Coworking connects entrepreneurs through shared office spaces
When Christopher Charlesworth’s crowdfunding business HiveWire started ramping up, he realized it no longer made sense to run the business out of his condo.
So two years ago, he rented four desks in the Centre for Social Innovation’s Spadina Ave. coworking space, one of more than 20 such facilities in the Greater Toronto Area.
Located between Dundas St. W. and Queen St. W., CSI Spadina has temporary and permanent workspaces in two renovated floors of an old building with plenty of light and exposed brick and beams. It is one of three CSI locations in Toronto.
Coworking is a growing trend among the self-employed. It allows people to work at their own businesses in a shared space with common resources. The major attraction for people like Charlesworth, an MBA graduate from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, is that unlike traditional rented office space, the arrangement is flexible and there are plenty of chances for networking.
“I didn’t have to sign a lease,” says Charlesworth, who previously headed the undergraduate recruitment program at the University of Western Ontario. “I can easily arrange meeting space or rent additional desks. Because there is such a wide diversity of organizations and individuals you end up connecting with people you wouldn’t ordinarily meet.”