It comes from a fascinating Forbes article - What Musicians Teach Us About the Challenges of Being Your Own Boss . I won’t try to summarize it, but a key point is freelancers avoid the existential issues associated with independent work by crafting “physical and social spaces that infuse their work lives with a sense of meaning. To ward off existential anxieties, they connect to place, routine people and purpose”.
So we can definitely add another advantage of coworking - it helps ward off existential anxieties.
And while I joke a bit about this, there is no doubt these issues are real, independent workers need help to address them and coworking provides help.
As a bonus, the article also covers the music writing routine used by Jackson Browne.
The article references research done by a group at the University of Michigan. I’ve been unable to find it, but have requested a copy from the folks mentioned in the article. If I get something I will update this post.
It’s worth pointing out that this aligns well with what Dan Pink outlines as the three key components of the new “operating system” that supports creative work forces: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Autonomy – The urge to direct our own lives.
**Mastery – The desire to get better and better at something that matters **
Purpose – The yearning to do something that we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 12:41 PM, Steve King [email protected] wrote:
How’s that for a topic title:)?
It comes from a fascinating Forbes article - What Musicians Teach Us About the Challenges of Being Your Own Boss . I won’t try to summarize it, but a key point is freelancers avoid the existential issues associated with independent work by crafting “physical and social spaces that infuse their work lives with a sense of meaning. To ward off existential anxieties, they connect to place, routine people and purpose”.
So we can definitely add another advantage of coworking - it helps ward off existential anxieties.
And while I joke a bit about this, there is no doubt these issues are real, independent workers need help to address them and coworking provides help.
As a bonus, the article also covers the music writing routine used by Jackson Browne.
The article references research done by a group at the University of Michigan. I’ve been unable to find it, but have requested a copy from the folks mentioned in the article. If I get something I will update this post.
Alex: Based on our research of independent workers, we summarize the reasons they like being independent as autonomy, freedom and flexibility. These are, obviously, very close to Dan Pink’s operating system trio.
In our case autonomy means pretty much the same as Pink’s version. The other two, freedom and flexibility, overlap quite a bit with Pink’s mastery and purpose. Freedom is the ability to chose the type of work one does. Flexibility is the ability to choose when, where and how the work is done.
Another similar tagline comes from the Encore.org people. They help mostly aging baby boomers find 2nd careers in social service. They talk about passion, purpose and paycheck as the reasons people pursue and enjoy socially oriented encore careers. The outlier is paycheck, but the reality is a lot of aging boomers need an income.
It’s pretty clear that people are happiest at work when they have job autonomy and a motivating purpose. What’s unfortunate is how few jobs provide either, much less both.