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Coworking Labs (USA)

We had a great time at the European Coworking Conference, which ended on saturday. There is no way to cover all of the event in a single blog post, but below are some of the highlights from my perspective:

1. Coworking is growing rapidly in Europe: much like the U.S., coworking and the number of coworking facilities is growing quite rapidly. There is a pretty interesting pattern to the growth – the farther south you go, the more facilities you find.Spain and Italy have a lot of coworking facilities. The nordic countries have few. The countries in the middle – Germany, France, UK, etc – have strong coworking movements but not as strong as Spain and Italy.

Polski Coworking (Poland)

Pierwsza europejska konferencja na temat coworkingu jaka odbyła się w Brukseli oczywiście prowokuje różnego rodzaju podsumowania, rankingi i spostrzeżenia. Pierwsze co rzuca się w oczy to jak pięknie idea coworkingu zakwitła na starym kontynencie. Nie ma miesiąca by w którymś z europejskich miast nie otworzyło się nowe miejsce dla pracy i współpracy wolnych strzelców. I pierwsze właśnie spostrzeżenie: w ilości nowo otwartych biur zdecydowanie przoduje Berlin, który widać staje się niepisanym europejskim centrum coworkingu. pisaliśmy o tym tutaj.

Coworking Leipzig (Germany)

Was vergangenes Wochenende im Hub in Brüssel auf der “1st European Coworking Conference” passierte, könnte man ein historisches erstes Zusammentreffen der internationalen Coworking Betreiber nennen. Außer den Europäern waren auch Coworking Bekannte aus den USA angereist um mit uns zu diskutieren.

Cowo Network (Italy)

WeStartup.eu (Belgium)

Someone I met at the conference, an owner of a business center/coworking space, said to me in a private conversation: most of these guys are never going to make money. They talk about nice things like building communities and hanging out in kitchens, but that isn’t going to make money.

He’s right. He’s also completely missing the point.

Why he’s right: true, many of the coworking spaces are not going to make money. They sure aren’t going to get rich, they likely won’t even be very well-off. For some, only their full-time jobs keep their coworking initiatives running.

Why he’s missing the point: it’s not about money. True, money comes into the picture sooner or later (after all, bills have to be paid), but the common thread through most of my conversations with coworking space owners and managers was that they do coworking because they feel the need in the community and in themselves to do it. Because it’s the right thing to do, and someone’s got to do it, and that somebody is me.

Because it was the right thing to do, people flew to Brussels from Ukraine and the US, from Paris and from Prague, from Ireland and Italy. Because it was the right thing to do, all of them gave up their weekends – and many of them paid the trip with their own money.

Why I find this remarkable: “the right thing to do” as the motivation has been around for a while – without it, the open source software movement would not have started. The fact that the open source ethos is spreading into other types of business and other communities – now that is new.

Need proof? Just check the first presentation on this page for figures.

Coworking Lukyanoskaya (Ukraine)

Европейский рынок труда постепенно переходит в фазу фриланса и вне-офисного трудоустройства по контракту. Данные по Европе показывают постоянно растущее намерение европейцев начать свой бизнес.

Предприниматели объединяются в коворкинг центрах, большинство из них счастливы, что могут обсуждать свои проекты, получать советы и ответы на свои вопросы. Европейская комиссия поддерживает инициативы граждан становиться предпринимателями и всячески поощряет мероприятия, проводимые в коворкинг центрах.

Zevillage.net (France)

Le coworking est un concept qui monte : la 1ère conférence européenne sur le sujet, Coworking Europe 2010, se tient à Bruxelles les 19 et 20 novembre, à l’initiative de Entreprise Globale (Jean-Yves Huwart) et de The Hub Brussels (Antoine Van den Bogaert), espace de coworking de la capitale belge.

Coworking Europe 2010 veut faire connaître le concept du Coworking auprès d’un public élargi (médias, autorités publiques, partenaires privés…) et mettre en lumière l’essor rapide, en Europe, de ces nouveaux écosystèmes.

Working Space (Spain)

El día 19 y 20 de Noviembre se celebro en Bruselas el Primer Coworking Europe.

Un evento en el que se exponía la situación del CoWorking en Europa y se planteaban nuevas situaciones que surgen en le sector.

Os dejamos las notas que obtuvimos en ese ciclo de conferencias y las presentaciones de los distintos ponentes.

Ponencia Inaugural.

Marko Curavic, Comisionario Europeo (Head of Unit DG entrepreneurship & Industry)

EL comisionario hizo especial mención a que la mayoría de los negocios son pequeñas empresas o emprendedores, con comienzos duros, y por eso es necesario aprovechar este tipo de espacios, ya que al tratarse de espacios económicos y con posibilidades de crecimiento gradual.

