Introduction

This chapter argues that collaborative spaces research must transcend the single-space focus that continues to strongly characterize our field and the way in which empirical data are collected. We propose that, by tracing and analyzing patterns of networked creativity – essentially, sequences of interactions and changes to an emerging idea or project that unfold across a range of offline and online locations – scholars will be able to render visible how mobile individuals and teams actually utilize (and potentially benefit from) diverse work infrastructures (Toivonen & Sørensen, 2018).

The chapter begins with a brief review of pertinent gaps in the collaborative spaces literature, after which we explore one entrepreneur’s “mad dash” through several collaborative spaces in the course of a single day. Our chapter then defines and explains the notion of networked creativity in more detail (as a concept and methodology). Next, we consider why it is so important, also from a practical policy perspective, to carefully trace real-world journeys through the new hybrid – digital, material, and social – infrastructures of work. In conclusion, the chapter distills key implications for researchers as well as practitioners in the collaborative spaces field.

The overarching objective of our chapter is to present a new methodology for collecting data about the creative process in and around collaborative spaces while arguing throughout that the field needs to transcend its single-space focus so as to better understand the value and dynamics of new collaborative organizations.

Blind spots in collaborative spaces research

Notwithstanding many recent advances, research on collaborative spaces and infrastructures continues to be marked by certain blind spots that limit our understanding of the roles such spaces can play. Most scholarship in this (multi-disciplinary) area still focuses either on defining, describing, and categorizing different types of collaborative spaces – innovation labs, coworking hubs, corporate coworking spaces, makerspaces, and the like (Bouncken et al., 2018; Toivonen & Friederici, 2015) – or on exploring the organizational dynamics of emerging collaborative intermediaries (Barley & Kunda, 2006; Capdevila, 2015; Garrett et al., 2017). Attention has also been paid to the relationship of collaborative spaces and flexible, precarious types of work as well as labor markets (Butcher, 2018), and to larger clusters and ecosystems co-constituted by such spaces (Goswami et al., 2018). Whereas some relevant work has explored mobile working, this work tends to focus on single-organization case studies emphasizing organizational efficiency rather than creativity (Felstead et al., 2005, 2007; Sørensen, 2020). The upshot is that scholars have overwhelmingly adopted a single-space focus when it comes to understanding how collaborative spaces catalyze social interactions that have the potential to shape creative and innovative processes. This bounded single-space focus is seen even in studies that examine multiple cases (Jakonen et al., 2017), for such studies rarely observe how an innovative process may flow across several locations or communities (in other words, they examine each space as a bounded entity without much attention to wider patterns of mobility, idea development, or interactions). However, the complex interactions between humans moving across spaces, engaging in meetings, coordinating through a variety of services and technologies, can be characterized as an infrastructure of work (Dourish & Bell, 2007) that is much wider and more distributed than the literature presumes.

As a result of this orientation, scholars and other analysts have largely missed how actual creative workers move through multiple spaces and engage in a variety of interactions in the course of their day-to-day activities, in contexts where an abundance of collaborative spaces exists and innovators can relatively freely choose which communities or spaces they wish to access. In the era of networked individualism (Rainie & Wellman, 2012) and new technology-enabled urban mobilities (Bassoli et al., 2007; Kakihara & Sørensen, 2002; Sheller & Urry, 2006; Yoo, 2010), it is the rule rather than the exception that individuals – as well as teams – belong to multiple networks, participate in multiple communities, interact with multiple diverse peers and mentors across multiple online and offline spaces, and move frequently between multiple physical locations locally and globally. Without accounting for such myriad affiliations, mobilities, spaces, and the interactions that span them, how can we ever hope to adequately and holistically grasp the role that collaborative spaces do or can play within the real lives of users and members?

