The stats are in and proving coworking is more than a global trend, it’s an international phenomenon. According to an article released earlier today by Coworking Resources, in 2020, 40 percent of coworking members will be freelancers, independent contractors and part-time workers. These members range from the usual digital nomads, to startups, small businesses and even healthcare professionals and lawyers. And by 2022, there will be over one million coworking members in the U.S. alone and over six thousand spaces in the U.S. Can you believe it? What is even better is those who are leading this exponential growth are independent business owners and entrepreneurs entering the market for the first time such as our owner JD Haase.

Bringing the coworking concept to Bowling Green was a decision made to fulfill a need that was becoming more apparent. People are starting to need more flexible work environments to get their work done in. Not only are they needing it, they are wanting a more collaborative, productive space to work from instead of a traditional office. Corporate companies and enterprises such as Microsoft, Verizon and IBM are jumping on board with coworking as well by having some of their teams stationed in cowork spaces to promote creative thinking as well as innovation. So it is not just freelancers or digital nomads who are occupying our space which is the beauty of Ment – we welcome all industries big and small.

So, what changed and where did this need to kick the 9 to 5 M-F office job out the door come from? One big reason is the cultural shift to mobility however, some would say it is the millennial generation who shifted the workplace. A generation of questions being asked, working diligently in our own way and on our own time while constantly hustling on the side. A generation of change and it just so happens that this certain shift is being picked up and widely accepted across the world.

Though seen as millennial driven, all generations are partaking and adding to the accelerated serendipity that occurs in these types of spaces. A small business owner could bump into their new PR firm at the coffee station, their new graphic designer in the cowork lounge and then even their new legal representative in the next office over – accelerated serendipity. We can see why it has become an international phenomenon – it’s a one-stop-shop!

If you would like to see for yourself, swing by any time for a free tour and trial day. We have the space, you bring the ideas.

Article Used: https://www.coworkingresources.org/blog

Video Used: How coworking is changing how and where we work 

It was two lines from an Observer article on coworking that made a lightbulb go off: One solution is for coworking spaces to trade on their own brands instead of the word “coworking.” Another would be for the coworking purists to come up with a new way to describe what it is they do so they don’t get lumped in with the rent-a-cubes. 

Our space has been under construction since December 2017. The team did an amazing job with a complete renovation wrapping up right about the time I was brought on board back in April. I knew my job would be fun because the great work everyone did would easily sell itself. So, I had a finished coworking space, it was like nowhere and no other concept I had ever seen in Bowling Green and it was sitting empty as my own little hidden treasure. We obviously did not want to keep it that way but we needed a name and a brand that reflected the space because it is exactly what makes us unique.

While researching names, I came across many great articles about coworking concepts and what has worked for others, but none struck me like the one above did. To trade on our own brand, which was not even established yet, meant that I needed to come up with what made our space desirable and efficient as a coworking space and then sell that. Following my online research, I asked our interior designer (Sarah Smalling Interiors) to give me the words she would use to describe our space:

Knowing that we wanted to stick with a four letter word, I began digging. These words fresh, elemental, biophilic, oldly enough began to remind me of a mint leaf. So for about a day, I let Mint cowork pay around in my head. “Mint Cowork, Cowork Mint, The Mint, I’m going to Mint.” All of this I kept practicing saying to see if it would work. Then I went back to the drawing board. What if I used ment instead? It is in so many of the words our space brings to life: achievement, commitment, advancement, enjoyment, refreshment, compliment, and elemental as Sarah stated.

And so we had it! Ment Cowork, where you can enjoy the ‘ment within a community for the success of your idea. It is a play on words but more importantly, it is a representation of what we aim to give our members. We want to give you a space to succeed in and achieve those actions that can be turned into real people, places and things. It is what the suffix ment does to words and it is what you can do to your career. It’s as simple as that and I like to believe it’s just ment to be. 

Written by: Hayley Hoback, Community Manager