Working from home rocks! Working from home sucks! A lot of people I meet find out that I work from home and assume it's a nice fun thing to work from home all the time. It can be fun at times and it certainly gives me a little flexibility that I wouldn't have in a regular office job. However, it does have some downsides including lack of socialization and self motivation.
Don't get me wrong, I have some very productive days, but there are also days where you end the day realiseing that you didn't leave the house all day and maybe didn't even shower. That can be fun once and awhile but it can be a real downer to do regularly
After making a few posts to the ACFUG email list and a few friends who also work at home, a new word entered my vocabulary – "Coworking". Coworking is basically a gathering of people, sometimes in complimentary lines of work, who are all seeking a common place to do their work, bounce ideas off each other, and have some level of socialization.
So recently I've started looking round the interwebs looking for coworking places around the Atlanta area and so far I have found Jelly in Atlanta, which is a sort of informal Meetup group for coworking, and a
Yahoo Coworking Atlanta Group which was started by Tim Moenk after he made this blog post about Coworking in Atlanta. Dean Saxe also sent me this great article about Office Nomads, which led me to find a great Google map of coworking spaces in the US.
Disappointingly, there is no very strong effort in any of those links that indicate anyone pursuing a serious dedicated coworking space in Atlanta. I'd love to see an intown space for coworking come into being so that I can have a little office space and social networking in the mix.
I've posted my name on the Jelly in Atlanta wiki but if there is anyone out there living in Atlanta who's also interested in coworking in the intown (specifically Imman Park) area, please feel free to drop me a line directly at cameronc@gmail.com.