Tag: Community

Kolektif House is born in 2015. The Turkey based operator depicts itself as “More than a co-working space : a platform for creators who love what they do and believe in the power of sharing“. Today, Kolektif House claims it connects  1300 freelancers, startups, investors, corporates and mid-size companies, in Istanbul. Ahmet is the co-founder of Kolektif House. The company operates two locations in Istanbul and will soon open a third one.

Hi Ahmet, can you tell us more about the story behind Kolektif House?

We started Kolektif House when my close friend Civan, one of our partners and current CDO, returned back to Turkey after graduation in the US. He was then searching for his dream office. He asked me for help to find an inspiring and affordable workspace; soon enough we realized that there was a big gap in the market for such a product. This led us to start our own project, Kolektif House, to not only create an office space but actually transform the concept of ‘working’ to a feeling of ‘creating value and belonging’. 

You said there was no market for coworking, in Istanbul, back then. How about that?

There was a market potential, but, frankly, not a significant enough supply or adequate products to support that potential. What was established in Istanbul, back then, were standard office spaces whereas our aim was to challenged the status quo by focusing on the community aspect. We strived to create such a community that not only worked under the same roof but also interacted with one another at a social and professional level, where people shared their opinions and did business together to create something inspiring every day.

How did you raise the awareness about coworking? 

We had almost no budget for marketing and only a few people in our team. Our main awareness builder has been our events policy. We held events with local artists and offered them our walls so that they could display their expressions, ideas and artworks in our space. We invited an ice sculptor from the other side of the world to one of our Sunday breakfasts for a live performance. We hosted Turkey’s greatest comedian, musicians and actors in our talk show series. Besides, we attended One Love, one of the biggest festivals in Turkey, by convincing organizers to provide us with free space in exchange for a creative idea to showcase at the venue. So, we printed 1,000 photos of attendants and lighted up the festival area with a heart shaped artwork made of printed photos under the “Thousand Faces of One Love” motto. As far as the corporate brands in Istanbul are concerned, we invited executives to hold their events in our place with no charge and promised to serve them the best service they could find elsewhere. I would literally clean up the place every morning and Civan would serve tea just before we change to our suits and greet guests at the reception area. We would do everything we could to compensate for our deficiencies which went as far as lighting up the room with candles in our hands when we lost electricity during a very important conference that was held in our space. And today we evolved to a stage where we host events for leading brands such as Nike, Vodafone, Accenture, Is Bank, Yandex and many more.

We printed 1,000 photos of attendants and lighted up the festival area with a heart shaped artwork made of printed photos under the “Thousand Faces of One Love” motto

Who were the people/profiles you had first to convince?

Regardless of their business, our aim, since day one, was to lure people who are passionate about what they create. Due to the nature of the coworking space, our first members were mostly freelancers and startups. As we grew, we saw greater opportunity in diversity and in having different types of companies from various sectors. Today we have a member portfolio consisting of 10% corporates, %30 startups, 30% SME’s, 20% freelancers and 10% VC’s. Among our 1300 members, we have Turkey’s leading bank Is Bankasi, Turkey HQ of Yandex, successful startups that have expanded internationally and global VC’s such as 500 Startups.  

What are the communication channels you mainly used to get out of anonymity?

As said, events have been the major driver for us. Once we put a great show, influencers posted it online, press wrote about it, participants shared on their social accounts and most importantly, it leads to a strong word of mouth. Today we have a 360 degrees approach in marketing; we have a platform called KoMag to publish inspirational contents, we have added paid promotion on top of our organic Social Media strategy, we remain close relationship with influencers and press and keep collaborating with artists which drives brand recognition and loyalty.

Today we have a 360 degrees approach in marketing; we have a platform called KoMag to publish inspirational contents, we have added paid promotion on top of our organic Social Media strategy

Is Turkey a coworking friendly the same way you see it in other European countries?

Culturally, Turkey has a great community history, which is the coworking’s pillar. However looking at the recent past, we have not been great at picking up and scaling the global trends. Shared economy and coworking is one of these lately picked habits. I believe it will just take a little longer for Turkey to penetrate, but the potential and the energy is out there so I believe Turkey is a good fit for building a coworking ecosystem. 

Has it to do with a scarcity of financial resources? Or a lack of meaningful allies?

I believe financial resources can always be pointed as a limiting factor in any kind of business. However when you look at the bigger picture, having people understand what we really do here and the value we add to their business was the biggest barrier for us. Initially people only thought of the economic advantages of moving to a coworking space, but today even the most traditional corporates see the benefit of offering flexible working hours, interaction with a community and an inspirational work environment in their employees’ happiness. 

Initially people only thought of the economic advantages of moving to a coworking space, but today even the most traditional corporates see the benefit of offering flexible working hours, interaction with a community and an inspirational work environment

Based on your experience, what would you recommend new operators in low “coworking-awareness” areas to do first?

People have always been eager to be a part of a community, regardless of their era, nationality, geographic location, or demographics. The coworking trend is just a reflection of that same sense of belonging. So it is not about the destination, it is about the process of how you bring those minds together under the same roof. And the starting point of that process should definitely be paying genuine attention to what those minds say. This will help them to build more appropriate and target-fit services, and product features. 

What are the main challenges you have coped with since then?

