Summary results of discussions and knowledge sharing during unconference portion of Coworking Europe Conference 2015.

1. RESULTS
Coworking unconference 2015
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2. EU-funds
• EU-funding opportunities
• EU 2020 strategy
• Social innovation
• Smart & inclusive growth
• High potential for coworking movement
• Presentation & Partnership Building:
• Sabrina & Martina office@gainandsustain.eu
• @alpeadriacoworking.eu
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3. Build your community
• Lunch Plus
• House tours
• Think Lab
• 100+ members – speed dating
• Talks about combining work and personal life
• One on ones for new members
• 100+ members, coworking hackathon, ‘Special Saturday’
• Bathroom solutions
• Chief Happiness officer (dog)
• Children’s day
• Chief of Month – takes care of lunch!
• Celebrate the individual
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4. New Business Model:
NO rent and NO event
• Assemble free-lance team
• Huge spaces in the future .... To have e critical mass
• Agrégation of small spaces
• Bring services in the cloud
• Co-créate Project in the coworking spaces
• sell Project for Example digitalised story Telling
• a coworking Space cannot Be a job provider but an opportunity for job
• a creative center , a hub
• we sell prestige , our greaT Brand and our greaT location, our communitY of
influencers
• services package accontant, lawyer
• test for concept , out sourced creativity lab , idéas sessions , Brain Storming
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5. How to design
place and interaction
• Activity based coworking
• Human centered Design
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6. European Coworking Assemble
• Coworkingassembly.eu
• Horizon 2020 inclusion
• European calls for Coworking Spaces
• Presentation of Coworking in EU Parliament
• Endorsement of Coworking by EU Vice-President
• 10 new members
• Partnership with Open Coworking and EFIP
• Future – Monthly knowledge exchange calls
• Coworking EU discount for members
• Meeting with EU Commission VP and Commissioner
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7. Coworking for non-digital
and over 50 year olds
Questions:
• Is the model attractive?
• How to build community?
• What is in it for them?
• What is in it for others?
Answers:
• People don’t want to retire
• 50% rule of success (experience network)
• Gives a reason to get dressed in the morning
• Experience sharing – job loss
• ‘reverse mentoring’ - Young people as mentors
• Cyclical mentoring – older people share experience
• Make office more homey
• Connect with shared interests: wine, food, gardening
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8. Coliving – a new step in Coworking?
Projects:
Coconat, Berlin – Common, Brooklyn – Sun and Co. Spain – Schani Hotel, Austria
Questions:
• Key aim? Is it a business or service? What business model?
• How to fill apartments?
• Independent investment or partnering?
• Private and community access? How?
Answers:
• Join facebook group to reach interested people
• Test small group with private or local renting.
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9. #Coworking Monday
• Tag for events in different spaces which happen Mondays at regular intervals.
• Can be anything at anytime.
• Combine with regions E.g. #CoworkingMonday Mallorca Ongoing promotion
complementary to annual events.
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10. Coworking IT
• Average user (Coworker) has High expectations
• More Mac than Windows
• Smart phone important
Top 3
• Connectivity
• Online Presence
• Management software
Common offering from Spaces:
• More is Less
Potential
• Online On-boarding
• Chromebook for guests
• Shared IT services/Social Media Powered by:

