Coworking's Cooperation Paradox
On the role of stigmergic curation
Coworking depends on cooperation among people who often arrive as strangers, work on separate projects, and have no formal obligation to help one another.
What the paper argues
The chapter argues that early coworking spaces solved part of this cooperation problem through stigmergic curation: traces, objects, sketches, events, posts, invitations, and spatial cues that helped members coordinate without needing central planning.
The paradox is that coworking celebrates spontaneous community, but that spontaneity is supported by careful curation of the physical and digital environment. Cooperation emerges because the setting is made editable, visible, and socially legible.
Core mechanism: Stigmergic curation: cooperation through traces, cues, and editable shared environments
Why it matters
The chapter matters for any organisation trying to support collaborative work without over-managing it. People cooperate more easily when environments carry useful signals and invite small acts of contribution.
Designing for cooperation
This chapter connects the ethnographic coworking work to later product and interface thinking: how environments coordinate action without needing constant managerial instruction.
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