We increased tenfold our size within the last 3 years in terms of surface, number of members and diversity of our community. While doing so, our biggest challenge was to keep improving our service at the same pace which required setting a strong technology backbone and acquiring the right talent. To be honest, I feel like we could have managed these two issues better. Once we realized that we came to a point where we couldn’t organize the events we wanted due to lack of team members or correctly analyze our membership data to make strategic decisions, we started to really move our investments to these two areas that I have mentioned above. Our team today grew to 43 people and we keep hiring great talent from a variety of industries which empowers us to create new departments such as technology so that we can continuously improve our overall service. 

What are Kolektif’s plans for the future?

We help people grow their hearts and their businesses. All of our team is working on many exciting projects to achieve excellence on this mission. In doing so, we will expand both locally and internationally to over 30 locations to serve nearly 34,000 members by 2022.

Ahmet will speak at the Coworking Europe 2018 conference in Amsterdam.

TSH (The Student Hotel) has been developing  a co-living and coworking offering for more than a decade. Founded in The Netherlands by Charlie McGregor, a Scot born in Edinburgh, TSH operates 10 locations in various cities in Europe, among which Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague, Eindhoven, Paris or Barcelona. TSH plans to open up a total of 40 locations in European cities by 2021. Florence, Dresden, Bologna, Madrid, Berlin, Rome, Vienna or Toulouse are in the pipe.

Hi Charlie, can you introduce yourself and tell us about how The Student Hotel started?

My father built the first purpose-built student rooms in Edinburgh, where I grew up.  At 25 I bought a small student accommodation company and sold it 10 years later when I moved from London to Amsterdam and started The Student Hotel. The first Student Hotel project was completed just as the full implications of the global financial crisis unfolded. But we pressed on.  

You offer many different perks within all your locations, going from hotel services, gym, food, up to coworking spaces (TSH Collab). Do you operate everything yourself ? 

We operate the accommodation and coworking ourselves.  In some we also operate The Commons – our restaurants and bar brand; in other places we work in collaboration with local companies.  In Florence, for example, we partner with local restaurant, La Menagere and at TSH Campus in Barcelona the partnership is with Grupo Raval.  At TSH Amsterdam City we have an Olympic length (50m) pool and crossfit Vondelgym run by local celebrity athletes.

Is TSH a student only place, as the name indicates it?

TSH is much more than student accommodation. We have students staying for a term or a year, but we also have hotel and co-living guests.  That’s just on the accommodation side.  Then there’s the local startups and entrepreneurs in our Collab coworking spaces, classrooms and auditorium.  All our hotels are open to the local community who come to enjoy the restaurants, bars and super fast, free wifi in the communal spaces and we actively encourage this mix.  We want people make connections they may not find somewhere else.

Why having a specific coworking offering on top of your other services makes sense? 

There was a demand.  Guests and the local community needed coworking space.  TSH Collab was created to answer that need – a step up from working on a laptop in the lounge or bar.  The upward trend of entrepreneurs, startups, freelance workers, and digital nomads is growing fast.  With TSH Collab we can offer everything under one roof.

The benefits are that all our guests – whether they are studying, staying in the hotel, or working – have a place to connect with each other.  It creates a dynamic vibe that enables people to get things done. 

In addition, parents, friends and family need somewhere to stay when they visit our student guests, they need somewhere to eat and socialise.  Our co-living guests need somewhere to meet and work.  We are continually asking ourselves what future guests will need and add services that make sense.  We call it the Complete Connected Community.

Are the co-living ‘guests’, in majority, the users of all the other different services? 

TSH is open and inclusive.  You don’t have to be a guest to eat or drink here.  You don’t have to be a TSH Collab member to stay or use the communal spaces.  We have an amazing mix and are happy that people can take advantage of the things they want to use. We are a Complete Connected Community.  That runs through everything we do – the community feeling is central to both co-living and coworking at TSH.

Guests and the local community needed coworking space.  TSH Collab was created to answer that need – a step up from working on a laptop in the lounge or bar. 

How do you position yourself as opposed to other workspace operators?

TSH employs a Connector in each location and that person plays a crucial role in all The Student Hotels, ensuring that our guests and community members have the possibility to truly connect during their stay and before or after via our digital- and social channels. The Connector position is the glue that holds together our co-living, coworking, co-dining communities. The TSH Connector is more than just the leader of our fun squad. A true connector turns our mishmash of hotel guests and coworking professionals into a cohesive community of both students and students-at-heart. The Connector position is the glue that holds together our co-living, coworking, co-dining communities. He/she encourages people to meet and inspire each other by events and programming based on the four brand themes of The Student Hotel: Social&Cultural, Health&Sports, Learning, and Career&Entrepreneurship. The Connector is the open door for everyone who likes to join our community because they are the most connected person in our buildings.

A true connector turns our mishmash of hotel guests and coworking professionals into a cohesive community of both students and students-at-heart.

You don’t introduce yourself so much as just an accommodation provider, and focus more on the co-living side. What is the difference between the two concepts? 

Our student guests can stay for a term to a year as part of their international studies.  Co-living guests are usually with us for a couple of weeks to a few months; digital nomads, freelancers or contractors who find themselves in a new city for work.  Hotel guests usually stay from a night or two or a week.  The co-living element comes from the community feel – we don’t differentiate, we don’t separate.  Everyone gets to live side by side, use the same facilities, regardless of how long they are with us.

The co-living element comes from the community feel – we don’t differentiate, we don’t separate.

By 2020, you expect partnerships with 1.500 universities. Do you position yourself as the solution provider to move away from the “student housing crisis” that some campus face, with innovative models? 

