The coming multiple lifes of coworking (2012)

This 2012 slide deck presented Jean-Yves Huwart’s view of coworking’s development and likely future direction at the Global Coworking Conference Unconference in Austin. It introduced Global Enterprise as a Brussels consultancy and think tank working on innovation, entrepreneurship, business ecosystems and new ways of working, and identified Huwart as its chief executive. The presentation also outlined Global Enterprise’s role in organising Coworking Europe conferences in Brussels in 2010, Berlin in 2011 and Paris in 2012. The deck questioned Regus founder Mark Dixon’s assertion that his company had invented coworking 20 years earlier, using images of cumbersome 1990s computer equipment to distinguish earlier mobile work from contemporary coworking. It characterised coworking as a service rooted in 21st-century technology and culture. The presentation anticipated continued growth among standalone coworking spaces while arguing that the model would also inspire new market participants. Its concluding proposition was that coworking would become a physical extension of cloud computing and digital social networks. The deck established the presentation’s broad argument, but its middle section was absent.

Key findings

• The deck characterised coworking as a service shaped by 21st-century technology and culture.
• It anticipated that standalone coworking would continue growing while inspiring new market participants.
• It proposed that coworking would become the physical extension of cloud computing and digital social networks.

Presented by Jean-Yves Huwart, Coworking Europe and Global Enterprise, at GCUC 2012