This month, I attended a meet-up at Fishburners. It is the second co-working space I have visited for a meet-up. My app marketing meet-up has been happening in the Salt Space. So I started thinking about the co-working spaces that are available in and around Brisbane. I mean, working from home is great when you are working independently or just starting-up. But a lot of people quickly discover that the isolation gets to them. Of course, co-working spaces have their pitfalls, but a carefully selected co-working space can be a great investment. Especially if it also comes with a community that promotes engagement with other users of the space.

So I decided to do a little research on the coworking spaces in Brisbane and came up with the table below, comparing the cost per month, along with highlighting if you can get a dedicated desk at the space and perhaps more importantly if there is an explicit community attached to the working space. I mean, if you put yourself out there, you'll make friends in any shared environment. But some coworking spaces, like River City Labs, explicitly promote engagement with the community.

Comparison of coworking spaces in Brisbane

Community engagement can be the most important part of joining one of these co-working spaces, but only if you are willing to put in the extra effort to be social. But I think that if you wanted if you just wanted a quiet space to work because you are sick of your home office. Th State Library's Business Studio space might just do, although the State Library is also trying to build a community around its space.

Of course, with the community, you also have to make sure it's the right community. The Coterie and Liquid Space, for example, seem to be more geared towards creative types. So tech start-ups might not get a lot of bang for their buck if they decide to rent space within those coworking spaces but would probably get more out of the community at River City Labs or Fishburners. The other way to look at it is that if you float around different co-working spaces with the various communities, it might stop you from going into your bubble and become blinkered. A lot of these spaces offer day passes and casual passes. So I would certainly advise maybe varying it up from time to time.

As for me, I am going to make an effort to work out of the State Libraries Business Studio for at least a day or two in the coming month. I love my home office, but it can only help me to work from a different location from time to time!