Ever been turned off by jargon?

Sometimes, unfamiliar words can keep us from embracing a new concept that might actually work for us, if we knew more about it.

If you’ve been following our Facebook Buzzword series, you’ll know that we’re on a mini mission to demystify some jargon you might hear around the growing coworking movement.

In this blog, we’ll look at four phrases that get to the heart of why Ground Floor exists.

1) COWORKING

In case you’re finding Ground Floor for the first time through this blog, and you’ve never come across the concept of coworking before, let’s start with the word coworking itself.

A coworking space provides the kind of facilities that most offices have, such as the physical space to work, meeting rooms, printers and copiers, Internet, and reception and mail services. Who uses a coworking space? Small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and anyone who would like a space to work on a flexible or permanent basis.

It’s more than just an alternative to renting your own space or working from a room in your home, though. There are other benefits to a coworking space, like the networking and collaboration opportunities.

Most coworking spaces offer flexible options like daily drop-ins, monthly memberships, and even fixed desks and offices that you can access 24/7.

2) VIRTUAL OFFICE

This is one of our specific offerings at Ground Floor, so it’s useful to define virtual office here. It’s one of those phrases that gets used in different ways. Here, we use it to mean having the use of our business address for your business. We offer a business address, mail services, and a local phone number add-on as a separate service to spending time in our physical space.

You may choose a virtual office address because it works better for you than using your home address, or a PO Box, for your business. When potential clients check out your business, they’ll see a reputable business address; you can even use an image of our office frontage on your website if you like.

3) DIGITAL NOMADS

Do you know any digital nomads? These folks earn their living doing something that can be done over the Internet, and they choose to be location independent.

A digital nomad may have fixed contracts or may work more on a freelance basis, yet their lifestyle is variable because they can work from anywhere with an Internet connection. People who become digital nomads often do so for positive lifestyle reasons.

You may already know someone who spends winters in this area for the ski hills, or perhaps their summers here for golf or other outdoor pursuits. They might choose to work from home or in a coffee shop, and may design their working day around other activities.

Ground Floor is ideal for local or visiting nomads who need a full service, affordable office space to call home for a while.

4) LASTLY, SHARING ECONOMY

This is one of those umbrella terms to cover activities in the kind of open market that the Internet allows.

We include it here because it’s also known as collaborative economy, or peer economy. A sharing economy grows from peer-to-peer exchange, giving access to information, offering different kinds of choices, and open participation. There are small businesses and entrepreneurs out there, for example, trying out pay-from-the-heart pricing for some or all of their services, where the customer chooses the price.

For more mainstream examples of sharing economy activities, think AirBnb and Uber. Or, think Wikipedia and open source technology.

Ground Floor is all about nurturing a collaborative environment for entrepreneurs and businesses to thrive.

Try a day at Ground Floor for free and see what we’re all about. You might like us.