Describing Coworking

About a year and a half ago The Grove disrupted the life of New Haven freelancers, creatives, nonprofits and entrepreneurs. We did this through introducing Greater New Haven to the concept of coworking. We had no idea how New Haven would respond to this new concept but we were greatly surprised. After a year and a half we have a growing community of over 80 individuals who work for themselves, for others, with others, and everything in-between. We've had a lot of buzz: articles in the Register and Independent, featured on WNPR's Colin McEnroe show and even on News Channel 8. Lots of people have discovered the magic of coworking and yet there are people who walk in our doors every day asking us the question, "what is this place?" So, this is my shot at defining or better yet describing coworking.   Alex Hillman, a rockstar in the coworking world, recently asked this question: "The question I think I have burned into my mind the most, and many others are thinking the same, is “How do we describe coworking?”. Not define, but describe."   Coworking might first be described as a movement, united by a set of common values: collaboration, openness, community, accessibility, and sustainability. At The Grove we have added a few things to the list of these values. Coworking is also a community. A community of diverse individuals with a range of skills and backgrounds. These individuals are walking into an open space, dropping at a desk, opening their laptop and getting to work. Sounds boring at first but the magic comes as these people start to interact. People who have never met and have very different skillsets find their way to one another, share what they're working on and find points to collaborate. Out of this collaboration peer-to-peer production is born and individuals become more productive. The space starts buzzing with new ideas that are sparked through ordinary conversations. Nonprofits connect with for-profits and influence one another. Soon the space becomes explosive with energy, excitement, and innovation.   As a whole coworking has been described with quantum properties: "Coworking is made of 'particles', the physical reality of the various spaces spread around the world, but it is also made of 'waves',or vibes, the energies that underlie the movement of coworking."   It seems to me that each coworking space is made of the same. 'Particles' are the individual coworkers and the 'waves' are the energies that move throughout and between those particles. Here, at The Grove, people are inspired, challenged, and ignited with new ideas. At The Grove people become more productive, learn quicker, solve problems faster. It's all part of the magic of coworking. Hopefully this give you an idea of what coworking is.   I'll close this post by saying that to really understand coworking it might be better to not try and define or describe it but to experience it. I welcome you to come down to The Grove and experience coworking. I think you'll like it.

Inspiring Mission as a lifestyle.

At the Grove we are seeing a community that co-creates together to help find solutions to social problems. A description of this kind of Community is borrowed from the term ‘social mission sector’ – an umbrella term used to describe the individuals and organizations whose primary mission is to produce some benefit for people and planet.   Together our emerging community works to incubate ideas and steward the dreams of people. This work results often in finding innovative ways to make good on their ideas, we call this ”social innovation”.  We define social innovation to mean: A novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals. To this end we are helping to grow a movement in our urban city.   The social value created through social innovation often produces a benefit or a reduction of costs for society. A social innovation can be a product, production process, or technology (much like innovation in general), but it can also be a principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a social movement, an intervention, or some combination of them. Indeed, many of the best recognized social innovations, such as micro-finance, are a combination of a number of these elements.   In New Haven we are cultivating the ‘social mission sector’ our social mission community includes individuals, nonprofits, for-profits, entrepreneurs and individuals working for change. At the Grove we believe it is possible with the help of our growing community to inspire a social mission movement in our city. Leveraging the knowledge we share we are working on environmental sustainability projects, food security and urban farming projects, initiatives that impact youth in our city, inspire educational reform, and economic development with innovation and business start-ups.