At the Crossroads

Standing at the Crossroads!

There is something about Austin, Texas, and there is something about Conjunctured, though I’m still not sure what that something is.  However, here we are, and both Austin and Conjunctured sit as crossroads for people in local, national, and global communities.  Not a week goes by here at Conjunctured when someone from out of town doesn’t come by for a visit and an opportunity to connect.  Then there is SXSW, during which the world comes to Austin (and to Conjunctured too).

Glocal Community

From our vantage point here at Conjunctured, we have seen the global coworking movement go from a handful of small spaces (in New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, and Austin) into a sure enough global phenomenon.  Some places fade out while others come online.  Given the movement’s growth, it now hosts a much broader cross section of people.  We are no longer just local outposts for freelancers seeking a place to work.  Thriving coworking spaces now have corporate telecommuters sitting next to freelancers and small businesses, and often have corporate sponsors of various sorts.  In short, at 2,500 spaces worldwide, coworking is going mainstream.  But what does this mean?

This will mean different things to different people, of course, but for us it means that we now find ourselves intersected with the broader world.  We have become a nexus, a crossroads, of a whole host of organizations and people.  We are not entirely sure where these relationships will go next, but we are eager to start making new things happen.

Our Crossroads

Thus, here we are at a crossroads.  Rather than just staying home in our cozy house in East Austin, we have committed to opening the design and cultural values of coworking into the broader world.  We are inviting other folks, folks who are not indigenous to coworking, into the space to share the experience with them. We are opening up to the outside, explicitly, and encouraging an exchange between people from different walks of life.  We want to spread the space and values of coworking to companies, government organizations, schools, and hotels, to wherever the velvet community of coworking can make the world a better place.

Freelancers. Corporates. Musicians. Governments.  Educators.  Our doors are open!  Hopefully yours are too?