The world of higher education and training is subject to massive changes: rising international student mobility; transnational campuses, online learning, summer schools and life-long learning have dramatically altered the demand for accommodation. We see a growing demand for short-term and flexibility coupled with a sense community and shared values and purpose. It was a void between hotels and student dorms that TSH is filling with its variety of coliving arrangements. In that sense we are complimentary to the current offering.  

It was a void between hotels and student dorms that TSH is filling with its variety of coliving arrangements.

Based on your experience, should the coworking industry take its inspiration from the accommodation and hospitality industries?

We should take our inspiration from everywhere; the reason CO applies now to living and working shows a growing space of new opportunities. Hospitality teaches us the importance of service. Accommodation, the importance of a home and a sense of community. At the current architecture biennale in Venice the Dutch pavilion is dedicated to Work and it underlines that since Yoko Ono and John Lennon demonstrated for peace in bed we have started using the bedroom as a space to work. We constantly see new opportunities to improve our concept and operational model; new technology enables us to connect and stay in touch with our growing customer base while the way our customers study, travel, sleep and work is changing year on year.  We see more and more barriers between hotels, office space, restaurants and residences being broken down. That is why is say we are – also operationally – a Complete Connected Community. Hybrids like The Student Hotel will become the norm as we are satisfying more needs than just a place to work or a roof over your head.

Since Yoko Ono and John Lennon demonstrated for peace in bed we have started using the bedroom as a space to work.

Pauline and Dimitar are the founders of Coworkies, a Berlin based company connecting like-minded professionals working out of coworking spaces and displaying job opportunities. For the last 2 years, they’ve been doing a coworking world tour. They visited 287 coworking spaces, in 30 cities around the world, with majority in Europe. They are sharing their main learnings and takeaways from an almost 2 years long tour.

Hi Pauline. Can you introduce yourself, the initiative you run and why you had the idea to tour coworking spaces in Europe?

With my co-founder at Coworkies, Dimitar, we started about 2 years ago and at the time, I was managing a coworking space myself in Berlin (called Rainmaking Loft, which rebranded recently as The Place) which is only for startups. 

Dimitar was working for Startupbootcamp (a startup accelerator) that was one of our tenants. There, we realized that members were constantly seeking other professionals to work with but their opportunities were only limited to their physical space.

At the time, we knew the coworking scene of Berlin quite well but did not really know how other cities were doing coworking in the sense. Why did it started there? who are the local players? How do people use the space to connect? Why are people actually needing a coworking space and many more questions for which we were seeking answers? Instead of relying only on what we found online, we decided to pack our bags and travel the world of coworking!  Traveling is for us an incredible learning curve, we get the chance to meet inspirational founders and managers and see really interesting coworking concepts.

How did you choose the spaces and community you visited?

Before going somewhere, we do a lot of research about the city we are about to visit. We strongly believe that coworking is about the people and not about sqm., so we look for spaces who are in coworking to build meaningful and impactful communities at work. Next to our own research, nowadays we also get a lot of tip from the network of coworking professionals we’ve created.

There are so many coworking spaces, what kind of criterias did you use?

In relation to the previous question. We prioritize recommendations by our network for coworking spaces with passionate founders. I think this is the most important one. There are no reasons for us to meet people who are not passionate about what they are building.

After having toured the Europe’s coworking scene, what are you three main learnings you come back with about the development of coworking on the continent ? 

1.There is no best coworking space – each and every coworking space is VERY unique!

During our travels, we often get asked “so what’s the best coworking scene you’ve seen?”. To be honest, there is no best coworking space. Each and every coworking space we visited is very unique and has its own vision, vibe and community. In Europe, we were amazed to see how diverse the market is – there are so many different type of spaces: from makerspaces to coworking for parents or musicians, it’s really blossoming around many interesting topics.

2.The coworking market in Europe stretches from mature markets to very new markets.

Europe is a very interesting place when it comes to coworking. If you take Berlin, where coworking started between 1999 (with hackerspace C-base) and 2005 (Betahaus) the market is now more mature. Some of the spaces have been around for more than a decade and have seen many spaces coming into their market. It also means that people are “aware” about coworking because they’ve seen it for so long. On the other side of the spectrum, if you take cities like Warsaw or Bratislava, coworking is a much newer concept and they need to educate the market from scratch to what it means to cowork and what is the difference compared to Regus or just a normal office.

3.There are way more independent coworking spaces in Europe than in Asia or USA

Our journey took us, so far to three continents. And when comparing Europe to the rest we see how here in Europe we have more independent coworking spaces, that means in Asia there are way more brands who have multiple locations. Related to that is also the size of spaces in Asia and USA, they feel significantly larger than those in Europe. Of course we have few mega-hubs like Station F or Maria 0-1 in Europe, concepts that have not catched up so much in Asia yet.

If you take cities like Warsaw or Bratislava, coworking is a much newer concept and they need to educate the market from scratch

Are there strong differences between cities or countries you visited ? 

As I started to touch base on my previous answer, there is HUGE differences in every city we visited and there are few reasons for that:

• Coworking did not start everywhere for the same reasons: in London, it started because prices for offices were too high. If you look at Barcelona, it started during the crisis, when Creatives decided to gather and share their workspace.
• The scene of each city is very different: London has about 400+ coworking spaces of various sizes from 10 to 600+ people, with a huge part of the crowd being startups. If you take a city like Madrid you will find way less coworking spaces and a lot of them are actually for creatives and artists. It’s one of the cities where we’ve seen the least amount of computers vs. the amount of hand-craft-makers.