Creative Wallonia (Belgium)

Creative wallonia est support officiel de l’événement international “coworking Europe 2010” qui s’est tenu ce vendredi 20 novembre, au ‘hub’ de Bruxelles.

Cette rencontre a rassemblé plus de 200 personnes de nombreux pays impliqués dans la création ou l’utilisation d’espaces de coworking. Ceux-ci se multiplient u point de devenir une réalité globale avec un impact substantiel sur la création d’activité, particulièrement via la création de nombreuses petites et moyennes entreprises.

En accueillant un événement de cette dimension, la Wallonie et Bruxelles voulaient se donner l’occasion de mesurer le stade de développement de ce concept en plein essor.

Fondateur du hub de Seatle, fondateur d’une plateforme virtuelle de coworking en République tchèque, représentants de nombreux espaces européens, créateurs ayant débuté leur activité en espaces de coworking, représentants du réseau des espaces de coworking, délégation de coworkers allemands, les orateurs savaient de quoi ils parlent et l’ont fait avec passion et décontraction. Les présentations sur le modèle des TED, relax mais “smart”, démontrent l esprit positif qui entraine la vague du coworking, nouvelle réalité du business.

CoCoworking (Spain)

Bruselas 20 y 21 de noviembre: Cocoworking Pamplona se fué a Bruselas de “viaje de estudios”. Nos encontramos con un ambiente muy acogedor y motivador: gente con una actitud muy positiva hacia la colaboración y el trabajo de diferentes paises europeos (Francia, Lituania, Alemania, Italia, España, Bélgica, Holanda, etc.) y EE.UU. que están trabajando en coworking físico o virtual, que son miembros, participan o gestionan espacios de diferentes tipologías, ya sea en capitales, ciudades o pueblos, con años de experiencia y recorrido, o quién no dispone aún del espacio físico o la comunidad… de lo mas variado.

Nosotros fuimos con ganas de saber y volvimos con algunas cosas muy claras y ganas de seguir preguntando: preguntándoos.

En tanto que gestores de Cocoworking Pamplona: Es necesario mucho esfuerzo y dedicación para crear comunidad, las condiciones óptimas, reponder a las necesidades, divulgar el planteamiento… Es fundamental preguntar a la gente qué necesita para saber qué es lo que les podemos ofrecer.

Coworking Stutgart (Germany)

Am 19. und 20. November trifft sich im Hub Brüssel die europäische – und auch darüber hinaus – Coworking-Community zu einer offenen Konferenz, der “Coworking Europe“.

Ich werde Coworking0711 bei dieser Konferenz vertreten und bin sehr gespannt auf die Kontakte und den Austausch, der sich dabei ergeben wird.

Deskmag (Germany)

Coworking spaces are mostly small, full, privately-run and unsubsidized, earning money from a combination of desk and meeting space rental. And the number of spaces in Europe has grown rapidly, from under 20 before 2008, 80 in 2009, to at least 150 today. Some predict the growth curve to maintain its steep ascent. That’s the picture that emerged through a survey of coworking spaces, released on the weekend at the Coworking Europe conference in Brussels. The survey was sent out to all known coworking spaces in Europe, and elicited 47 responses.

The results show that 52% of spaces are small, with between 8 and 19 desks, while 6% could be described as extra-large, with a capacity of above 100. The figures show that most spaces have as many or more members than desks, indicating that most are operating at or above capacity, and that the industry is not oversaturated. For most, income from desk rental has to be supplemented by leasing meeting and event rooms to outside groups. 47% said they got by on desk rental alone.

Office Nomads (USA)

I was honored to be invited to speak at the first Coworking Europe conference in Brussels. The conference was amazing. I love talking about coworking and how great was it to be in a room with 120 other coworking enthusiasts. There were a number of folks from the US but I was the only space owner. I met people from all over including Brussels of course, England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Russia, The Netherlands, lots of people from Germany and as far away as Latvia and the Ukraine. There were folks opening up spaces, established space owners, researchers, government officials, as well as representatives from Cisco, Medusa, and Steelcase.

The event was at The Hub Brussels which I have to say is an impressive coworking space. They have 5 very gracious hosts that work hard to make everything go smoothly for all their guests. The setup they have is a little different then how we do it at Office Nomads. For one, there are no resident desks. This leaves the room pretty flexible and everything is on wheels to make it even more so. We showed up on a Thursday morning and the office was in full swing. The next day, the first day of the conference, they had transformed everything into a large event space. Saturday, after everything was wrapped up, we watched as the hosts put it all back in a period of less then 15 minutes.