11. Global Event Formats
Standardized event formats
License model, by invitation, public domain
Aims: Build/develop community, attract potential coworkers, generate income…
Examples:
Pecha Kucha, TEDx, Popup Maker, Travel Massive, Game Jam Hackathon,
ignite, Coder Dojo, EU Code Weekend…
FuckUp Nights, StartUp Weekend, Lean Startup Machine, Startup Sauna,
Startup Safari
Elevator Pitch, Powerpoint Karaoke
Join the list for further exchange: info@creativespace.ch
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12. talent and innovation hub in Lesvos:
discussion highlights and plan
(summary slide)
• The shift to seeing refugees as individuals with talent
• human story that touches
• develop and show a roadmap: a clear process develop an online and
accessible talent passport.
• The hub could develop solutions that help individual refugees find each other.
• co-working community is a great community to tap into. also address and
involve creatives. creative story that people want to become part of.
• Nexodus, With many (young) professionals across the world leaving rural
areas and moving to urban areas, especially rural areas are looking for talent.
Refugee talent could step in here.
• Crowd funding Crowdfunding could be accelerated that will build trust and
give momentum
• easy way for people to sign up
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13. talent and innovation hub in Lesvos:
discussion highlights and plan
• These are the detailed notes and plan (perhaps copy and paste to read better)
• The shift to seeing refugees as individuals with talent and as an opportunity (in stead of in terms of numbers and as a problem) opens up the thinking
and creates energy for all involved to contribute in their own way. Many want to support and engage but it is not easy to see how. The idea of the
hub inspires to think about individual contribution.
• In crises like this, it is often the individual and human story that touches and gives meaning. Small scale initiatives and solutions whos that individual
actions matter and can inspire others to become active, develop their own ideas and contribute.
• We need to develop and show a roadmap: a clear process depicting what we want to achieve and how to achieve it. The road map can give the trust
and clarity for possible investors and contributors to step in and can also be a model that can be replicated.
• It is important to develop an online and accessible talent passport format that possible partners and employers can understand (e.g. through
translation into various languages) and that refugees can use to connect with opportunities across Europe.
• In a refugee crisis like this, finding the people who you lost trace of in the process is a critical need. The hub could develop solutions that help
individual refugees find each other.
• The co-working community is a great community to tap into. They have space, a community to become part of and sometimes even job
opportunities to offer. They also have people in their communities that would be willing to support the hub initiative, either financially or by coming
to Lesvos for a week or so to help.
• The hub should also address and involve creatives. This links to the vision of the Mayor of Mytili to position Mytili as cultural capital of Europe in
2021. It also connects with the creative communities in the co-working network.
• The initiative and hub should be ‘cool’: make it a cool and creative story that people want to become part of.
• Nexodus, a software solution for co-working, is offering to look at how their platform can be used in this initiative.
• With many (young) professionals across the world leaving rural areas and moving to urban areas, especially rural areas are looking for talent. Refugee
talent could step in here.
• Crowd funding seems to be a great way to get this project funded: it is an appealing and valuable project to fund and crowd funding makes builds
involvement and visibility in a wider community. Developing a good and clear crowd funding campaign requires energy and building the story well.
People in the session offered their support to get make this a success. A short video could work really great in bringing the story across.
• Crowdfunding could be accelerated by finding some individuals and companies that are willing to get this off the ground. If they bring in the first 20-
40%, that will build trust and give momentum to the campaign.
• We should create an easy way for people to sign up for the project so that every one who is inspired/feels invited, has an easy entry to contribute.
• Contact paul@open.co.za to keep the conversation going!

14. FUCK-UPS
• :-b
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15. Creativity in coworking
Questions:
• How do you define creativity?
• How do you see creativity at work in your space?
• How can you boost creativity?
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16. Coworking in Small towns
• People don’t always want to commute for hours
• You have a lot of education to do with locals
• Mid-30s and 40s are a good target
• Space should focus on service for local community
• Town may be happy to help
• Get in touch with local media – they LOVE it!
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17. Communication Tools
CHANGING ENVIRONMENT
People are working in new ways:growth of the co-working centre community
collaborative economy
teleworking
digital nomads
co-workation
co-working teams within corporations
So it makes sense that people need new tools to communicate too
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POPULAR TOOLS USED BY CO-WORKERS
E-mail: Gmail, Outlook
Social network enterprises: Yammer, Hylo
Chats and call apps: Skype, Google Hangouts
File sharing: Google Drive, Dropbox
Project Management: Asana, Trello, Flow, JIRA
Time measurement apps: Toggl
Newsletter and public boards
Intranet or website with a database of companies
Event sign-up: Eventbrite
E-mail killers: Slack
THE PERFECT COMMUNICATIONS TOOL
Co-working managers want to have an all-in-one communications app with:
instant messaging
file sharing
access to information and files anytime, anywhere
multi-device design
customized notifications
integrations with popular tools such as Gifthub, Google Drive or Dropbox
public channels, private channels & 1-to-1 conversations
channels to make introductions, communicate events, e-learning sessions and job openings
a message to introduce new comers
a search tool to find companies and people to work with
interactions and reactions from co-workers
NOYSI, created in a co-working space, follows this model.