The way one does coworking is also very different from the north of Europe to the South. In Scandinavia or even in Germany, people use coworking spaces from early morning to 6PM whereas in the south of Europe it was very different! Before 10, there is not much going on and people tend to stay really late at night, so the coworking owners have to adapt to that rythm.

One big difference also occurs when the city is also popular among Digital Nomads (like Lisbon, Porto or Barcelona). Building a community that includes Digital Nomad can be really challenging sometimes, but all the spaces we met do it extremely well.

Madrid is one of the cities where we’ve seen the least amount of computers vs. the amount of hand-craft-makers.

Do space operators shared some of their challenges? What are they ?

Yes, they do! I think one of the biggest challenge that anyone always struggle with is about the business model. We all know coworking has an extremely flexible business model, which means that for some of the spaces, generating stable revenue every month is not easy. Another one is how to deal with constantly fluctuating community as you need to have really strong culture to keep the vibe intact.

One of the biggest challenge that anyone always struggle with is about the business model.

From what you know of coworking on other continents, what is specific to Coworking in Europe ?

I think Europe, thanks to its richness of cultures and languages has one of the most diverse coworking scenes in the world. As I was saying earlier, there are so many different type of spaces around Europe, it’s really fascinating and inspiring. I believe here is where a lot of the new coworking concepts are emerging before starting to spread around the world.

What did your tour inspired you about the future of coworking on the continent ?

It’s always very hard to predict the future but from what we saw, it looks like coworking will be even more curated, meaning spaces are rethinking their vision and narrowing it down to one vertical of interest. Be it creatives only, startups only, parents, musicians or any other type of community that comes together because they share a common interest and can learn from each other and collaborate. The power of community seems to become more and more important both for spaces and for coworkers. Follow Coworkies’ blog for the comprehensive report city by city

 

Gargi Shah is the co-founder of one of Mumbai‘s first coworking spaces. When she opened The Playce in November 2012, the coworking concept was practically unheard of in India. Gargi spent many days dreaming up ways to explain what she did to her grandmother, who still believes that her granddaughter rents out offices for a living. The Playce has completed five eventful years – a proud home to creative, entrepreneurial and even outlandish co-workers.

We spent some time talking with her to get her impressions about running a coworking space in one of the biggest, densest and fastest developing city in the world.

We use to claim coworking is all about community. Some players say tenants just appreciate the flexibility and a convenient environment. How do you see it?

Coworking is NOT just about the community. Customers come with different goals. Some are looking for a productive office space, some are looking to find like-minded people, others for an affordable setup still, others choose coworking for the unprecedented flexibility it provides. 

Coworking is NOT just about the community. Customers come with different goals.

Having a strong community in a coworking space makes the space attractive, but it is one of the many things that space offers. It can be one of the best ways to retain customers, especially teams.

Is Coworking just a smart Real Estate game?

Coworking is generally much more than simply a Real Estate calculation. There are community, flexibility, affordability and a host of other useful services offered to the customer.

That said, there are many cases where coworking is a way to leverage non-premium properties. In these cases, it starts with a smart Real Estate Game. The premise in question is typically not a premium property for a variety of reasons – location, floor plan, market conditions etc. This makes it tricky to rent out the entire premise to a single lessee.

The owners of such Real Estate premise have come to realise that coworking can give them a quick-fix to their rental requirements. Running a coworking space is a clever idea because the premise generates at least some revenue (even if it is less than market rent) instead of lying vacant. Coworking customers are looking for affordable workspaces even if it means that they have to compromise on certain other parameters. It’s a win-win for both the parties.

Mumbai is one of the biggest and crowdiest metropoles in the world. Coworking is booming. Is community less important in big cities?

The community is just as important in the big cities, perhaps even more so because the coworkers (entrepreneurs, startups, freelancers, etc) are working in a highly competitive market. They need all the support and encouragement they can get. It certainly helps them to know that there are others like them who are sticking their neck out for their idea. The support of the community and kindred souls is invaluable when an entrepreneur is starting out. 

The community is just as important in the big cities, perhaps even more so because the coworkers are working in a highly competitive market.

On the flip side, a coworker has many more options in a big city – cafes and restaurants (long the ‘offices’ of lone warriors), extra unused desks in traditional offices, apartments etc. This makes it harder for coworking spaces to retain customers.

How do we fill in coworking spaces in India?

India is rather diverse and most coworking spaces have their own niche offering. Some offer unbeatable prices, some offer creative interiors, some have simply located themselves in a high-demand location and some have an organic community built over a period of years. In Mumbai, there are diverse demographics who need a coworking space to suit different needs. It is mainly an overwhelming demand for flexible office spaces that drives the coworking market of Mumbai.

Most coworking spaces have their own niche offering. Some offer unbeatable prices, some offer creative interiors, some have simply located themselves in a high-demand location and some have an organic community built over a period of years

Fun, conviviality, learning, networking… Is it only for startups or Gen Y and Z?

Oh no, not at all. In all our workshops and events we have seen incredibly large participation from established freelancers and folks in their forties, fifties and even a few in their sixties. One would expect that startups and Gen Y/Z folks would be a big part of the fun and networking, but more often than not they don’t have the time and inclination to get out of their personal space and explore. They are buried in their startup challenges and personal journeys. It is the 30s and over a crowd that tends to have a more long-term perspective and are an integral part of the fun, learning and networking side of things.

