I attended Town Hall Seattle tonight to listen to Dan Pink talk about “What really motivates us”. Dan’s the author a bunch of books, his latest called “Drive”. Dan focused in on three things during his presentation: 1) Autonony, 2) Mastery, and 3) Purpose. I could go into details, but, I wanted to focus in on one word that Dan mentioned during his presentation, “coworking”.
After the presentation, I went to get my book signed and had a quick conversation with Dan.  I brought up the topic “coworking” with him again and…
Dan: “Coworking is totally cool and it’s definitely on to something. It’s a great time to be doing it. Does it (coworking) answer the question about people looking for affinity?”
Peter: “yes, it’s all about the natural affinity for passion and inspiration that brings entrepreneurs together. We all feed off the energy of each other which is why so many people that had home-based businesses become thinkspace members.”
Dan: “It’s more than simply real estate, interesting!”
Peter: “Yes, I don’t even talk about the four walls, because, it’s about the community of the space.”
For me that was an amazing connection! I wish I would have had more time to ask him his perspective about what makes people motivated to be a part of coworking community.
Here’s my take on why people are motivated to be a part of this community. Solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, home-based businesses many if not most have complete autonomy to define the vision and path that business will go. Entrepreneurs don’t lack motivation, it’s just a matter of being able to sustain it. I definitely don’t lack motivation, but, sustaining it year after year inside my house was impossible. This is one of the reasons why I feel thinkspace exists, so there could be place where entrepreneurs could feed off the crazy energy created by everyone else who is inspired to build a successful business. Another reason is the collaboration aspects, being able to bounce ideas off of others — sharing those idea gives me the feedback to create a better product and provide better services as well as come up with new ideas. So here’s my shout out to Dan, what do you think?