18. Federation model of replication
Benefits:
• Not reinventing the wheel
• Speedier start up process
• Greater leverage for : lobbying, Purchasing and taking collective action
• Retains individual brand
• Reduced costs through collective systems and knowledge sharing
• This model's time is coming...
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19. Climate Change and Coworking
• Greenelephantcoop@gmail.com
Tenants in green coworking spaces use the energy credentials of their building to
promote their own services to their own clients .
Coworking brings economies in use of heat and light and cuts down commuting
costs.
We recommend that this conference puts environmental considerations higher on
the agenda and also that you include a carbon offset calculator in your conference
fee model.
Only 3 people attended so it is clear that people don't realise the business
opportunities that an environmental strategy would bring to their businesses.
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20. SPONSORING
• Sponsoring vs. Partnership
• Increases Value of Location and Image
• Mixed feelings
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21. How to grow Talents
Coworking is about growing the talents of the territory
What are your talents?
What talents you do you see in the person next to you that they do not see?
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22. EU-funds
• EU-funding opportunities
• EU 2020 strategy
• Social innovation
• Smart & inclusive growth
• High potential for coworking movement
• Presentation & Partnership Building:
• Sabrina & Martina office@gainandsustain.eu
• @alpeadriacoworking.eu
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23. Workation/Coworkation/Startup
Retreats/Co-living
• New Google group already prepared:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/coliving-coworkation
More knowledge is good!!
• Samantha’s survey for her Master’s thesis :
https://www.umfrageonline.ch/s/53b98d3
• Digital Nomad Survey: http://digitalnomadsurvey.com/
• Let’s keep networking and see how we can support each other!
• Julianne from Coconat is trying to connect everyone
• Jon from Sun and Co already set up the google group above!
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24. How Can We Organise Skills
Academies?
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Talent Garden Milano-Calabiana – They created an Innovation School supported by IBM and Red Bull, Postgraduate courses in ecommerce and tech –
Expensive, but cheaper than a master which is not industry-relevant?
Practice Makes Perfect – coworkers showcase their skills or products in a free workshop and get free feedback from participants
Laura, we have three actions
We made a needs analysis survey and from the result arranged Saturday Peer-to-Peer Workshop – Price is €40 – 50 per person
We also Have a 3-Day Training Camp held in conjunction with our local University
We also offer from European Social Fund money a programme for 22 people to help them create a freelancer career, 84 hours course over 3 months
Priscilla – We have Think Labs – Quick-fire session in which an entrepreneur can pitch a problem and get an instant answer
Genevieve
Monday Picnic, 12.00-2.00pm, bring a sandwich and state What is Your Need?, and receive help from coworkers
‘Cup of Teach’ (for Kids), it’s a way to improve your skills and there is funding for it
Diego – 1.5 hours workshops offered by mentors – Price is €15 per person
Sara – We have three offerings:
Freelance Day, we teach all the skills required to set up as a Freelancer (Free), Peer to Peer, each freelancer explains what they know
Pitch a problem and get an instant answer
Sector Training (Graphic design, etc.)
For the future we want to create a Freelancer University and facilitate more skills swaps between Freelancers

25. How do we measure success?
• The key thing here was the difference in the motivations for founders creating space in the first place, so
those who had ambitious aspirations to develop a high growth business vs those who had less formal
coworking spaces.
• Very few currently survey their members to assess happiness, ambitions, projected growth, opinions on
services offered, opinions on services missing. For some, there was a feeling that this was way too formal
for their community.
• This evolved into a simple three question Net Promoter Score style questionnaire that could see who
actively promotes the space. We discussed whether there could be a standard survey that we share, some
were very keen, some less so. We decided that it could be useful to have a survey that is customisable to
fit different environments.
• The most valuable way to assess success & happiness in a space is to spend time in the community,
talking with members, eating together and responding positively to feedback to show that it is taken
seriously, unless they ask for a hot tub.
• We discussed how events could be thought of less as a service for the community members, although still
a perk, but more as a marketing activity and focus.
• We also discussed whether it is a even possible to measure something like happiness, with the pressures
that members face, despite it being a key measure.
• The main conclusion is that if we do survey the community, it has to be honest, quick and easy.

26. How do we connect our communities?
• There were a few key themes here, what platforms already exist to avoid duplication, how
can we support those platforms to solve the problem.
• A key for building networks between communities is to raise their ambitions, network of
contacts as supporters/friendly faces, and to offer a soft landing into new regions "make
Europe/the world smaller".
• A good point made was how churches currently achieve this sense of familiarity and
welcoming nature in new cities and communities for those who are religious, how could
coworking create this sense of connectivity through shared values.
• Online platforms were generally slated as being a bad way to do this, as it just creates more
noise when we are already bombarded with noise/information constantly.
• We also talked about trade missions, but this appears to be something that copass will take
care of with copass camps.

27. THANK YOU!!!!!!
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