This lack of attention to potentially mobile patterns of use in the context of personal (or team-led) idea journeys and wider infrastructures has arguably narrowed and constrained our understanding of collaborative spaces. Once again, the field has maintained a single-space, single-location focus based on the assumption that each collaborative space is a relatively bounded entity, presuming that it is more important to give analytical primacy to such entities rather than to how they (may) feature along the actual – far more expansive and mobile – lives and creative journeys of their users. This may have produced detrimental consequences by nudging collaborative space founders, designers, and managers toward myopic thinking, making it hard to set their own spaces in a realistic context. Also, limitations in research may have made it harder for policy-makers to grasp the full potential of how the collaborative spaces sector can create value for cities and how it could be best supported and regulated. It is one thing to assess and evaluate, say, how a sense of community (e.g., Garrett et al., 2017) emerges within the boundaries of a single collaborative space (as important and informative as such research can be). It is another thing entirely to follow how actual creative, innovative workers flow through and interact at multiple locations both offline and online, in the course of their daily lives, while generating, elaborating, championing, and implementing new ideas (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017).

Only by transcending the single-space focus can we begin to comprehend how the myriad interactions that creatives (a category in which we include all entrepreneurs, designers, and others engaged in developing new ideas and projects) engage in come together to shape the nature of their generative work. We must be open to the possibility that the single collaborative space, or community may in fact matter far less for the average participant than scholars in the field might have previously assumed. Or, each space may matter differently to the creative journeys they seek to support, contesting established expectations. Without enlarging our analytical approach while embracing certain methodological innovations, we simply will not be able to shed light on these questions.

There are other theoretical biases in research on collaborative spaces – as well as in organizational science and the social sciences more generally – that have obscured the ways in which creativity itself operates within modern workscapes that comprise collaborative, place-based communities as well as complex (and constantly evolving) digital infrastructures, with mobile individuals at the center. Most pertinently, we simply do not have a shared theoretical lens or vocabulary that could adequately capture the way in which creativity unfolds, as a mobile social process, in the fluid context surrounding collaborative spaces. Should we predominantly seek for instances of “collective,” “individual,” or perhaps “group” creativity here, or should we lump all of what goes on under the (rather blurry) umbrella terms of “collaboration” or “co-creation”? Would we be better off focusing perhaps on untethered “encounters” and related situations on their own (Jakonen et al., 2017)? None of these terms seem sufficient or accurate in light of the individualized-yet-social realities just described, either because they propose artificial boundaries between individual and collective varieties of creativity, or because they are too imprecise analytically and unfruitful in terms of theory generation.

This chapter takes a step toward resolving the above challenges – namely, the myopic single-space focus that has blinded us to actual (boundary-crossing) patterns of use, and the lack of a suitable conceptual framework for interaction-driven creativity amid high levels of mobility – by building on our recent research. We have been pursuing this empirical work since 2016, seeking to capture the creative interactions and journeys of early-stage entrepreneurs in London so as to uncover hidden patterns and phenomena, including what happens when creators unexpectedly receive existentially threatening feedback from authoritative experts and mentors (Toivonen et al., 2019). The original ambition of this research was to observe, in unprecedented detail and over a period of one year, the development of our research subjects’ business models (i.e., their focal creative ideas) and how their journeys come to be shaped by the interactions they engaged in along the way, with mentors, peers, experts, and many others. At the outset of this endeavor, we accepted that creative interactions could come in myriad forms and have multiple dimensions as well as consequences, which is why we adopted an open-ended approach that could capture such variety, making use of semi-structured interviews. By choosing participants who were members at a coworking space at the start of the study, we sought to ensure that our empirical results could shed light on how they benefitted – or failed to benefit – from such spaces in the broader context of their specific activities (as opposed to cataloging the ways in which a particular space benefits all of its members in a general or typical sense). Our methodology and the data collection methods it incorporates (outlined below and described in more detailed and plain-language terms in the Appendix) draws inspiration from connective ethnography, economic geography, organizational creativity research, and Actor-Network Theory (ANT).

