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I think that 2010 will be the year that coworking environments become a mainstay of professional life and in which place-basd models of startup incubation continue to mature and expand.

As the internet has become a more omnipresent force in our lives, the desire to find settings for real human contact has likewise increased. The last few years have seen an explosion of co-working spaces, and the recognized value of physical proximity has increasingly jumped into the world of startup funding.

Thus far, coworking has been largely centered in places like San Francisco and New York City with a high number of independent, creative professionals. As more and more of the economy goes digital and more and more people turn to self-employment, I believe that you'll see these spaces outside of those tech hubs, as well.

What's more, I believe that the conversation between coworking as a place-based professional style and incubator programs as a path to seed funding will grow more and more vibrant.

Case in point: The forthcoming Unreasonable Institute is part education program, part immersive coworking environment, and part seed funder. What all of it's pieces have in common is a quest for a social density that creates new synergies between enterprise founders and new opportunities for exchange.

In some ways, coworking makes even more practical business sense in the social entrepreneurship space than in other fields. Social entrepreneurs tend to need lots of diverse resources from a lot of different places to make their projects work. Shared work space is an incredible way to build that social capital.

There are certainly some leading actors in this space. The global Hub network, for example, is poised to continue to grow in 2010, and is already experimenting with a different version of seed funding and incubation.

Indeed, The Hub's partnership with Village Capital to run a West Coast Seed fund, and the Unreasonable Institute's partnership with just about everyone to do everything, demonstrate how the notion of shared space is impacting actual organizational models, as well.

Telecommuters, entrepreneurs, and the self-employed all grapple with the logistical challenges of working alone. At home, workers face isolation and domestic distraction. At the corner coffee shop offering free Wi-Fi, there's insufficient privacy, too few electrical outlets and the nuisance of latte orders shouted out through the day.

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Dan Picasso

A growing number of workers face these hassles every day. As of November 2009, there were nine million self-employed workers in the U.S., according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Meanwhile, the volume of workers telecommuting at least once a month for employers grew 17% between 2006 and 2008, to 33.7 million workers, according to WorldatWork, a human-resources research firm in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Telecommuting has grown more widespread among full-time workers due to technology advances and corporate efforts to drive down overhead by lowering real-estate costs, says Cindy Auten, general manager of Telework Exchange, a telecommuting research organization in Alexandria, Va. "Organizations are starting to see the benefits of telecommuting for the bottom line," Ms. Auten says. "The ability to work offsite is even a recruitment tool."

For those who lack a conventional office, shared, or "coworking," spaces promise to solve some of the dilemmas of working alone. These facilities provide environments where professional nomads can work in relative quiet and even socialize around the coffee pot, or copier.

Just how well could we "cowork"? To find out, we took laptop and cellphone to four facilities in four cities, Office Nomads in Seattle; Souk in Portland, Ore.; The Coop in Chicago; and New Work City in Manhattan. All four are located in popular neighborhoods near public transit.

The facilities offered a variety of pricing plans ranging from day rates for the noncommittal to full-time 24-hour access memberships. Aside from solo workstations, they all also offered free high-speed Internet connections, free coffee, whiteboards and areas (with beanbag chairs) for small group brainstorming sessions, restrooms, lockers or storage, and light office amenities such as copiers.

Reservations weren't required at any of the spaces, but were available at Souk and are forthcoming at New Work City.

All the facilities belonged to the "Coworking Visa" program, which lets members in participating coworking spaces use partner spaces elsewhere when traveling.

All also offered first-come/first-serve use of conference rooms for quick private chats or calls. At Souk, you could pay to reserve conference rooms for formal meetings or longer uses.

The Coop, located in Chicago's West Loop area, was the smallest space we tested, with desk-top spaces pushed up against one another without dividers.

We visited twice during the week—on a Wednesday and Thursday—and appreciated that a few workers—an accountant and a consultant—greeted us. Working in a formal office motivated us more to work and we appreciated the comfy black leather chairs and good lighting. But the lack of barriers between desks meant we could see coworkers' computer screens, and vice versa.

We were unsure of phone etiquette, but learned it was acceptable to make calls in the open when coworkers conducted job interviews and client meetings over the phone. While slightly distracting, the open-air calls were no worse than in a conventional office.

Manhattan's New Work City, on the edge of SoHo, was on the compact side. The space had a 20-worker capacity and didn't take reservations when we called, but the owner said a reservation systems is in the works. After check-in, we snagged one of the few remaining spots. We appreciated that our work space was spacious and that coworkers seemed industrious. Some of the office denizens appeared familiar with one another and a bulletin board posted community news, but we didn't feel pressured to socialize.

