed, these leaders create and sustain the community, and really are the heart of a coworking community.  As Sensei Cat puts it.

“You are the face and maestro of our community.”

As usual, she says it so much better than I could.

But if you want to read my own exposition of this topic and a lot more, please read my new book [2].  Available from several sources.

1. Cat Johnson, An Open Letter to Community Managers, in Cowroking Out Loud. 2018. https://catjohnson.co/open-letter-community-managers/
2. Robert E. McGrath, What is Coworking? A look at the multifaceted places where the gig economy happens and workers are happy to find community. 2018, Robert E. McGrath: Urbana. https://whatiscoworkingthebook.com/

 

 

What is Coworking?