Tara Hunt & Chris Messina were original founders of the Hat Factory (along with Brad Neuberg and a few others), and then Citizen Space, the first two stand-alone coworking spaces using the coworking label.

Though Brad deserves special kudos for applying a term (#coworking) and getting this started with 2-days a week at the Spiral Muse. The coworking movement as we know it wouldn't have gone much further than that without Tara & Chris helping to lead, spreading a particular philosophy about open source and bottom up governance early on, setting early shared values for the concept which continue to this day, and their gifts for making community-driven change happen. You can see much of this history in the happening by going back to the first posts the coworking Google group when there were just a few people in search of a space (which turned into the Hat Factory).

For example, see thread #80 in the Google Group back in May 2006, where the Hat Factory is found and gets its name. Alex Hillman and a handful of others have continued these community-building reins, but it would be a shame for the community to not share the history of coworking & forget these early passionate voices that did an incredible amount early on to give the idea legs and to help build the passionate voices of support around this idea.

Come celebrate with us, it's free, bring you're laptop, and bring a friend, because working alone really does suck!