SDS 142: Coworking

Hello ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to the SuperDataScience podcast. Today I wanted to share something that fascinated both me and Hadelin just in the past week. So earlier this week, Hadelin and I were in London and we were there literally for two days. We needed to do some work, so we were there for a couple of meetings, but on the second day, we had some time before our flight back, and we needed to do some work. So we went to a coworking space, and I’ve personally been to a coworking space before quite a while ago when I was in Thailand, in Chiang Mai.

There’s a really cool one there called Punspace. Now like since then, which has been like, I don’t know. 2015, so it’s like been three years, since then I haven’t visited a coworking space. But here, we actually were in a city, in London, where we didn’t have accommodation, or like we just checked out of our hotel, and so we needed to go somewhere. We went to a coworking space called WeWork, and it was fantastic. Like it really showed me what this whole world of coworking actually is. I could see it again, like I think I forgot what it was like, what it was all about, but it’s so fantastic.

What I wanted to share in this episode is some inspiration for you to go and check out a coworking space. So if you’re working remotely, then you definitely need to check out a coworking space. If you’re not working remotely, if you just work in an office, still on the weekend, find some time, do yourself a favor. If you’re working on a project, or some sort of side passion of yours, don’t do it from home. For once, go and check out a coworking space. This is why.

This is why I totally, totally love the experience. We actually checked out two locations. One on the first day, one on the second day, we spent some time there. So coworking has grown massively. Coworking is not just some people getting like in one room just to do work. It’s actually a whole culture. It’s people who do this.

Often, it’s when you go to a coworking space, for instance in London, what I was super surprised at is to find that there’s actual companies that use the coworking space as their office. How crazy is that? So the one I visited back in Thailand, it’s mostly kind of entrepreneurs, digital nomads working on their own, doing their own thing, and interacting with each other, of course, in the process.

But here, for instance, in the one we went to in London, there was actual teams going there. And so companies, for instance, the first meeting that we had was in a coworking space because the company uses the coworking space as their office when they need to meet clients. And that totally blew my mind. And so then in the second coworking space, where you could see like … I think there was, it looked like a group of lawyers working together, and they were all very dressed very nicely, in suits, and ties, and you could tell that these are professionals who are in a certain industry who are working together.

So that’s one thing. So big companies are starting to use, or growing companies are starting to use coworking spaces. Another thing is that the culture there is fantastic. You get to meet people. You get to meet like-minded people. You might build a business connection. You might build a, might find somebody who’s interested in the similar things that you’re interested in. Somebody might give you an idea. There’s lots of like other things that you wouldn’t normally come across in life, other type of personalities, other type of ideas, other type of work going on around there. So it’s a great place to get inspiration, get inspired, meet people. Highly recommend to check it out.

There’s lots of different coworking companies, spaces around the world that do coworking, so this is in no way an advertisement or we’re in no way affiliated with the company WeWork, but we just liked it. We went to WeWork and there was, just in London alone, they have 33 locations. And they have like 315 locations worldwide. At just one of them, just go, you can go online, and Google coworking, you’ll find lots, and lots of other alternatives. I’m sure there should be something. Or, hopefully, there’s something in your city, so you can check it out.

To sum up. I highly recommend checking it out to get some inspiration, even if you’re not working remotely. Even if you’re just working on your own project, or you want to go and read a book, check it out. They usually have like one-day trial, or seven-day trials and stuff like that, that can get you in there to test it out. So yeah, hopefully, this gives you a little push to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. That might impact your life. That might impact your career. You might meet somebody who’s going to start, who you can start a new project with. Start maybe next week. Who knows? Try it out. All right. I’ll talk to you guys later. Thank you so much for being here today. And see you next time. Until then, happy analysing.