Coworking Space vs Collaborative Workspace
By Derek Neighbors on March 30, 2011
When talking about Gangplank I always struggle to consider it to have anything to do with coworking. After doing some reading on collaborative learning vs. cooperative learning, I believe I can better articulate the difference between collaborative workspaces and coworking spaces.
Coworking spaces are places that allow people from various backgrounds to work in the same physical space. They are grouped by proximity, but often not by anything more than that. It is very likely that there may be little meaningful interaction between the workers of the space, short of water cooler talk.
In contrast collaborative spaces are very intentional about their structure. They are designed for the participants to co-labor. All the participants in the space are engaged in work towards a stated objective. Everyone must contribute towards that objective.
When I look at Gangplank, we have set of initiatives that we are working towards, a defined objective. In exchange for physical space participants agree to labor together towards meeting those initiatives.
It is this simple designation that leads me to not use the term coworking space, but instead use collaborative workspace. Any questions?
