Apr 7

Co-working – a new approach for changing times

Advice, Career, Translating/Interpreting, Writers Add Comment (1)

Joel Dechant (CIR Fukuoka-ken, 2001-04), freelance translator based in Fukuoka, has been exploring the “co-working” trend.  If interested in discussing with him, click on his name to contact him via LinkedIn or post a comment below to share your thoughts or perspectives.

After 3 years on JET I worked at a private Japanese university as a translator for 3 years. It was essentially a JET-type job: translate, interpret, assist foreign students and/or plan programs for 3 years and then you’re out. After their stints were up, some of my other colleagues went home or elsewhere in Japan to work in universities, government agencies or in the private sector, but I-on the other hand-decided to stay.

“What about my contract?” you ask. Well, my employer and I struck a deal. They needed someone who knew the university and who could translate and interpret well, and I wanted to stay in the area. By virtue of being placed in the position that bore the biggest share of translation and interpreting work, I was able to hone my skills well enough to confidently say, “Hey, I can do this!” So we wrote a new contract in which they would outsource their work to me. With the stroke of a pen, I was self-employed.

It was like a dream come true. How many times had I chatted with my colleagues at lunch about doing my job at home, only showing my face for the occasional meeting? I dreamed of working in my underwear and sneaking beers at 2 PM, and admittedly, I did do just that a couple of times.

But working from home soon reminded me of one of my biggest weak points: time management. Freed from the shackles of an employment contract, I was now taking on translation work from various sources and ratcheting up my output. If I wasn’t careful with my time, I would have to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning or forgo a Sunday outing with the family to make deadlines. This was not healthy for me or for my family, so slowly but surely, I learned to keep my projects rolling smoothly without getting steamrolled by them.

It’s been well nigh 2 years since I left the university, and (knock on wood) I am doing pretty well. I have since moved to a bigger city in the hopes of scouting out new freelance opportunities, and I really enjoy the flexibility that freelancing brings. But you know something? I am starting to get lonely.

I guess I always took the ready-made social networks of the office for granted. The university was full of cool and interesting people from all walks of life. Of course I still keep in touch with my friends by email and chat, but I don’t live in the same city anymore, and when you work full time in front of a PC monitor, you start to think that you might like some of those more “human” distractions from the office: the water cooler chatter or the quick jaunt over to the cafeteria for a coffee with you pal from another office.

A little bit of googling soon told me that I was not alone. In fact, a whole movement has been born around the idea of freelancers “going back to the office”. It’s called coworking.

Coworking refers to a group of like-minded freelancers-writers, artists, web designers, you name it-working side by side in a common space. It seems to have evolved after the dot com bubble as a new take on the age-old idea of working in cooperatives. Freelancers still work independently, but they also enjoy the positive aspects of office life: interaction, collaboration, and if you’re lucky, good coffee.

Some coworking joints are high-end, well-designed office spaces, while others have sprung up organically around certain professions. One take on the idea is called Jelly. Jellies are informal “ad hoc work-togethers” that started in New York City in 2006 (Jones et al, 2009). The idea is that you invite other freelancers to your house (or a café or other wired location) to get on the wireless network so you can each do your own thing together. Some people choose to co-work every day in a given location, or rotating around a few locations, while others choose to work mainly from the house, coworking or attending jellies only occasionally. In any case, the fundamental idea is that “you are not alone”. A little community can go a long way, and there are several cases of coworking partners putting their heads together to create new services, websites etc. (Read I’m Outta Here by Drew Jones et al for a complete introduction to coworking).

I find the whole idea very exciting, and I imagine this might be exciting (or at least interesting) for many of JetWit’s self-employed readers. The idea seems to be pretty much off the radar in Japan, so I am collecting information on co-working with the hopes of getting a community together in Fukuoka in the not too distant future. Rising unemployment (i.e. more potential self-employment), falling rents, and government stimulus initiatives are just a few factors that I think may catalyze the coworking movement going forward. I’ll be keeping a close eye on these trends, and feel free to drop me a line with any information you may have. If you’re in Fukuoka, let’s grab a coffee and talk shop.

No matter how you choose to work, nothing is more important than staying balanced, healthy and happy. And now that that’s done, I better get back to my translations.

Reference:

Drew Jones, Todd Sunsted and Tony Bacigalupo. I’m Outta Here: How coworking is making the office obsolete. Not an MBA Press. Austin, TX. 2009.

Links:

Coworking Google Group

http://groups.google.com/group/coworking

I’m Outta Here E-Book

http://www.imouttaherethebook.com/

Coworking Wiki

http://coworking.pbwiki.com/

Web Worker Daily

http://webworkerdaily.com/

Independents Hall, Philly

http://www.indyhall.org

CoLab Tokyo

http://co-lab.jp/about/index.html

Jelly

http://www.workatjelly.com