Top Trend 2010 #4: Coworking and Startup Incubation

I think that 2010 will be the year that coworking environments become a mainstay of professional life and in which place-basd models of startup incubation continue to mature and expand.

As the internet has become a more omnipresent force in our lives, the desire to find settings for real human contact has likewise increased. The last few years have seen an explosion of co-working spaces, and the recognized value of physical proximity has increasingly jumped into the world of startup funding.

Thus far, coworking has been largely centered in places like San Francisco and New York City with a high number of independent, creative professionals. As more and more of the economy goes digital and more and more people turn to self-employment, I believe that you'll see these spaces outside of those tech hubs, as well.

What's more, I believe that the conversation between coworking as a place-based professional style and incubator programs as a path to seed funding will grow more and more vibrant.

Case in point: The forthcoming Unreasonable Institute is part education program, part immersive coworking environment, and part seed funder. What all of it's pieces have in common is a quest for a social density that creates new synergies between enterprise founders and new opportunities for exchange.

In some ways, coworking makes even more practical business sense in the social entrepreneurship space than in other fields. Social entrepreneurs tend to need lots of diverse resources from a lot of different places to make their projects work. Shared work space is an incredible way to build that social capital.

There are certainly some leading actors in this space. The global Hub network, for example, is poised to continue to grow in 2010, and is already experimenting with a different version of seed funding and incubation.

Indeed, The Hub's partnership with Village Capital to run a West Coast Seed fund, and the Unreasonable Institute's partnership with just about everyone to do everything, demonstrate how the notion of shared space is impacting actual organizational models, as well.

(Photo: @citizenspace by hyku)