Cafe's, Coworking Spaces And Creative Centres... What's The Difference?
Work.
We do it more than sleep.
The places that we conduct the earning of a living - alas, life still comes with a price tag - are not just important for our levels of productivity.
They are crucial for growth.
And in Canggu, we are truly blessed with options.
All Good Things Start In Anarchy.
A Work/Life balance was integral to the birth of the Coworking Space concept.
The desire for Location Independence drove us away from the office gulags of our forebears.
Yerushalmi, one of the founders of Sunshine Suites, who first conceptualised the Coworking space in 2001 describes it as “a lot more than an office space”, where “everybody knew everybody”, and where people would stand together to develop their respective businesses, even landlords and tenants.
The current concept of Coworking was led by European hackers spaces from the 1990s, where coders would work together and exchange skills.
Coworking Space’s original purpose was to share with each other, standing together.
But like all utopian Crypto-Anarchic models, the practice tends to get butchered by the Market.
(Re: Just jump on the modern internet and see how disillusioned it’s become from a decentralised harbinger of peace. Cheers The Big Four.)
Though, even like the internet today, the potential doesn’t reside in the place itself.
It’s in peers sharing common interests.
Commun-ity.
The power of Coworking.
With Coworking Spaces careful to reopen, disenchantment with the concept has spread.
With Digital Nomadism on pause, and many incomes within the culture suffering constriction, cleintel swapping around Coworking Spaces like a global reserve currency has also come into reccession.
As a result, the “Traditional Coworker” had settled to be “Cafe Goer”.
Understandably so.
The Eternal Bank Holiday of 2020 framed productivity 2-Dimensionally.
“Have a table and Wi-fi? Good. Now, do your Goddamn work.”
Eager to leave the house after the worst of the Big Sneeze, yet unable to plan in a month ahead, the Traditional Coworker we began again with the Cafe vibe.
Like efficiency was fueled by latte’s alone.
Perhaps the result of caffeine’s influence on our brains, it seems a misconception got infused in the brew.
We thought we could actually get work done in a café.
Cosy spots for friendly chats, gossiping and Tinder encounters are not just important - they might as well be a human right.
But it is time to set the record straight.
They are not designed for working.
Trip Advisor
Now, what’s a work space?
For sure, it’s not your bed or the table next to it.
Neither is it a place consumed by loud (or even elevator) music, food smells, or a perfect stranger asking for your table salt.
Certainly not where your focus can be clutched by the long arm of entertainment.
Nor somewhere that causes shaky hands induced by a stay permit paid in coffees.
Where the waiter’s gaze makes you feel like a squatter with no rights.
You don’t eat where you shit, so why would you work where you eat? (Or indeed, work where you shit?)
In other words, going to a café to accomplish your daily tasks is a bit like using your local mini mart’s wifi to video call your family.
It can be done - just don’t expect to have the best, intimate and productive interaction.
You won’t work.
It’s worth recalling how important it is to settle somewhere in order to trigger productivity.
Somewhere with a fast wifi, widespread international plugs, and most importantly ergonomic chairs.
Where a limited membership means you’re always guaranteed a comfortable work station.
A P(a)lace of Quiet.
Where the only people who may distract you could also help you achieve your goals.
Do you need a website for your hand-crafted products? Professional product shots for your clothing brand? A half time pep-talk?
Whether this interrupter is a web designer, fashion photographer or business coach, your next stepping stone might just be your neighbour.
Now that the world is slowly retrieving its shape (even if the human race remains a little blobby), it is the time for all businesses, workers, entrepreneurs and real makers of change, to wake up from their drowsiness.
While Bali is ready to recover, it remains caught between strange states; waiting for the rest of the world to give the green light to a future that remains unclear.
Like we’re stuck in a never ending hangover .
With international flights as irregular as a tasty Bintang, and as over priced as imported wine, Bali is what it is until further notice.
And all things considered, it’s not bad is it?
Adventure In You
But this is the calm before… something.
It is up to us, to the New Coworkers, to realise the potential of the greatness within our grasp.
Every crisis, every disruption in economic cycles brings new opportunities.
Creation proceeds from a prior destruction.
The foundations of tomorrow will come from the those who dig their hands in the dirt first.
The bravest who start rebuilding our world, using the maturity of past mistakes as the strings to the bow of success.
Those will be the ones to rise from the ashes.
Those who put their heart, blood, sweat and tears into the mix.
Those who choose to do something that truly matters.
A currency beyond money, barter and likes - but love itself.
An existence that blends work with play.
Seeing life as a game rather than a rat-race.
The benefits of playing are beyond doubt.
Indeed, play is where the mind is at its highest capacity.
So, its time to start adulting again and do our work, at work.
Where a raised hand means you have an idea, not that you need another smoothie.
Where the person sitting next to you is not your distraction, but your next potential venture.
That said, why not work from a place that recalls your dearest days of youth?
A playground that cultivates your inner child.
A platform for the child in you to trust, give responsibility to, and realise the original imaginative mastermind’s oldest dreams.
That’s what it means to be a Coworking Space, within a Creative Centre.