While at the time of writing this chapter we were still engaged deeply in distilling our findings (analyzing 85 in-depth interviews, in addition to hundreds of mobile innovation diary entries and short telephone interview transcripts), in this short chapter, we share key examples from our research, showing how mobile creative work patterns play out across collaborative spaces while also outlining our methodology in a way that will be useful to other researchers and analysts currently designing their own inquiries. We start with a particularly dynamic episode where one entrepreneur we followed embarked on a “mad dash” through East London’s collaborative workspaces as he scrambled to survive immediate challenges to his emerging business.

We then unpack our methodological approach and explain how the notion of networked creativity can help us conceptualize – and empirically trace – the way in which creativity operates within the new hybrid infrastructures of work. We then take a step back and consider why it is important, from practical and policy perspectives, that we follow the journeys of actual creative workers through such complex and multi-layered infrastructures. In conclusion, we summarize the implications of this chapter for collaborative space researchers, leaders, and practitioners. We hope that readers engaged in similar research also note the Appendix where we explain in plain terms how we followed 12 entrepreneurial journeys over a period of approximately one year, including how we successfully committed the participants to a demanding longitudinal data collection process.

A theoretical note on our approach to creativity and creative interactions

The present chapter builds on organizational creativity research where “creativity” is generally defined as the generation of ideas, products, services, models, or processes that are novel and useful (Amabile, 1983). However, because novelty and usefulness are not necessarily apparent from the outset in each instance, for us creativity also refers to the process of how ideas are recombined into meaningful new forms (Stark, 2009) that may subsequently come to be recognized or judged as novel and useful. The crafting of new recombinations is driven by both social and psychological dynamics, often through interactions and focused moments of collective problem-solving (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006) at the dyadic or group levels. This is why we frequently speak of “creative interactions” in the present chapter. Furthermore, seen from a distance, the work of generating new combinations and turning them into innovations that are recognized as novel as well as useful unfolds within a long-winded process called the idea journey (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017). Broadly put, such journeys – that typically span several years – encompass the stages of idea generation, elaboration, championing, and implementation. When we speak of “tracing creative journeys” through the hybrid infrastructures of work, we refer first to this general notion of the idea journey (as opposed to, say, “the user journey” as commonly heard in some commercial coworking contexts, or some more evocative notion of a personal journey of discovery). We outline an original methodology for collecting data on and analyzing such journeys. We use “creative journey” and “idea journey” interchangeably.

The organizational creativity literature shows how interactions permeate every step of the creative journey, although in many respects the role and influence of interactions still remain only partially understood. What we do know is that interactions can move ideas forward, for instance, through providing resources, such as time and new information, that provoke divergent thinking and enlarge cognitive schema (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2014). Through interactions, creators can also receive feedback on more developed ideas, driving revision activity (George, 2007; Harrison & Rouse, 2015). Such evaluative feedback interactions can suggest whether and how an idea will work (Grimes, 2018), while also being generative in terms of sparking new thinking (Harvey & Kou, 2013). Financial and material resources, furthermore, are accessed through interactions, within various networks. Multiple strong reasons exist therefore for more centrally focusing on the nature, contents, and sequential patterns of human interactions – a significant share of which are now digitally mediated in one way or another – when researching creativity, collaboration, and related organizational settings or types.

One entrepreneur’s mad dash through East London’s collaborative infrastructures

Before setting out our methodological thinking and the concept of networked creativity in detail, we wish to illustrate its relevance through a short case narrative extracted from our longitudinal research. This brief narrative captures an important moment along Edward’s (a pseudonym) early-stage entrepreneurial journey. Although most of our field research in 2017 was conducted through regular face-to-face and phone interviews as well as a mobile phone app, we had the opportunity to shadow some of our research participants on particular days, with the goal of broadening our understanding of their work, interactions, and patterns of movement. In this specific case, we caught Edward on a day that would take him whirling through East London’s landscape of coworking hubs at a critical moment in the life of his emerging startup. At the time, he was parting ways with his co-founder and scrambling to address fundamental flaws that had been highlighted in his business model. The following vignette summarizes his activities and interactions on 11 May 2017, after which we discuss what this case teaches us about networked creativity.