One would expect that startups and Gen Y/Z folks would be a big part of the fun and networking, but more often than not they don’t have the time and inclination to get out of their personal space and explore

 

 

 

Ahoy! Berlin is a Berlin based space for coworking and innovation. The more than 4.000 m2 big space host now freelancers as well as sartups and corporations.

Hi Stéphanie, can you introduce the Ahoy! Berlin project? What is it about?

Our main goal is to create a dynamic yet sustainable community where people have the freedom to collaborate, to explore and to have fun. We stand behind the main 5 shared coworking values – community, openness, collaboration, mutual help and equality, but we added another one – well-being. 

As a second concept line we have the nautical theme which is implemented in every detail in Ahoy. It likens the new startup economy to the open sea with it’s strong currents and unpredictable weather. Ahoy serves to help budding startups and freelancers steer clear of potential pitfalls by connecting them to a wider community of possible collaborators and investors via Tech Berlin sister companies Openers and Tech Open Air while also offering additional services like event management and legal advice.

Ahoy started as fairly small space and scaled up rapidly. Was it the founders’ plans to go this way?

Ahoy! was founded in December 2011 by Nikita Roshkow and Nikolas Woischnik. The first location was in Charlottenburg and was only 400 m2. Over the years, the space grew up to 1700 m2. As a result of this natural and organic growth in September 2015 Ahoy moved to a new location, which currently has over 4200 sqm spread over 3 floors.

Thе scale up wasn’t by accident, but it also wasn’t strictly planned. Our expansion was a result of hard work, willingness to develop the coworking concept, team members’ devotion and community strength.
In December 2015 we opened our second location in Sao Paulo with 450 m2. It’s managed by Felippe Burratini who is an Ahoy! Berlin Alumni. This is a perfect example of the way how the coworking synergy works. 

How receptive was the Landlord to accompany this process?

He helped us a lot in our recent growth in the last year – from the moment we moved to our current location until now, we expanded from only 1 floor to 3 floors. Even now the landlord constantly keeps us in a loop for potential new buildings.

Ahoy hosts some bigger companies. What are corporations looking for in a coworking space ?

According to our observations and regular feedback we get from our corporate community members we know that there are 5 main reasons:

• To establish themselves quickly in a new city or a new market
• To reduce costs and risk of new projects
• To get closer to startups and entrepreneurs
• To acquire more autonomy
• To recruit new talents

Is the social and community dimension important in their choice, or do corporation’s employees in your space keep themselves aside as an island in the space?

The companies that use team offices often stay together in groups. Nevertheless, many of the interactions and collaborations between them and the other community members happen in very informal, chill and friendly atmosphere, while having a coffee, a lunch or a drink after work in our open cafe area. That’s the moment when the best ideas are born. The phenomenon known as “serendipity”.

Isn’t the flexibility and offered scalability a sufficient a value proposition for bigger organisations within you space?

It’s not only the space, the services and the possibilities to grow within the space that attract the bigger organisations. It’s also about the social interaction and the access o a professionally diverse community.

Do you work on mingling actively all of your tenants/members, including those working as employees for a company ?

Yes, we do work on that – we organise various community events:

• community breakfasts;
• captain’s’ lunches, strictly focused on bringing together the CEOs of the companies at Ahoy;
• skills exchange;
• drinks after work;
• yoga classes
• German classes.

We also facilitate the process of professional interaction by connecting our members based on the fields they work in. In order to foster the community development we use internal communication channels where they can introduce themselves and approach the other members.

What are the main differences between individual members with respect to the level of engagement with the rest of the community?

I’d say that the level of involvement and engagement in the community depends more on personal traits like collectivism and extraversion than on the type of membership. We have community members from big companies that are actively involved in the community and freelancers who prefer to stay on their own.

Desks VS offices ?

For us it is important to have them both – we offer fix and flex desks, as well as team offices. We’re striving to meet the needs of the freelancers, the startups and the corporations.

Are you working on hosting more corporations in the future ? 

We are open to everyone who want to join our space and become part of our community. At the same time we’re trying to keep the balance between freelancers, startups and corporations. We believe that this is the only way we can preserve the community diversity – the aspect that makes the coworking idea so appealing.

Do you see a new level of openness in bringing employees from other departments ?

More and more corporations are open to send entire teams and departments to coworking spaces. However, the process of making that decision still takes more time and it often goes through the several rounds of approbation. There is often as much internal negotiation as there is with the coworking operators. Managers need to convince their superiors and their employees of the value of such spaces.

However, once a corporation embraced that change, the trend spread easily through the entire company.

Do you think medium-size and big companies could outsource a big part of their office and facility management to bigger coworking spaces in the future ?

We’ve seen it’s already happening – from having an office in a coworking space to renting entire buildings managed by coworking companies, corporations are now switching to another way of perceiving the working process.

 

Ahoy! Berlin will be a speaker at the upcoming Coworking Europe 2017 conference in Dublin.

Skibbereen is a 3.000 inhabitants town located on the Southern coast of Ireland, in one of the most rural and remote areas of the country. In 2015, in order to re-create a dynamic of opportunities in the region, a range of major companies, associations, and public players joined forces to build up a platform supporting entrepreneurship, connected to one of the fastest broadband connection in Ireland: Ludgate Hub.

After two years, the main results of the Ludgate Hub include the formulation of a digital strategy for a rural town, the creation of new jobs for the area, introduction of new families into the area, a boost of expenditure in building, and services.

Ludgate Hub illustrates how a concerted action supported by a coworking space might pave a set of new options to address the challenge related to the economical desertification of many rural zones in Europe and beyond.

