My coworking journal week 4: A Coworking Interview Whirlwind
This week, I have been engaged in a whirlwind of interviews and logistics. As a recap, my name is Emma Fenstermaker and I am a 20-year-old American student who is currently studying abroad in Berlin and completing an internship with Coworkies, an online platform that connects people between coworking spaces globally (www.coworkies.com).
For six weeks, I am studying different coworking spaces, interviewing owners and coworkers alike, and keeping this blog about my experiences. You can read about the start of my experiment here. My experiment has so far mostly involved getting my feet in the water and acclimating myself. I have read up on many different types of coworking spaces, engaged in a few community events, and reached out to several coworkers This week, however, I stretched a little farther beyond my comfort zone and conducted several interview with both coworking owners and coworkers.
My first interview was with Tobias Schwartz, the coworking manager at Sankt Oberholz, one of the first coworking spaces to open here in Berlin. I met him in the Sankt Oberholz cafe, a beautifully furnished space that had a warm, cozy atmosphere. He gave me a quick tour of the space, pointing out the challenges of creating a modern space in a deeply historic building. I learned several quirky details such as the fact that they strung hanging lamps from the ceiling to get around the issue of leaving the historic light fixtures undisturbed. During the interview, which you can read here, we discussed topics ranging from the historic nature of the building to Sankt Oberholz’s unique backstory to the nature of coworking in general.
Having been to several coworking spaces at this point, I have become very interested in the similarities and differences between them. The general layout of each space that I have seen, namely Rainmaking Loft, Impact Hub, Betahaus, and Sankt Oberholz, is similarly arranged: an open floor plan, long tables, plenty of space. However, the decor and vibe of each place is subtly different. Though each space has a strongly communal feeling, the atmospheres are not identical. To me, Rainmaking Loft is filled with a busy hum, Impact Hub has a certain airiness, Betahaus seems full of orderly clutter, and Sankt Oberholz has a cozy vibe. I have enjoyed each space, and the different iterations of the same concept show how many interpretations of the same base idea can exist.
I had the opportunity to see yet another version of a coworking space when I interviewed the Anderland Systems team at the Social Impact Lab.
Anderland Systems, a team comprised of two men named Jan Schwabe and Andreas Probst, is developing a solar-cooling system in order to assist with crop storage in rural areas of India. I asked the team many questions about their project, what they hope to accomplish, their feelings for the Social Impact Lab, and their biggest concerns about climate change, all of which you can read about just below.
I was excited for this interview because climate change is one of the issues that I feel most passionately about. My mother is a professor of Environmental Studies and has instilled in me an appreciation of the natural world around us and the need to protect it. It was interesting hearing Jan’s and Andreas’s perspective on the necessity of each and every one of us getting involved in the fight against climate change.
I did not have the opportunity to see much of the Social Impact Lab, but I am attempting to organize a tour there next week and will hopefully receive more than a quick glimpse then. At first glance, the room in which I interviewed Jan and Andreas reminded me of Rainmaking Loft with its easily movable, carpeted furniture and open spaces. I will have to wait and see if there are stronger associations beyond my initial impression. The interview did take me to a part of Berlin that I had never explored before, so I have enjoyed the ways these interviews have expanded my wandering radius as well as exposed me to different perspectives.
My last interview of the week did not require travel. I interviewed Joriam Philippe, one of the three owners of Estudio Pira, a project based here at Impact Hub.
Pira is a difficult project to explain, as it aims to address social issues through media, games, and art. I chatted with Joriam about how the project began, the ways in which creativity can and should shape our world, the concept of “gamification” and the way coworking fits into the ordered chaos that is his work. You can read the full interview here:
I think my favorite part of the interview was discussing a game Joriam is developing that is designed to “eliminate smalltalk.”
Being a sociology major, I find social interactions and what drives them fascinating, so a game like the one Joriam described sounded right down my alley. It reminded me of The New York Times’s piece “36 Questions that Lead to Love” which also sets up an intimate situation between two people who may not know each other very well.
Three interview in a week was a little nerve-wracking, but mostly exciting, and I hope to fit in a couple more next week. Between preparing questions, conducting the interviews, and polishing the answers I received, I did not have a lot of time to do much else. Mostly, I looked into one last person to interview and found several spaces that I hope to work from next week. The coworker that I hope to interview next week is named Jennifer Geacone-Cruz and she is developing a language-learning app at Office Club. The spaces that I looked into for next week, all equipped with beautiful cafes, are as follows: Agora Collective, JuggleHUB, Unicorn Berlin, and Salon Renate. I also found several events to possibly attend next week, including a music event at Noize Fabrik and a breakfast at Satellite Office.
I took a break from my computer screen and interviews for another community lunch on Wednesday and once again enjoyed the communal feeling of cooking with others and scarfing down the results. As I am closing in on my last couple of weeks, I have started to reflect on my overall experience here. I have been trying to expose myself to as many different coworking experiences as possible, and given everything everything I have learned, I know I that I will miss all of the vibrant atmospheres I have come in contact with during my time here.
You can read about my previous week here:
The Coworkies team has traveled to 110 coworking spaces across 12 cities and interviewed coworking space owners and teams, collecting stories along the way. They forge connections between coworking spaces and open doors to a more global coworking community.