This breath-taking day that unfolded across three main locations (a Tower Bridge coffee shop, a Work.Life space in London Fields, and a WeWork in Old Street), although unusually intense, illustrates perfectly the mobility of entrepreneurial workers and creators in large cities such as London. An interactive journey through East London’s urban landscape, this episode recasts collaborative communities as an interlinked infrastructure that offers conducive spaces for interaction as well as movement (although in this case, we did not focus on how new interactions are catalyzed at the local spatial and community levels). What becomes apparent is that it would make little sense to try to trace Edward’s creative journey within the bounds of his home hub (a WeWork in Old Street) – doing so would impose artificial boundaries on a process that spanned a long sequence of important interactions across multiple locations. What makes entirely more sense is investigating how particular coworking communities and other collaborative spaces co-shaped Edward’s idea journey, revealing how they facilitated or generated interactions that in turn influenced the progress of his central idea. Offering one case in point, the critical feedback from the affiliate marketing expert mentioned in the above vignette was received (through a spontaneous request) after an event Edward had attended at his previous coworking base – Runway East. As we unpacked Edward’s journey in detail, we came to understand that this single interaction had in fact served as a trigger to many other meetings he subsequently engaged in, having highlighted a potentially fatal flaw in his business-to-consumer (B2C) business model. Later on, we observed Edward’s efforts to first try to invalidate the critical feedback and then solve the problems it highlighted, by adding a new twist he had learned about from a colleague at an event nearby. It would have been all but impossible to understand and unpack how Edward was influenced by collaborative spaces had we adopted a conventional single-space focus.

Taking a further step back, Edward’s case helps us see very tangibly how entrepreneurs and other creators are fundamentally mobile. The interactions that shape the creative evolution of their core idea unfold, sometimes in surprising ways, across different locations and considerable distances. Yet the influence of such successive conversations, gatherings, and events – that sometimes trigger strong emotional responses – become embedded in the core idea, in a process that we refer to as networked creativity. This process is driven by a form of creativity that is collective, boundary-spanning, and typically marked by dyadic interactions (as opposed to interactions in group settings, although these do happen as well). Furthermore, this process is “networked” in the sense that it is best understood through focusing on a focal creator’s emergent ego-network and interactions across multiple networks, as opposed to a single group or organization he/she might formally be part of (mirroring the more general patterns of networked individualism, as set out by Rainie and Wellman, 2012). Having illustrated the general relevance of our approach, we now turn to setting out our methodology of tracing networked creativity in some detail.

A new way of seeing: A methodology for tracing networked creativity across multiple spaces

In the early 1980s, the well-known psychologist-philosopher Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi pioneered an empirical data collection approach called the Experience Sampling Method. It is a method that seeks to generate reliable data on what individuals feel, think, and do at a particular moment on a given day or a sequence of days when prompted by a device at random intervals (Larson & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). In developing our own approach to tracing creative interactions and revisions among our sample of 12 early-stage entrepreneurs in London, we were inspired by the Experience Sampling Method to try to transcend some of the limitations of retrospective interviews. In our assessment, interviews conducted several months after significant interactions or transformations had occurred had little chance of capturing adequate, fine-grained data, due to obvious limitations of memory and the (potentially very high) number of events that might prove significant (in retrospect). Therefore, we decided to combine several data collection methods that would allow us to identify diverse interactions and creative revisions at a higher degree of granularity while inquiring into the connections that led to important interactions in the first place. Figure 7.1 visualizes this approach that is based on a combination of regular in-depth interviews – an opportunity to interrogate into interactions and revisions in detail, capturing a “snapshot” of the emerging idea at a given point in time – and other data collection activities covering the periods in between regular interviews. Our original aspiration was to conduct in-depth interviews at monthly intervals, phone interviews on a weekly basis, and (very brief) online surveys each day during the study period, based on the belief that this would give us unprecedented access to an entrepreneur’s creative journey, including small and large revisions and any substantial interactions that might shape his/her idea development process. We contended that, apart from continuous direct observation or (intrusive) digital tracking through motion sensors and audio, this was the most ideal way to get “up close” with the long-term trajectories of several creators. (It was plainly not possible, in the context of limited funding, to observe our 12 research participants directly on a daily basis over 12 months!).

