What is Coworking?

I always get this question when people ask me about this project. You could read the pbwiki definition, which says "Coworking is a cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers and independents." Even with that answer I get a glazed look from the questioning party. After some deeper explaining the usual conclusion is "oh it's like Starbucks." Sure but it is much more than that Starbucks community atmosphere. Coworking brings together like-minded individuals who have small, independent companies. 

A coworking space gives these independent companies that would usually work out of their home, to cut out overhead, a place to call their office. Even more than that the space allows for interaction with other designers or developers that they would normally get at an agency or company. This allows them to bounce ideas off of each other and it allows say a designer and a developer to work a projects that require each other's talents. Projects that they would not normally be able to work on because they didn't have the resources to team up and pitch on. Sometime companies are formed out of these collaborations and a one man design shop becomes a small boutique agency with designers, programmers and copywriters. No longer silos spread throughout a city, these individuals are now independents apart of bigger picture. The Divvy Collective slogan says it best, "We are not an advertising agency or a design firm. We are a group of creatives that have come together to share [ideas and] space.