Even hugely disruptive factors such as the proliferation of co-working space appear to be nothing more than an important new addition to the market.

The reasons for this attachment to creating places to bring people together are explored in typically lyrical fashion by the incomparable Neil Usher here. All that remains to add is that so long as people work on the same things and need to develop relationships, they’ll want to share physical space.

Source: For once and for all, please stop with this ‘death of the office’ stuff – Workplace Insight

Of course the office isn’t dead. Knowledge workers will continue to need them. However, the maturation of information and communication technology (ICT) in the 21st century is redefining the office. The office no longer has to be in high cost towers in urban centers — what I term in my book Last Rush Hour as centralized commuter offices or CCOs.

For example, the co-working office space to which the author refers enables knowledge workers to avoid the enormous personal cost of commuting to distant CCOs when these co-working facilities are located in their communities. There, they can serve multiple organizations and their members residing in a given community.

I concur with the author that people naturally want to develop relationships with their colleagues and ideally share physical space. But for knowledge workers, that’s not necessary on an 8-5, Monday through Friday basis. Much work can be done apart from colleagues along with the benefit of quiet concentration. Collaboration can be done via ICT and avoid the major expense and time suck of daily commuting.