Although drawn as a straight arrow or timeline, the above framework does not at all imply that the creative processes it gets applied to proceed in a linear way – the framework is merely a guide to collecting detailed data on an emerging idea and the process through which it is generated, assessed, and revised. Due to its open-ended, adaptable nature, the framework is ideally suited to the study of what we have labeled “networked creativity” that (in a technical, superficial sense) consists of sequences of interactions and changes to an emerging idea which unfold across a range of offline and online locations.

We have used the term “networked creativity” in a dual sense in our research and in this chapter, referring both to a new empirical approach to tracing interactions and idea transformations, as well as to a particular variety of collective creativity that is becoming more common as individuals and teams frequently transcend the boundaries of organizations and fluidly work across myriad networks. Compared to most other organizational creativity researchers, we have chosen to “flatten” our approach to researching creative journeys: instead of labeling certain interactions internal and external (or formal vs. informal, work-related vs. private), we decided at the outset that all interactions and prospective sources of insight – whatever their location or relational context – have the potential to subtly or dramatically shape the course of an idea or creative path. Indeed, we found in the process of carrying out our interviews that insistent mothers could sometimes wield just as much influence on their adult entrepreneurial offspring as expert mentors! We continue to believe that the above distinctions are thus increasingly artificial and potentially pose obstacles to comprehensively understanding the flow of real-world creative processes that pay no heed to conceptual or academic demarcations.

Due to its potentially unbounded reach, tracing networked creativity in line with the approach just described presents “a new way of seeing” for both organizational creativity researchers as well as collaborative space scholars. It is a new empirical orientation that, while owing a debt to ANT (Latour, 2007, 2005) and ANT-inspired innovation scholars (Doganova & Eyquem-Renault, 2009) as well as others who have raised the individual into the central unit of analysis within digitally powered collaborative networks (Nardi et al., 2002) and social life (Rainie & Wellman, 2012), is in some respect novel. It amounts to an approach ideally suited to the study of extended and mobile creative processes that require weeks or months to be grasped in a meaningful sense, in knowledge-driven areas where interactions with a wide range of others tend to be beneficial (as opposed to artistic and craft-based work where such interactions may be less relevant). As a methodology, networked creativity elevates dyadic, mindful interactions into a primary catalyst of idea journeys (while also remaining open to a great variety of different types of creative interactions, and appreciating the fact that our understanding on such interactions remains spotty at best). This orientation is in line with the lived realities of organizations and entrepreneurship in digital societies where technology has made it possible for a large portion of knowledge work tasks to be performed in an asynchronous fashion, reducing the need for worker co-location (Kakihara & Sørensen, 2002; Sørensen, 2020). In such contexts, highly focused, value-generating synchronous face-to-face (or digitally mediated) conversations – that now are more easily orchestrated in a place-independent fashion – may be growing comparatively more central and salient due to their power to stimulate creative revision and in-the-moment insights (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006). From a practitioner-perspective, networked creativity is of growing relevance as a method, as it can pinpoint the interactive moments through which collaborative communities and various companies substantially shape and add value to the creative projects of members.

