There are over 375 million independent and mobile workers around the world, they do not work in the traditional office and they are propelling a massive change through collective necessity of workspace and a community with which to belong.

Coworking Europe 2011, organized by Enterprise Globale, CLUBOFFICE, and betahaus, with the support of Deskmag, will serve as an investigation into how spaces are developing as well as the greater effects on creativity, education, and entrepreneurship.

Over 200 people from Europe, China, and the U.S. will converge in Berlin 3-5 November at betahaus and CLUBOFFICE, two of Berlin’s very successful coworking spaces. Participants will represent the spectrum stakeholders in the emerging field delving into university systems, city development, start-up incubation, corporate entities, as well as community building within spaces themselves and creating broader networks for the individual coworkers.

The from coworking spaces to large corporations, the diversity of speakers is one of the strengths of this meeting of minds. Alex Hillman, founder of the coworking space Indy Hall and a figurehead in the global movement, will encourage discussion on the importance of community in taking coworking to the next level. Christoph Giesa from the Otto Group, a large German corporation, will share how even traditional companies have need to pay attention to the movement. Giesa says, “Like all big companies we are facing a shortage of skilled personnel, and we have to accept that there are people who want to work in a different way from now on.”

One of the leading publications documenting the movement, Deskmag, will also be presenting early results of the 2nd Global Coworking Survey. Findings of the research will be extremely valuable to current and potential space owners, learning from coworkers wants and needs, as well as from successful and failed spaces around the world.

There is not one voice which represents the coworking movement. They are in fact quite varied. All people who attend are encouraged to present in an accelerated Barcamp style session. Coworking Feng Shui? Coworking party planning? Green office conditions? Could be any or none of these ideas, the exciting thing will be to see what the coworking community would like to share with eachother.

Berlin holds one of the highest concentraions of cowokring spaces in the world. Coworking Europe will bring the crowd to them individual spaces for a first-hand experience in the different manifestations of coworking spaces in the city. Often the needs of the community found within the space define both the physical space and the community interactions.

The idea of coworking has progressed from its beginnings of groups of freelancers, who had been working alone, collaborating to create a new work environment. These days they are joined by employees of large companies, scientific researchers, students, and more. As with all new things the exciting thing is watching it transform and grow, utilising potential that was before unknown, and creating and idea that may change the way we all work.

www.coworkingconference.com

Notes to the editor:

The figure of over 375 million independent and mobile workers around the world comes from Foresster Research.
Coworking Europe was first held in 2010 in Brussels, Belgium, and was organized by Jean-Yves Huwart of Enterprise Globale.
Coworking Europe 2011 is co-organized by Enterprise Globale, CLUBOFFICE, and betahaus, with the support of Deskmag.

Global Enterprise is an economic “think and do tank”, which analyses new trends impacting modern economy dynamics : creativity, networks, collaboration, entrepreneurship, values, innovation are just some of the major topics covered every day. Global Enterprise is playing an active role in supporting economic operators to develop and browse new physical and digital ecosystems in order to grow their agility and their innovation potential.

CLUBOFFICE is a network of new workplaces where freelancers, enterprise employees and even entire companies can find more than just a space in which to work.

Betahaus is a coworking space which meets the requirements of independent creative professionals and knowledge workers, and expands their opportunities. In a mixture of relaxed coffee house atmosphere and concentrated working environment they create room between work and privacy in which innovation and creativity is fostered. is

Deskmag is the magazine about the new type of work and their places, how they look, how they function, how they could be improved and how we work in them. We especially focus on coworking spaces which are home to the new breed of independent workers and small companies.
Sponsor information:
Deskwanted allows easy online access to working spaces, enabling those with a need for a place to work to easily find their space.
Airbnb are proud to sponser Coworking Europe by providing accomodation to many of the international speakers. Airbnb connects people who have space to spare with those who are looking for a place to stay.

Press Contact:
Coworking Europe press contact:
Julius Ruecker, CLUBOFFICE
julius.ruecker [AT] club-office.com
Mobil +49 (0)1525 364 05 08
Office +49 (0)30 21 50 2041

“Our people are our best asset” often look as empty slogans displayed on companies front office.

The Indian IT company HCL Technologies (55.000 people, 3.6 billions US$ turnover) has made it real. To the extend that the CEO of the group, Vineet Nayar, proudly state : “Employees first, customer second” (E1C2).

First implemented in 2006, the E1C2 model has strenghtened since then at HCL Technologies, with success. The company is one of the most succesful IT services organisation in the world.

Management reversed accountability

The key principle of the E1C2 model is defined as “reversed accountability” and is described in the following way :

“The value generated by an organisation if created by its employees, mostly those in contact with the customers. The managers are not creating the value. Managers should be their to listen and support the employees. Not the opposite”, says Vineet Nayar.

For HCL Technologies, it’s in the interest of the company to understand that the employees create the value, not the CEO or management. If the staff members feels good about their job, it they get enough autonomy, support and transparency from the top, the impact for the customer will be positive.

A 360° evaluation system is put in place. Anyone in the organisation can comment the work of a colleague, no matter what’s his/her position otr department. A transparent online questioning system is available for all the company members. More actions are explained in the herebellow slideshow.

Employee First Customer Second

“With Geny Y, we are digitalizing the corporation. This change who is in power, really. Where will the solutions be found ?”, observes Vineet Nayar, interviewed by the Harvard Business Review.

Bring the human back to business

But how to convince traditional managers to endorse this new management values ?

“Good question, says the CEO of HCL Technologies. There is a number of beliefs that have to be accepted by today’s anagers. First, believe that you don’t have all the answers. Believe that it’s ok for brighter people to exist in the world. Believe that the future answers you need to make the right decision for your company will come from manager and CEO but from the rest of the organisation or from the outside. Believe that the command and control way of runninging an organisation will not work if you believe democracy value  is the best way to run a country. And believe that by opening yourself to accounbility to evaluation, you will unleashed a new potential for your company”.

“Bring human back to business !“

We were asked to explain the rise of the coworking movement and what were the mainest differences with the more traditional innovation incubators in Europe. We also tried to demonstrate that some coworking spaces were shifting toward more structured innovation and entrepreneurship engines.

Click here to take part in the Global Coworking survey

This survey is part of an academic, non-commercial study examining the working conditions of coworkers in coworking spaces. It’s the first global survey on coworking. The results will be published for free on a magazine or blog in your country.

All replies are anonymous. We don’t at any point ask for your name, or the name of any coworking space.

The questionnaire is simple to use. You also can switch between languages in the upper right corner. The continue button is at the bottom of the page. Have fun and thank you for your participation!

This survey is organized or supported by:

Lukas de Pellegrin, Technical University of Berlin
Carsten Foertsch, Deskmag – Coworking Magazine
Jean Yves Huwart – Coworking Europe / Enterprise Globale – European conference on Coworking 2010
Carolyn Ockels, Coworking Labs – Coworking Research USA
Cadu de Castro Alves, Global Coworking Group
Anderson Costa, Movebla – Brazilian Coworking Magazine
Massimo Carraro, Cowo – Coworking Network Italy
Sebastian Sooth, Hallenprojekt – German Coworking Network
Manuel Zea Barral, Working Space, Coworking Madrid
Akira Matsuda, Coworking JP – Coworking Blog Japan
Nicolas Koreni, moboff – Japanese Coworking Network
Joel Alas, Deskwanted – Global Coworking Space Directory
Nathanaël Sorin-Richez, Silicon Sentier – La Cantine Paris
Pernilla Raj – Coworking Sweden