S/(000) S/(000) Instrumentos clasificados en el Perú

So far this chapter has outlined research that supports six independent claims that        are worth briefly reviewing. First, that the ‘new knowledge economy’ elevates forms        of creative knowledge work to an increasingly privileged position. Second, that the        rolling ‘digitisation of economic activity’ renders much of this ‘cognitive­cultural’ work        ‘location independent’, that is workers only need access to a computer and the       

internet to perform the technical tasks that constitute it. Third, that the proportion of        self­employed, early stage entrepreneurs and (by logical extension) employees of        early stage startups compose an increasing share of the labour force. Fourth, that        there is a discernible enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and self­employment present        in the younger generations. Fifth, that working from home, for both employees and        the self­employed, creates a distinct range of psychological and social tensions for        many workers. Sixth, that entrepreneurs and independent knowledge workers        require access to other independent knowledge workers for a variety of reasons,        ranging from psychological and social support, assistance with informal learning to        improve their craft, and as sources of formal collaboration and partnerships.   

Figure 2: The underlying trends that gave rise to Coworking 

The combination of these premises logically points to a significant cohort of workers        24        engaged in learning the ‘craft’ of entrepreneurship and self­employment under the        particular conditions of the new economy, while facing the distinct personal and        social challenges for work­life management such undertakings demands. Moreover,        many of these actors themselves are relatively young and engage in this activity        without extensive work histories to guide their choices. Consideration of these points        alone might lead an analyst to predict the emergence of a new form of workplace,        incorporating participatory activity designed to foster social connections and learning,        structured around the field of entrepreneurship and self­employment in the new        knowledge economy. This was the vision first proposed through ‘Coworking’.    

2.2 ‘Coworking is the solution to the problem’ 

Coworking is a complex social phenomenon. Coworking spaces are open plan        offices that mobile, independent knowledge workers share as places of work. But       

24 _{The diagram contains a seventh claim, the intensification of spatial use and rising costs in} 

inner urban environments that will be addressed more comprehensively in  Chapter 4.1 The  spatial distribution of Coworking within the cities 

Coworking is usually defined as more than access to space and facilities. The widely        recognised originator of the term ‘Coworking’ is the computer programer and        open­source enthusiast Brad Neuberg who, in 2005 in San Francisco, “decided to        create a new kind of space to support the community and structure that I hungered        for and gave it a new name: Coworking” (Neuberg 2014) . He rented a ‘beautifully      25          converted Victorian’ in San Francisco’s Mission District called Spiral Muse that was        operating as a feminist collective at the time, and published an invitation on his blog        that has become a celebrated founding moment for the Coworking movement:     

“Traditionally, society forces us to choose between working at home                    for ourselves or working at an office for a company. If we work at a                              traditional 9 to 5 company job, we get community and structure, but                        lose freedom and the ability to control our own lives. If we work for                            ourselves at home, we gain independence but suffer loneliness and                    bad habits from not being surrounded by a work community. 

Coworking is a solution to this problem. In Coworking, independent                    writers, programmers, and creators come together in community a                  few days a week. Coworking provides the "office of a traditional                      corporate job, but in a very unique way.”  

(Neuberg 2005)   

Although the word ‘Coworking’ may have first been coined in 2005, the practice of        co­locating creative workers and enterprises has a long history.  Figure 4 illustrates        the evolving variety of spatial concepts that integrate different forms of ‘sharing’        within their operations. One theoretical formulation initially invoked to categorise        spaces such as Coworking, ‘hacker’ and ‘maker’ spaces was the concept of ‘third        places’. The sociologist Ray Oldenburg first coined the term ‘third place’ to refer to       

25  _{Game designer and theorist Bernard DeKoven also used the word ‘Coworking’ to describe} 

a practice of “working together as equals” and “a deep appreciation of the joy of participating  in a creative, playful community” in 1999 ( DeKoven, 2013 ). However DeKoven never applied  the word to to characterise shared workspace enterprises.  

informal meeting places between the domestic home, the ‘first place’ and the        productive workplace, the ‘second place’ (Oldenburg 1989). For Oldenburg, ‘third        places’ such as cafes, bars and bookstores, are ‘“homes away from home” where        unrelated people relate’ (Oldenburg 1999: 1) in an ‘inclusively sociable’ atmosphere,        ‘offering both the basis of community and celebration of it’ (Oldenburg 1999:14).        However in Oldenburg’s conception, third places are not sites for ‘gainful or        productive’ work, but contexts that facilitate the informal social relations and civic        engagement that foster a sense of local place and form the foundations for a healthy        democratic culture. This neat separation between spheres of domestic, productive        and social activity has however, become significantly blurred in recent years, and as        Coworking spaces have grown to become primary sites of work for many, it is less        clear how this formulation clarifies our understanding of the significance of        Coworking (Moriset and Malecki 2009; Fonner and Stache 2012; Gold and Mustafa        2013). 

