{"id":23668,"date":"2013-05-10T12:51:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T16:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/?p=23668"},"modified":"2013-05-13T16:31:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T20:31:35","slug":"coworking-and-collaborative-workspaces-for-creative-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/coworking-and-collaborative-workspaces-for-creative-professionals\/","title":{"rendered":"Coworking and Collaborative Workspaces for Creative Professionals"},"content":{"rendered":"

In building your production or post production business choosing whether to get an office can be a costly decision. Here are 5 reasons why you don’t need an office but shouldn’t work from home.<\/h2>\n

If you’re a lone freelancer just starting out or a growing team of collaborating professionals, then getting an office space can feel like the next step in seeing your business really grow up<\/strong>. And while there are many benefits to renting office space, depending on the nature of your business and how you most commonly interact with your clients, it doesn’t have to be the only way to move your business out of the home\/garage\/shed\/attic\/bedroom it’s currently in. Here are a few thoughts on why you may need to get your business out of the house and into the big wide world.<\/p>\n

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\nImage from MargayCoffee.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

2 Good Reasons Not to Work From Home<\/h3>\n

As someone who works from home very regularly I love it. I’m productive, focused and (fairly) good at switching off from work at the end of the day. Hoever,\u00a0I know plenty of people who hate working from home.<\/strong> They find it lonely, isolating, tough to knuckle down and get work done or find it hard to maintain a ‘don’t bring your work home with you mentality’. \u00a0It becomes too easy to spend just another hour or two getting that last little bit of work done…when you should be giving yourself a break.<\/p>\n

Deciding whether or not to work from home really depends on your personality<\/strong> and also what your home is like (if you live next to a school, building site or fried chicken shop it might not be the most tranquil of environments). \u00a0Failing to make good choices based on what works best for you could really hamper your career and the day to day enjoyment of your working life.<\/p>\n

Secondly, working from home is really less than ideal for some clients. If you’re a freelancer working out of your bedroom,\u00a0having your client sit on your bed while you review the project is probably not cool<\/strong>. If they’re a friend, they might not care, but it certainly doesn’t communicate a professional vibe.<\/p>\n

For a lot of my clients a remote review with Dropbox’d files works just fine. For attended edits, I prefer to work in my clients offices\/studios, as it tends to speed up the process of signing off final details and getting graphics\/logos and other client supplied assets sorted out much quicker. Whatever you do, the need for a ‘professional space’ will hopefully arise sooner rather than later.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So if you shouldn’t work from home, then where should you work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 Reasons Not to Get an Office<\/h3>\n

One of the main reasons not to spring for a brand new office space,<\/strong>\u00a0replete\u00a0with leather sofas and framed movie posters, is that it is an expensive and a long term\u00a0commitment\u00a0to take on. Yes it will provide you with the space you need to grow, entertain clients and store all your expensive equipment but it also represents a fixed cost you will need to meet every month, even if times are slow. If you are thinking of renting office space make sure you factor in things like insurance, heating and electricity bills, cleaning, Internet, furniture costs, etc, etc. \u00a0All of these costs need to be covered in part, by each and every project you budget for. \u00a0They can ultimately be eating into your profit margin if not carefully accounted for.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"professionalImage from Dept of Coffee and Social Affairs<\/a>, a great London based workspace.<\/em><\/p>\n

A businessman friend of mine vows never to own an office because he feels that its an incredibly\u00a0inefficient\u00a0way to own space. First of all you’re paying for it 24\/7\/365 even though you may only be in there (if you’re lucky!) 8-10 hours a day and not on weekends or holidays etc. He dislikes the idea of paying for that space when he’s not using it.<\/p>\n

Instead he has a collection of a wide variety of hotels, clubs, bars, cafes, restaurants and ‘meeting-spaces’ scattered all over town<\/strong>\u00a0which he draws upon depending on the occasion:<\/p>\n