Article by Arron Hiddleston
The life of a digital nomad is attractive to many young people, but it can also be exhausting. Living on the move, lack of a firm professional community and constant struggle to get a reliable Wi-Fi and respectable coffee. Still, there is a flickering light on the horizon. Coworking spaces offer digital nomads a unique and empowering professional have on their travels. They provide a forum for feedback and exchange of ideas, spark new network connections and most of all, offer fellowship.
Everyone needs a home
Even the most hardened digital drifters need a home now and then to replenish their ideas and stay in touch with the trends. It seems that coworking spaces are just what they need. For a small fee, these unique workspaces provide a ‘remote wilderness camps’ where these digital travellers can do business in a professional setting, choosing between cubicles, open tables or private conference rooms.
Liberty in choosing
Coworking spaces like Mokrin House encourage like-minded entrepreneurs and other professionals to compare their ideas and seek real-time feedback on their projects. An interesting feature is that unlike in home offices, where these matters are outside their control, digital nomads have an opportunity to observe other individuals at work before they decide if they want to work with them. Liberated from often unavoidable corporate associations, digital nomads are free to look out for others whose work and ideas they admire. For such individuals, the ability to select partners based on interpersonal relations, talent and objectivity is what draws them to coworking spaces.
Brick & mortar ports of call
The rejection of a permanent office and position is what motivates these globetrotting professionals to do their business from coffee, shops, hotel rooms or breezy beach bars. However, although smartphones, tablets and laptops are sufficient to keep their business running while on the road by providing essential lifelines to professional and personal contacts, nomads still need to print and scan documents like the rest of us ‘mortals’. Coworking spaces provide a simple and instant solution when less portable technology is needed.
Places of recharge and inspiration
One thing that also attracts digital nomads to travel from one side of the world to the other is the desire to explore new working spaces and cultures. For example, Mokrin House in the north of Serbia has an attractive urban outline in a rural surrounding. Besides spacious desks and comfy coworking area, they offer delicious homemade meals and a bed for a weary nomad. Coworking spaces in Australia, on the other hand, place a big emphasis on the community, holding Friday night beer and pitching events. Australians seem to favour the now very trendy industrial chic office design, with board floors, brick walls, drafting lamps and office chairs Sydney suppliers offer.
Sense of belonging
In the company of like-minded, similarly dislocated professionals, digital nomads can find the support for their beliefs, camaraderie and a sense of community that is built on connection and professional brotherhood. Associations and interactions that digital nomads can only experience within a coworking environment provide much needed socialization that office-bound workers often underestimate or at the best take for granted. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that by converging on the local coworking environment, nomads usually achieve productivity and motivation levels much higher than when they are isolated.
A global network
Aside from the immediate benefits of productive coworking environment, social communities and professional feedback, coworking spaces expand already existing networks and provide a level of global association hardly achievable when confined to a permanent office. Your professional opportunities increase greatly if you meet your contacts in coworking spaces than in back-home bars or restaurants.
For a digital nomad seeking refuge and respite from busy airport terminals, cafes besieged by tourists and shady hotel rooms, a coworking environment is a clean, well-lighted place that offers a welcome change from isolation that inevitably follows working and traveling alone.