We interviewed Gráinne Dwyer, CEO of Ludgate Hub, who told us more about the initiative.

Hello. Can you tell us how did the Ludgate Hub project started? 

The initiative has been developed by a steering group consisting of a group of local entrepreneurs, digital ambassadors and business owners of local enterprises. The board felt it was important that the initiative came from the ‘bottom up’ and came from the community as it was a more sustainable method of town development. There was also a general feeling of neglect of the town by local authorities and national Government.

The board of eleven members includes representatives from major organizations, such as RTÉ, the national broadcaster, Google, AIB bank, Vodafone, a.o.

Reasons why the group has become involved is firstly to create opportunities for the younger generations of the area and give them an option to live and work in the area when they are older. They aim to stem the tide of youth emigration and provide meaningful sustainable opportunities for the town in terms of connectivity, investment and jobs.

After the board was formulated, the next step was to identify buildings suitable to develop a digital hub. Corporate sponsors were sought to further support the development of the hub and to contribute towards the operational costs.

To help the board of 11 and the management team of two, the group found members of the public to help with the project through voluntary ambassador roles. The board recruited individuals interested in education, retail, agriculture and other key sectors of the project to lead sector specific projects.

It has to come from the bottom up

What were the initial purposes of the project?

The initial purpose of the project was to facilitate jobs and stimulate the local economy through a four pillar approach :

     1 – The Ludgate Hub

Developing the Ludgate Hub was key, the hub is a 10.000 m2 state of the art coworking space with a 1GB connection.

The building was donated by a local businessman John Field and was once a cinema and then a bakery in the middle of the town. The hub has meeting rooms, training space and state of the art video conferencing facilities, & has attracted international start-ups from LA, Chicago, London, South Africa, Spain and world wide. The hub is now a beacon of innovation and has already started to encourage fringe enterprises and collaborative projects as a spin off. 

Companies like the BBC, National Geographic, Google, Facebook and Reuters have all used our hub in the last six months.

The long term vision is to make Skibbereen a hotspot for technology start-ups and multinationals to locate and prosper at a global level enhanced by the 1GB connection.

The long term objective to create 500 direct jobs and 1000 indirect jobs via a sustainable digital economy for Skibbereen and the wider West Cork area.

Visions like these are unheard of in rural Ireland – but now connectivity is making the impossible, possible. We provide, mentoring and business advisory in the hub, we can also offer virtual mentoring and advice via video link.

      2 – Facilitate Digital Literacy 

We knew we needed to reach all levels of our community – young and old. We wanted to create an inclusive society – digital for all a connected community.

A key pillar to our initiative was to make sure the community knew about our 1GB connection, but more importantly that they knew how to use it.

We rolled out iPad and tablet training classes, which enabled all members of our community to email, shop online, bank online and video call with their relatives worldwide. This combatted rural isolation and empowered our community.

We rolled out coding classes in our local secondary school enabling students aged 16-17 to learn how to code, and how to develop websites. We opened our doors to the local Coder Dojo group which train young people how to use programmes like Scratch, Minecraft and learn HTML. We have kids from age 6- 16 and their numbers have doubled since moving to the Ludgate Hub.

     3. Create eStreet : encourage retailers to trade globally

Ireland’s first initiative to encourage traditional retailers to trade globally.

The third task was to economically enable our community, we developed Ireland’s first digital Main Street www.estreet.ie. eStreet is a collaborative, eCommerce model it is set to become Ireland’s first fully, inclusive eCommerce community portal.

The platform gained national and EU recognition for its solution to help combat rural disadvantage and economic decline; via a multi-pronged digital strategy.

eStreet is paving the digital path for other towns and areas to follow and shows rural towns how to help themselves to a better future. Eleven of Skibbereen’s retailers are pioneering this project to increase their online visibility, sales and open up to new markets.

     4. Re- Brand rural Ireland

We created Ireland’s first National Digital Week a digital conference set in rural Skibbereen. The hugely successful event attracted 1,600 attendees to West Cork and hosted over 80 international and National speakers.

The vision for the event was to showcase that rural Ireland is ready to embrace technology and it certainly worked, Skibbereen is now considered the Digital Capital of Ireland.

What are the roles respectively played by Vodafone, Google, the Cork County Council, AIB, and all the others involved ? 

All of our sponsors support us through corporate donations or free services, services include free legal support, or accountancy services.

Their motivations stem from believing in the regeneration of rural Ireland and the importance our rural areas have on our regions, our cities are heavily reliant on the success of the rural hinterlands.

All companies that have supported us have done so as a leap of faith to back a very ambitious project, their commitment to the Ludgate Initiate reinforces their own ambitious targets and support for SMEs nationally.

We believe the hub is sustainable as the community is heavily invested in the project, both the community and board are safeguards of its future success.

Since our inception in 2015 we were declared Ireland’s first rural digital hub – a case study which has inspired 22 other towns and villages to develop their own community backed enterprise initiatives. As 95% of our projects are privately funded through donations or corporate sponsorship we have a strong track record in raising capital to support the project.

The factors that ensures its success is to curate the Ludgate Community, by ensuring the needs of the community are met, that we can offer the same services as urban areas to grant equal opportunities for rural start-ups as those of their urban counterparts.

It is essential that we have a continuous stream of seed fund capital to further encourage start ups to relocate here, it is also essential that we maintain a stream of mentors to encourage and support start-ups in the Ludgate Hub.

Is the coworking space open to anyone? 