Both coworking spaces we tried in the techie Northwest were bigger. Seattle's Office Nomads, located in youthful and artistic Capitol Hill, can accommodate several dozen workers with its mix of closed-door offices, open desks and lounge areas. Office Nomads didn't require a reservation and won't charge for the first visit. Office Nomads was well-lit, with abundant plugs and desk options.

Coworkers—as well as the site's founders—introduced themselves and offered help. We weren't sure if we visited on a particularly friendly day or if this was the norm. Office Nomads appeared to place an emphasis on creating a community for its members; there was a "State of the Nomads" monthly meeting at midday. A bulletin board listed in-house social options as well as visiting speakers slated to appear, and also featured quirky photos and fun facts about members. Office Nomads also offered the most extensive weekday hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

We made a reservation to use Souk, on the edge of Portland's Pearl District and Chinatown, for a Thursday. We were surprised at how quiet the space was, with less than 15 workers inhabiting a space sufficient for several dozen more. The friendly office manager checked us in, gave us a tour, and even made us an Americano coffee from the office cappuccino maker.

Souk offered the widest variety of work-space configurations. Full-time members could use enclosed offices, but less-frequent coworkers could choose from rolling desks in a large open room, a communal work table, or first-come/first-serve semi-private rooms with walls and sliding doors. We liked that rolling desks in the open room could be moved at coworkers' discretion—toward a wall for privacy, near a partner for collaboration. The open room also offered lightweight partitions for makeshift privacy. We chose a semi-private room. Noise was minimal, but we overheard some consultants and nonprofit sector types talking about work projects. Abstract art adorned the brick walls and furnishings included Herman Miller chairs and modern desks.

All in all, we liked coworking spaces. There were a few hitches, however. We needed to spend considerable time on the phone and felt uncomfortable discussing confidential matters publicly or hogging conference rooms. The other complication is that while coworking spaces guarantee and deliver a baseline of services, they also offer lots of extras based on loose rules. For instance, sometimes the facilities stay open later than posted hours and sometimes they don't, or conference rooms aren't always available.

For those of us with tight deadlines or plan-ahead mentalities, this can be stressful. But considering how cheap and flexible coworking is relative to a full-time lease—and the social perks—we don't have problems with this unpredictability.

6 Reasons to Start Coworking

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Alex Hillman is co-founder of IndyHall, a co-working space in Philadelphia, as well as an active leader in the global coworking community.

Mashable () has written about coworking before, but in case you’ve missed it: coworking is a global movement of localized mobile/remote worker communities coming together to share their otherwise independent work experiences. Lots of Mashable readers are remote workers and telecommuters, independents and freelancers, and might be thinking about coworking.

So you’ve heard about coworking, but don’t quite get it yet? Some of the coworkers around the world I’ve spoken to would agree that it’s something you need to experience to understand the value “beyond the desks.” That doesn’t mean I won’t try! Let’s take a look at some of the less talked about reasons why you might want to give coworking a shot.

1) You’re lonely

This is the most common issue that we discover the members of IndyHall are interested in combating. Working from home seems great, but for many people, it simply isn’t sustainable based on their personality types or professions. If you’re doing ANYTHING creative, you simply cannot be as effective in your solitude as you could be surrounded by other people being creative.

If you work at home and have good discipline for leaving the house, or heck, for putting on pants before company comes over, you’re very much in the minority. Getting out of the house is healthy.

Now, you’re saying, “I could just go to the local cafe! It’s free (or close to it with the purchase of enough coffee)!” Maybe, but there’s an important distinction between being surrounded by bodies, and surrounded by people. At a cafe, your odds of turning to the next person and asking them a question about Ruby on Rails, or who they follow on Twitter, is pretty low. Unless you’re in the Bay Area, of course. So those people around you? They’re bodies. Not coworkers. They’re there, but they probably don’t show you too much love.

Coworking is all about the community.

2) You need motivation

OK, so you went independent, or took a job telecommuting, so you could get away from the Bill Lumbergh in your life breathing down your neck. Has it increased your slackitude?

Again, if not…good for you. But you’re in the minority.

There’s something magical about working at a coworking space. When you are surrounded by other hard working people doing really cool, creative, interesting things that they love to do, you start to think to yourself “am I working on creative, interesting things that I love to do? I probably should…” and it amps up your productivity.

This plays into my point from reason #1 as well – you’re not nearly as likely to get motivated at a coffee shop.

3) You love to learn new things

My buddy Chris Messina coined the term “accelerating serendipity,” or the act of catalyzing things that would happen anyway, to happen faster. In a coworking space, there’s “accelerated educational serendipity”, or as I sometimes call it, “accidental learning”. Due to the open-air, discussion friendly format of most coworking setups, you find yourself exposed to lots of new things that you likely wouldn’t have otherwise. Be it a new technical skill, a new outlook on life, or a new opinion about a local restaurant…you’re always learning.

