Coworking offices today are pretty ubiquitous, but in 2005, the year one of the first official coworking offices launched, not so much. The idea of corralling freelance, contract, remote workers and small teams into a single space was inspired by hackerspaces of the early 00s and workspaces-as-a-service offices in the 1990s. The biggest difference between “coworking” and its predecessors is the effort that owners put toward creating a community by organizing business and social events.