Last week, Shareable hosted the #FutureOfCoworking Twitter chat. Inspired by the depth and quality of conversation in the comments of my article, Look Out Coworking, Here Comes Big Money, the chat was a way to share ideas and experience, and continue learning from each other.

Among the participants were Iris Kavanagh from Coworking with Iris, Susan Dorsch and Jacob Sayles from Office Nomads, representatives from Workbar and NextSpace, Alex Hillman from Indy Hall, Shareable co-founder Neal Gorenflo, and Tony Bacigalupo from New Work Cities.

The conversation started with what initially drew people to coworking, and expanded from there to discuss how community-focused coworking spaces can be heard above the noise, how alliances can help support independent spaces, and some of the challenges that community coworking spaces face.

However, as many of the participants pointed out, they don’t see big coworking as a threat to community coworking. As Dorsch tweeted, “We compete with living rooms, not other #coworking spaces.” Hillman wrote, “‘Corporate coworking’ is a threat to coworking like McDonalds is a threat to the restaurant industry. (it’s not).” Bacigalupo advised: “The more you let the big dogs distract you, the more they win. Don't play by their rules. Just be amazing.”

Here’s a recap of the conversation:

Follow Shareable on Twitter @shareable for updates on upcoming Twitter chats.

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