The coworking space is open especially for ‘digitally enabled businesses’, we do not take in call centre staff or manufacturing companies. We aim to attract companies which will use or bandwidth but are complementary to each other, e.g.. we will not take in ten website developers as it will lead to unsustainable competition.

Our main tenants include, web designers, app developers, graphic designers, animators, online services, online tourism providers, online education platform providers and services which are traded online.

How about the results and impact of the Lugdate Hub project so far ?

The main results of the Ludgate hub include the formulation of a digital strategy for a rural town, the main benefits include, the creation of new jobs for the area, introduction of new families into the area, a boost of expenditure in building, and services.

In total the hub has engaged with:

• 4 University Collaborations
• 250+ Active Members of the hub a month
• 25 Co-Working Companies
• Supported 15 Community Groups
• Serving West Cork Population of 80,000+ (West Cork)
• attracted 1600 Attendees to National Digital Week every year
• Attracted 400 Pledges of support from National & International Companies

Some other benefits are :

• We have delivered coding classes to 25 students per year
• We have delivered digital innovation classes to 15 students per year
• We have taken on over 40 secondary school students per year for training and work experience
• We have delivered iPad training for 45 people in 2016 aim to deliver to 120 people in 2017
• We have enabled 11 rural retailers to trade online through our eStreet platform.
• We have employed over 11 people throughout the year
• Spent over 1.8 million euro on local services & trades since 2015.
• Have a seed fund of €500,000 euro, donated by private individuals attracting companies to Skibbereen – including the funding of four start up companies.
• We have supported the ‘coder dojo’ club of 65 kids who learn coding, minecraft and web development.
• We have supported over 2,800 bed nights in the local area due to Ludgate events and operations.
• We have attracted over 15 new Ludgate members to permanently move to West Cork with their families

What are the main challenges you had to face rolling out the project ?

Our greatest challenges include local services, not meeting the needs of tech start-ups (eg. local solicitors with little start up experience). However all of our local service providers have retrained or provided new specialists to meet the needs of our tech start ups.

Also mention the lack of Government funding. The largest challenge with regard to the setting up of the Ludgate Hub is the lack of supports for capital funding. e.g.. funding to support the capital refurbishment of a building, or to assist with the internal reconfiguration of a building.

In terms of marketing, due to our large marketing presence, we have been inundated with requests for tours of the hub. As our human resource hours are tight, tours can take up too much time of our working day and hence we have reduced access to the hub and declined tours due to lack of resources.

Ultimately, not having a blueprint to work from, we did not engage in a feasibility study as we have very little state data on who lives in the area and what sector they are in. Census records do not depict adequate information for rural areas to demand a feasibility study of a project of our size.

Why is the 1GB bandwidth capacity such an important element in the whole storyline ?

 

We started this project 18 months ago, & realising a vision for rural Ireland as a ‘Gigabit Society’ was not an easy task – but we engaged with the community early on, we held information evenings, town hall meetings and organised inclusive workshops so the community – and the community alone would shape this project.

We looked internationally and saw what was achieved in rural Kansas, the Google Kansas project landed a 1GB connection and within two years over 121 new companies were formed – could this be achieved in rural Skibbereen? With the 1GB connection, it will give the young people of Skibbereen the opportunity to create the next Google or Facebook.

The board pushed to get a 1GB connection. SIRO a joint venture between ESB and Vodafone heard our story and came on board as a partner and selected Skibbereen as a demo town for their fiber optic 1GB roll out. Skibbereen became the first 1GB rural town in Ireland.

I think in summary our visionary 1GB connection – which does not create an environment which places rural Skibbereen on-par with urban centers, but excels them further was one of the most successful aspects.

We have companies moving from the US, Spain, and London to Skibbereen which is something conceived as impossible in the past, however with our 1GB connection now everything is possible.

Could coworking spaces play a key role revitalizing rural areas bringing back skilled well-paid job? 

I think coworking spaces are the future for rural areas as it facilitates communities to get access to research, access to meeting spaces and networks, ideas, funding, and mentorship.

Communities that feel confident, inclusive, organised, and those that ultimately feel influential are those that are most likely to succeed.

Coworking spaces are the future for rural areas.

Looking ahead 30MBs is not enough for rural areas a 1GB – 10GB vision is needed. Key opportunities lie in the future of mobile workers as by 2020 80% of large corporations will offer agile working. We need to give young people the opportunity to help shape their home communities.

We need to support coworking spaces, give opportunities for smaller businesses to become digitally enabled and give an opportunity for the incubation of companies in rural areas. We need communities inextricably linked to the development of digital hubs – diversifying all local rural sectors of their local economies.

The core strengths of our project is a strong organising board, access to capital and community support. Communities who want to develop their own projects need to spend adequate time planning and finding out what will work with their own local strengths.

Every community needs to find their niche and USP. Communities need to ask themselves what will attract people from urban areas to move to rural areas, they need to package those offerings and market it.

Communities also need to look internationally for examples of best practice or successful case studies eg.

Google Kansas is an example of a 1GB connection which transformed the region, attracting 121 new companies from 2012-2014 and spurred on over €3 million worth of investment in projects across many sectors.

The core strengths of our project is a strong organising board, access to capital and community support

Ludgate Seed Capital Funds is the startup program you are running. Who is supporting it?

We run an open call for start-ups to relocate to Skibbereen since November 2015, the program is very attractive for start-ups as it not only provides seed capital but a wealth of world-class mentorship, success is only a part of a roadmap for seed companies which locate in the Ludgate hub.