Admittedly, as a concept that denotes a particular kind of collective creativity – one that is distinct from group creativity, team creativity, and organization- or network-level creativity – the notion of networked creativity remains undeveloped and poorly elaborated. It can helpfully be situated in the context of broader idea journeys (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017) as depicted in Figure 7.2, to make clear the fact that networked creativity is indeed a longitudinal process where the further development and advancement of a focal idea is driving goal (even if in most cases, the focal idea never proceeds beyond the first two stages).

By the same token, networked creativity can be applied as a tool for investigating real-world idea journeys to test key assumptions associated with this concept, based on extensive empirical data. For instance, more needs to be known about the interactions, experiences, and idea features that mark the transition of an idea – a business model, a design prototype, a book proposal – from the idea generation stage to the elaboration stage.

Whereas the temporally extended nature of networked creativity leads to an increase in complexity – making it a more difficult process to observe and analyze compared to short instances of group co-creation, for instance – complexity is also reduced by virtue of the fact that there is either an individual or a small team at the center of the process. For this reason, tracing networked creativity empirically is entirely feasible, if often labor-intensive (As mentioned above, we have decided to shy away from relying on continued direct observation, due to resource limitations and general infeasibility).

On balance, networked creativity remains a method as well as a provisional concept more than a full-blown theory. We remain hopeful, however, that a body of more theoretical work will grow around it as relevant studies increase in number, perhaps building partly on our recent findings on the interplay of feedback, creative revision, and affect over extended periods (Toivonen et al., 2019).

Why is it a good idea to trace idea journeys through the hybrid infrastructures of work? Some practical implications

Having elaborated on our methodological approach to tracing networked creativity and some of its theoretical implications, we now consider why tracing creative idea journeys through the hybrid infrastructures of work is an important endeavor also from more practical and policy-focused perspectives.

Viewed generally, the “new hybrid infrastructures of work” referred to in this chapter include the myriad collaborative spaces found in large cities as well as the digital services and platforms that mediate creative, entrepreneurial work. Collaborative spaces, many would add, comprise both physical office infrastructures as well as social infrastructures, with the latter being pronounced when active community hosting practices and various other interaction strategies are in place. In a more expansive definition, one might also include all manner of urban transport, other vital services such as the provision of food and drink, labor markets and laws, as well as institutions related to knowledge provision (public libraries, universities). Without a doubt, every one of these interlinked domains entails immense complexity and is associated with enormous bodies of domain-specific knowledge, covering everything from the fast-evolving characteristics of digital platforms and algorithms to new organizational blueprints and meeting methods. These domain-specific complexities are beyond the scope of this chapter.

So why is it a good idea to bring focus to how creative journeys flow through hybrid infrastructures and how creative experiences are had within such infrastructures (Dourish & Bell, 2007), as opposed to fixing one’s gaze on a particular infrastructural domain, element, or system, or creative behavior within one such entity? Essentially for the same reason that we have argued in favor of the study of networked creativity—to overcome related myopias so as to reach a more accurate, realistic understanding of how mobile creative work is actually performed in urban settings. Although digital technologies have certainly not made geography or organizational boundaries irrelevant or unleashed complete freedom over space, a larger-than-before subset of workers now has a high level of flexibility when it comes to working across numerous locations and switching their primary locations (if they have one) more frequently. As such, it is becoming fitting to view entire cities as integrated campuses, networked incubators or “hubscapes” (Toivonen, 2019) in which emerging creative ideas and projects are nurtured and developed through interactions that unfold across numerous conventional and unexpected locations and situations, from offices and coffee shops to museums and meetups as well as online communities (but with curated commercial and public collaborative spaces and the larger sector they form playing a central role).

Furthermore, the digital architectures and functionalities of apps such as Google Maps, City Mapper, LinkedIn, and various workspace finders are merging into personal digital ecologies that make entire cities far more (rapidly) navigable when it comes to identifying places of work as well as initiating interactions with relevant peers or experts. Several new digital startups are envisioning “universal” coworking and workspace platforms that offer flexible access to hundreds or even thousands of spaces across different brands and locations. As such, possibilities for finding paths to generative interactions through myriad online and offline interaction spaces (not limited to formal places of work) are exploding and merit further research.

