What are the Problems We're Working to Solve?
People are increasingly telecommuting, or otherwise working remotely on professional projects. This trend is expected to increase.
People desire and enjoy the opportunity to work in a social environment. Many people are not productive when they work in isolation.
Working in community is a time honored aspect of human culture. Working in community increases exposure to new ideas and opportunities to collaborate. Community can make peoples' professional work more enjoyable. People are more likely to bring their heart and their full selves into that which they find enjoyable.
At the same time, there is a strong trend toward individualism in American culture. People appreciate the ability to telecommute because it gives them increased freedom and flexibility in their daily routines.
Other critical timing issues are:
- Decreasing cost of communication (Malone, "Future of Work")
- Increasing bandwidth (Gilder, "Telecosm")
- Increasing computing power (Moore's Law)
- Increasing access to sophisticated publishing tools.
An independent knowledge worker can leverage these factors to achieve impressive new standards for personal productivity and knowledge creation. More and more individuals are choosing to express their desire for a "free" lifestyle by choosing to work independently. There is a significant unmet demand for the creation of new physical work spaces, virtual work spaces, and social structures to support peoples' emergent patterns of productivity.
Question:
What sort of physical spaces, virtual spaces, and social structures can we envision to resolve peoples' desires to work independently in community?