Figure 4: Work­learn­play ‘third spaces’ 

The ‘unwiring’ of information technology afforded knowledge workers a new mobility,        and Neuberg was not the only one experimenting with novel spatial configurations of        creative and entrepreneurial at the time . Nevertheless, Neuberg’s two paragraphs      26          were highly influential, inspiring other Coworking entrepreneurs to follow his call and        open spaces in San Francisco and other major cities around the world. Whilst        Neuberg’s description of Coworking foregrounds the notion of community and clearly        portrays it as a social activity, precisely defining Coworking posed challenges for        both journalistic descriptions and academic analyses. Early descriptions highlighted        the apparently contradictory orientations ­ Coworkers were said to be ‘working on        their own, just side by side’ (Fost 2008) or ‘working alone together’ (Spinuzzi 2012).       

26 _{In a remarkable case of parallel invention, 2005 was also the year ‘jellies’ were pioneered} 

in NYC and ‘the hub’ in London. There are also some earlier similar experiments in Europe  such as Vienna’s Schraubenfabrik (originally Unternehmerlnnenzentrum) and Denmark’s  LYNfabriikken. A fuller account of this social history is offered in  Waters­Lynch et al. (2016 ). 

Nonetheless, since the origins of the term, the growth of enterprises calling        themselves Coworking spaces around the world has been exponential. The primary        sources of this data are the periodic global surveys of Coworking spaces coordinated        by Deskmag , the Berlin based online Coworking magazine. These sources  27        estimate that as of 2018, there are approximately 18,900 spaces and 1,690,000        ‘Coworkers' worldwide (Deskmag 2018). Deskmag also curate a timeline on the early        history of Coworking, where significant historical milestones are sequentially mapped       

.  28     Figure 5: Global growth of Coworking spaces   

Coworking spaces are not (just) serviced offices  

The elusive definition of ‘Coworking’ is further compounded by the longer history of        the shared office industry. Since at least the 1960s a range of shared office services        have appeared under different names, including ‘serviced offices’, ‘business centres’,       

27  _{www.deskmag.com}  28 

http://www.tiki­toki.com/timeline/entry/156192/The­History­Of­Coworking­Presented­By­Desk mag 

‘executive suites’ and ‘telecentres’ (Kojo and Nenonen 2014). In broad terms, these        services share a business model based on flexible, low commitment rental access to        office space and amenities. A combination of services are exchanged for a single, all        inclusive fee, covering the range of expenses associated with office set up and        maintenance, such as rent, printing, copying, kitchen equipment, cleaning,        maintenance and ongoing utilities. Contracts are typically a minimum of three        months, although some enterprises offer longer term agreements and others shorter,        even ‘pay as you go’ services. In general the short term leases are seen to reduce        the investment risk associated with the fixed costs of traditional leasing        arrangements (Foster 1989; Harrison 2002). Additionally these services may offer        access to strategic, attractive, convenient or prestigious locations that would be cost        prohibitive for individual users to rent privately. The ability to reduce these costs is        enabled through the economics of sharing the space and amenities between multiple        users. For simplicity, these services will be referred to in this thesis as the ‘serviced        office industry’.   

Coworking spaces generally share a similar business model to the serviced office        industry, where customers pay a flexible, all inclusive, (usually) monthly fee for        access to space and amenities. However the Coworking ‘movement­industry’ has        differentiated itself from previous shared office arrangements through the loosely        structured social interactions and collaborative activities of its participants, most        frequently promoted under the rubric of ‘community’ (Spinuzzi, 2012; Parrino 2013;        Capdevila 2014a).  

There are three interrelated features that have visibly distinguished the younger        Coworking spaces from the older serviced office industry, admittedly more        prominently during the ‘early Coworking years’ between 2005 and 2012. The first        relates to the profiles of the pioneering Coworkers themselves, the second is the        centrality of social interactions and the third the aesthetic design of the spaces.  

Creatives, not suits 

The pioneering Coworkers of creative cities such as San Francisco, New York,        London, Paris, Barcelona and Berlin were predominantly young people who        identified as ‘independent’ (largely solo­self employed, creative knowledge) workers        looking to address the challenges of social isolation associated with working from        their private homes, or other suboptimal public places like cafes and libraries. The        principles of the open source software movement were a strong influence,        ‘community’ an organising theme, enabled through a ‘ do­it­yourself ’ ethic (Holtzman        et al. 2007) where the early members were often involved in the funding, design and        construction of Coworking spaces. In this sense there was little distance in physical        or social proximity between the founding entrepreneurs and other Coworking        participants. Some of these early Coworking groups framed explicit political        commitments around their nascent forms of association , others simply desired to      29          work alongside each other in an informal, social atmosphere. Accordingly, the early        culture of Coworking translated the informal modes of dress, language and sociality        typical of inner urban cafes into the organisational culture of the nascent enterprises.        This contrasted with the explicit attempts of the older serviced offices to replicate the        image, language and dress conventions (such as business suits, jackets and ties) of        formal organisations. In the language of the creativity literature, Coworking was        established both by and for the ‘creatives’ and serviced offices predominantly        designed for the ‘suits’ (Thompson 2007; Earl and Potts 2013). 