Working in a coworking space is as close to learning by osmosis as you’ll ever get. Even though you can’t study for an exam by sleeping under a textbook, you can almost certainly learn something by taking out your iPhone earbuds and listening in to the conversation in the room.

Think about coworking like an offline manifestation of an online forum. Everyone comes for a slightly different purpose but has some goal in common. Over the course of a day there are many different topics. You can either jump in on a topic you’re interested in, lurk and observe, or start another one if you’re uninterested. There’s a “search” function you can take advantage of by asking a room full of diversely knowledgeable people a question.

And inevitably, there’s an off-topic thread. And almost no flaming. Almost.

4) You have no idea what’s going on in your region

During the year we spent discovering and interacting with the various communities in Philadelphia prior to opening the doors to IndyHall, we were involved in a number of events. Some of the events were social, some were educational. Some were user groups, some were informal happy hours. Some were small get-togethers, some were larger “unconferences.”

Once we started doing things that encouraged the cross pollination of these existing communities, the most common response was, “I had no idea how much was going on in my own backyard!” People got really excited when they learned that they had things in common with their neighbors.

There’s a lot of benefit to knowing what your neighbors are up to. It might be cool. It might be something you need. It might be something you already use. It might be something that you want to get involved with.

Coworking allows for that sort of interaction to happen every single day. It’s like a permanent show and tell, for adults.

Also, think of this from an economic development standpoint. Wouldn’t you like your region to be richer with activity and more visible to the rest of the world? Coworking might be the platform you need for your town to get discovered. There’s already countless projects that have gained international recognition that were born in coworking spaces and benefited from the local support.

5) Your work/life balance is out of whack

This was a big one for me. I left my job and found myself with the best problem any freelancer could have: I had more work than I could do in a 40 hour week. That’s when I walked right up the slippery slope that is never being able to leave your job. When your office is in your bedroom, it’s easy to get up in the middle of the night, walk to the kitchen for a glass of water, and catch yourself checking your email for an hour.

Don’t lie. You know you’ve done it.

This is not only unhealthy for you, but for your client relationships. If you’re responding to email at 4am, they assume that if they send email at 4am, you’re going to get it. And if you’ve got a live-in significant other or spouse, there’s a good chance you’re hurting your relationship, too. So if you don’t do it for yourself, do it for them.

The ability to leave my computer “at work” is amazing. I’m still a self-admitted information addict and my iPhone acts as the methadone to get me through long stretches (even some weekends).

6) Sharing of resources is RAD

So this one’s pretty obvious, in theory: most people can’t afford their own office space, or it doesn’t make sense to spend all that dough even if they could. The ability to share the cost of typical office amenities is a pretty obvious benefit.

But what about other cost sharing? How about large equipment buys? Subscriptions that are discounted for groups? Depending on your region, potential for group healthcare? What if you’ve got a bunch of video people, they can share the cost of otherwise expensive production equipment.

And don’t forget HUMANS as resources! The diverse set of human skills is ripe for cross-coworker pollination of projects and opportunities. Collaborations rooted in coworking are practically inevitable. Remember, you’ve joined a room full of motivated, independent, creative thinkers. Given some free time, who knows what they’re going to come up with.

This one’s limited only to your creativity, your connections, and your community’s interests. Hop to it.

But what about…

These are only 6 of my favorite reasons for being involved in coworking, as the co-owner and co-founder of a space in Philadelphia called IndyHall, and an active leader/participant in the global coworking community.

Hot-desks and flex-offices serve a purpose, but to some degree, are designed for solidarity in similar ways to cafe-working is. Never mind the fact that their price points aren’t designed for cash-conscious independents.

Coworking is different. Operating a shared office space as a clubhouse for a community changes the game, and affords you endless opportunities for improving yourself as a professional, and putting your region on the map.

Check the coworking wiki to see if coworking is going on near you. No coworking space? Get started with a local Jelly chapter. Jelly is like coworking, but casual and nomadic. Think about the fun of crashing a cafe, someone’s living room, or anywhere that’s got wifi and comfy seats, with a bunch of friends and coworking for the day. It’s the ideal precursor to coworking, and a great way to start at the right place: the community.

Already involved in coworking from your city? Give your space a shout out in the comments and let us know your favorite part about working there.

Alex Hillman is a community strategy consultant and entrepreneur based in sunny Philadelphia. Alex has led and evangelized the coworking movement with the co-founding of Philly-based Independents Hall, a collaborative community focused on mixing social interaction with shared office space. Since opening the space, Alex has assisted a number of other similar group leaders in focusing and energizing their efforts. Visit Alex’s blog, Dangerouslyawesome.com or find him on Twitter ().