All companies that locate here have access to our sponsor supports including support from AIB, Ronan Daly Jermyn, Moore Nathans and KPMG.

How different are rural digital businesses when compared with their “urban” peers? Are their clients rural only?

No we believe there is no real difference, if anything rural businesses are becoming more savvy as they do not have the luxury of a natural domestic market, rural businesses believe opportunities are now global.

Rural businesses believe opportunities are now global.

What can the Ludgate experience teach other rural communities in Europe who experience economic desertification?

The Ludgate Hub was only made possible due to many conditions :

      1. Broadband connection

Broadband was the upmost important factor to the success of the project. Our Siro/ Vodafone 1Gb connection, not only put us on par with urban areas but excelled our rural town further than urban areas.

The combination of the 1Gb connection in the town now meant that we had the same broadband speeds as Singapore which was a pull factor for digitally enabled businesses which needed this high-level connectivity (eg. web developers, designers, fin tech, online services, video production). The high-speed connection has attracted high-value jobs which have a greater impact on the local economy than entry level/graduate jobs like (call center services or customer support).

The combination of the 1Gb connection in the town now meant that we had the same broadband speeds as Singapore which was a pull factor for digitally enabled businesses

 

     2. Skibbereen’s geographical position.

Skibbereen is located 100kms from its nearest large urban center (Cork City) making it an undesirable location for an effective commuter town – this creates opportunities and challenges for the town. But This creates a busy town atmosphere with cafes, restaurants, and shops full throughout the day. The town is also located 2kms from the coastline in the South West of Ireland along the Wild Atlantic Way. The area is known best for tourism, outdoor activities, and artisan food.

So, the area acts as an ‘alternative’ option for people to work from. The town has a number of primary schools (ages 4-12) and secondary schools (ages 12-18) with the capacity to take on new students at all times. This is in stark contrast to urban schools which often have two-year waiting lists or suffer from over crowding.

The town has a number of primary schools (ages 4-12) and secondary schools (ages 12-18) with the capacity to take on new students at all times. This is in stark contrast to urban schools which often have two-year waiting lists

The availability of education for young families is a very attractive offer for those working in Dublin city and acts as a pull factor to the area.

Projects like Ludgate has attracted high-level workers away from Dublin, these workers are often high value to a company and the company will allow remote working to retain their staff. Rural digital hubs like Ludgate can act as an effective counter-balancing measure to the congestion seen in our capital city.
     3. Community Support

We engaged early on with the local citizens and community by hosting ‘town hall’ style meetings. Our first meetings kicked off inviting various stakeholders in a range of sectors to attend. Stakeholders included; local business and service providers, retailers, teachers, farmers, students and local authority officials.

Our community meetings were transparent and informative which led to trust building in the community, the style of the meetings was inclusive and we asked attendees to help shape the early plan for the project. By keeping the community informed we gained significant support from the beginning as they felt the project was theirs from the start.

The board of 11 members who created the project all work on a pro-bono basis, their expertise and international network was a crucial part of the success of the project. Our core sponsors AIB have been instrumental to the success of the project, and have truly shaped the direction of where we are going into the future.

Packaging and marketing of the town: We needed to get the town to sell ‘itself’, so we worked with the local chamber of commerce to help them to do up their website. We encouraged banks and service providers (accountants, solicitors etc) to make their services “start up” friendly, and to make their services seamless for young people to access who are returning to the area from international locations.

LudGate Hub will be a speaker at the upcoming Coworking Europe 2017 conference in Dublin.

The Deskmag Global Coworking Survey 2017  is out. 

The first results where presented at Coworking Europe 2016 (Brussels, Nov 28-30).

Download the worldwide data and statistics here below.

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As a global movement, Coworking has taken roots in India the last years.

A couple of hundreds of coworking spaces are now in operation in India.

Mentioning coworking space means we don’t take into account, here, basic shared spaces environments without services and (semi-)open access. Well workspaces associated with an identity and a community, mainly dedicated to digital workers of any kinds.

About one third took part in the Coworking India Survey 2016 produced by SocialWorkplaces.com prior to the Coworking India conference, on September 9-10th, 2016. Here are some key data disclosed during the event which gathered close to 120 coworking operators and pundits from the whole country.

Bigger on average in size, though still limited in number

So far, there is less coworking spaces in India than coworking spaces operating in the London area alone.

That said, though, on average, coworking spaces operating in India seemed wider in space than the average noticed in Europe, for instance. More than one third of the interviewed coworking spaces manage a facility more than 1.000 m2 wide.

Likewise, the average size of coworking tenants each coworking deals with seems to be wider than the average observed in Europe, although the number of operating coworking spaces is much higher over there.  According to the data, one third of the surveyed coworking spaces caters between 100 and 200 members at least.

Acceleration and startup programs often provided

India wants to put itself as a startup nation.

No surprise that a big deal of the coworking spaces who replied to the survey are targeting startups and digital entrepreneurs. So, it is not amazing that more than 50% of the interviewed spaces described not only themselves as coworking spaces but also as Incubation/Acceleration program providers or sometimes TechHubs.

Contentwise, the community building activity is definitily as critical for the Indian coworking scene as it is elsewhere, show the data collected for the Survey. More than 2/3 of the Indian coworking spaces organize in house events at least once a week.

The Coworking industry in India seems for sure ready to take off confirmed attendees at the first Coworking India conference.

Download more facts & data from the Coworking India 2016 Survey providing your information here below.

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