We are unaware of any existing research (apart from more general studies of mobility patterns and networks) that approaches the city through tracing and mapping value-adding interactions as they unfold in the course of creative journeys. Carrying out such research – at a scale that is much larger than we could achieve in our study of networked creativity among 12 entrepreneurs in London – would amount to an indirect way to “user-test” the innovative city. In increasingly knowledge-driven city economies, it makes more and more sense to recast and reexamine the city as an integrated creative landscape that should nourish idea generation and development processes through a beneficial (and individually customizable) mix of different types of support and stimulus, through a range of spaces, relationships, and interactions. Although we are aware that such an approach would, for a moment, relegate wider political, economic, and environmental issues to the background, the data generated could powerfully inform new policies and initiatives to enhance the ability of the city environment to support innovative activities while also directing them toward certain directions (e.g., transformative sustainability initiatives) and radically reducing CO₂ emissions from long commutes (e.g., through making local collaborative spaces more available or through using AI to optimize the times and locations of important team meetings). Indeed, from a practical perspective, researching the hybrid work infrastructures of large cities by tracing actual creative journeys, experiences, and interactions could lead to far more intelligent, seamless forms of support and navigational tools – that overcome siloed thinking as well as misplaced slogans about how digital services can or should enable unconstrained mobility – that can transform the experience of pursuing innovative work within a given city’s workscape. For the first time, we could build policies and infrastructural innovations around a solid understanding of how different infrastructural elements intertwine – seamlessly or not – in the context of actual work trajectories and how troubling bottlenecks could be resolved, producing benefits for everyone involved.

Conclusions

This chapter has sought to offer a fresh answer to the question of how collaborative spaces support creativity. In short, they do so along the creative journeys of individuals and teams that typically move across a multiplicity of locations and interaction spaces in the course of their daily and weekly lives. Accordingly, collaborative spaces do not support creativity, co-creation, or innovation in some isolated, self-contained sense, or in some separate (imagined) world of their own – although they can (and arguably should) seek to benefit their members in ways that are unique and complementary within broader personal and urban contexts. It should be noted that analyzing and comparing specific place-based community strategies and interaction patterns, despite being also an important task, has been beyond the scope of this chapter.

When we adopt this essentially inverted perspective to tracing the creative journeys by applying the networked creativity methodology, we move from “observing users or members inside a collaborative space” to “investigating collaborative spaces inside the user.” In other words, we are invited to look more carefully at how a given space features within the daily activities, routines and creative advances of a given person or team. Through this perspective shift, scholars are likely to gain a far more realistic understanding of the role and relative importance of the average (or any particular) collaborative space. In fact, out of the 12 participants in our own study, only 3 or 4 reported that the coworking spaces they belonged to helped them access useful types of support (beyond workspace provision) and significant interactions. Their lives and idea development efforts encompassed sequences of interactions at multiple locations (as shown by the case of Edward), emotionally loaded calls with family members, social media connections that led to much learning and the adaptation of new ideas, and encounters with customers that shaped how founders viewed their products. Overseas trips formed a key part of many creative journeys, as did periods or rest spent away from the city.

As we have admitted, much further work is required for networked creativity to be fully developed as a concept and theory that helps us understand how collective (sequential, interactive) creativity operates in the mobile era of networked individualism. Also, on the practical and policy fronts, much needs to be done before the city and networks of collaborative spaces genuinely become “integrated” into a more seamless infrastructure that intelligently supports the fluid creative process across all its (cognitive, emotional, and social) dimensions over the long term. What we do hope is that this chapter has successfully, if briefly and somewhat superficially, put forward an alternative perspective that can, in the years ahead, challenge and expand our understanding of how collaborative spaces – in their infinitely varied manifestations – shape and nurture the creative projects and ideas their members care so deeply about.