Social interactions and collaborative activity  

Second, the Coworking movement distinguished itself from the serviced office        industry by emphasising the social interactions of its participants as a core feature of        their value proposition.Coworking spaces usually promote themselves as a        ‘membership community’ (Fost 2008; Sundsted et al. 2009; Hunt 2009; Botsman and        Rogers 2011; Spinuzzi 2012; Capdevila 2014a; Parrino 2013; Kojo and Nenonen       

29  _{Here are three examples:}    ● The impact hub ( www.impacthub.net )  ● The Coworking manifesto ( coworkingmanifesto.com )  ● Gangplank ( gangplankhq.com )   

2014; Liegl 2014; Lumley 2014; Bilandzic and Foth 2015; Gandini 2015). Social        participation is typically encouraged and enabled through a broad variety of        ‘organisational platforms’ (Parrino 2013), including internal digital social network        sites, frequent social events, membership boards, newsletters and ‘community hosts,        curators or managers’ that tend to the social network, facilitating personal        introductions and sometimes fostering professional collaboration with other        ‘likeminded’ actors within the membership body. The emphasis is on light, organic        forms of social coordination, suggested through the language of ‘curation’,        ‘catalysing’, even ‘community tummling’ (Hillman 2014). The presence of material      30        design features, from publicly visible white boards, inspirational quotes, idiosyncratic        art and spacious kitchens also encourage such social interactions.  

Bespoke aesthetics 

The third difference relates to the aesthetics of Coworking spaces. Whilst the        serviced office industry traditionally reflected the standardised, corporate,        professional aesthetics of ‘Fordism’ and ‘scientific management’ (Guillen 1997),        unsurprisingly Coworking spaces tend to emphasise their idiosyncratic, bespoke        ‘Post­Fordist’ design aesthetics that blend ‘work and play’ (van Meel and Vos 2001).        Such design choices reflect the early Coworking movement’s attempts to contrast        their practices with the predominant images of bureaucratic organisations, which        many Coworkers had intentionally avoided. A ‘google style office for people that don’t        work at google’ was a description used in the early Coworking period (Neuberg        2014). Creativity and novelty tend to be celebrated over routine and predictability,        and some spaces frequently change their internal layouts (see for example  Elam        2014 ). The relationship between non­routine, creative work and playful, open and        transparent workplaces with distinct identities has been observed as a feature of        creative industries more broadly (van Meel, Martens and van Ree 2010; Kojo and        Nenonen 2014). Many Coworking spaces themselves are located in former industrial       

30 _{‘The term tummler comes from the Yiddish word tumlen meaning “to stir, bustle”... It was} 

adopted in English to refer to “a comic entertainer or social director at a Jewish resort”’  (Gregg and Lodato 2017:13)  

era warehouses or factories, and have repurposed the space for creative knowledge        work, sometimes involving ‘cocreated’ contributions in design and labour from        Coworking members. Sometimes the former industrial use of the building is directly        referenced in the name and origin story of the new Coworking space in an attempt to        position the enterprise as an expression of creative urban renewal amid the obsolete        industrial infrastructure . The combination of these factors has seen Coworking  31        spaces described in lay terms as ‘cheap and funky offices’ (van Meel and Brinkø        2014).   

These distinctions notwithstanding, the boundaries between Coworking spaces and        serviced offices are not rigid.  Figure 6 below depicts how they have become blurred        in recent years by hybridising movements from traditional serviced office providers        such as Regus and Servcorp now claiming to offer ‘Coworking’ and other ‘Coworking        space’ enterprises, such as WeWork that largely offer standardised, private offices.  Figure 6: The value propositions of serviced offices and Coworking spaces    31 _{For example:}  ● Schraubenfabrik [the bolt factory]:  http://www.schraubenfabrik.at/   ● York Butter Factory:  http://ybfventures.com/   

2.3 Coworking as a scholarly problem  

Since its inception, the notion of ‘community’ has been a central theme in the        literature on Coworking. If much of the early popular literature celebrated the term,        the most recent scholarly literature has problematised the concept, calling for closer        attention to its meaning in order to generate more precise definitions to better guide        empirical analysis (Garrett et al. 2017; Spinuzzi et al. 2018); closer scrutiny of its        enactment through practices (Gregg and Lodato 2017; Jakonen et al. 2017; Butcher        2018); and even the construction of new theory that better situates and accounts for        the ‘shared fiction’ this term evokes (Arvidsson 2018).