[EVENTS] An interview with Manu Zea, Founder of Coworking Spain Conference
Looking for some coworking goodness? You have landed at the right place! Last year, we had the amazing opportunity to discover Coworking Spain Conference (CWSC) and present the travels we did around the world for the last 3 years and it was incredible! The organisation, the content, the people participating, everything is designed for you to learn from the market on both global and local perspective as well as from the people making the Spanish coworking scene what it is today. For the 2019 edition, we decided to interview the Man behind one of the world oldest coworking conference: Manu Zea — Founder of CWSC. With us, he shared his coworking story, from the early days of the conference to how it grew over the last 8 years. Discover his insights, right below and get your tickets for the conference at the end of the interview!
Hello Manu! Can you tell us how you landed into the coworking world?
I have started with the coworking thing between 2006 or 2007. When the word coworking was not used yet. At that moment I opened a space without knowing it was a coworking. A small space of about 20 people called Working Space. It took us a long time to make the space known. We had a rough beginning because we were trying to sell a service that had no name.
How did the idea of creating a coworking conference for Spain came to life?
I thought about the Coworking Spain Conference (CWSC) after coming to the second Coworking Europe in Berlin in the year 2011. At the end of the European Conference I said “This must be done in Spain”, and if we do not organize it, someone else will do it.
So I quickly started communicating about the event. I spent six months working non-stop to create the Conference. In between, I went to the first Global Coworking UnConference Conference (GCUC) where I also participated as a speaker.
Six months later we organized the first Coworking Conference in Madrid. It took place in the spaces of Impact Hub and Utopicus and 120 people attended the event.
It’s been 8 years now that you are doing the conference right? How did you grew over time and How has the conference evolve?
This is our eighth edition, so we are one of the most ancient coworking conferences in the world. The Conference evolves and changes from year to year. At first the Conference was more intimate and small, very close to the public, it was practically a family. The topics we were dealing with in the first conferences were more related to the ways of working.
Now the program design has two main lines: a line focused on the coworking industry and another line focused on the soul of coworking. Moreover, as a novelty, this year the CWSC becomes international. We will have speakers from the UK, Germany or Denmark, and we hope that between 25% and 50% of the attendees are foreigners. On the other hand, we have extended the Conference one more day to incorporate a coworking Academy aimed at novice managers.
We have evolved but our identity remains the same: we want to keep the feeling that the attendants consider themselves a family. We like the conference to have this nature and we will keep it.
Now let’s talk about the coworking scene in Spain, how would you describe it?
Right now the coworking sector is growing a lot in Spain. Big companies of international coworking like WeWork, Spaces and Talent Garden have appeared in the scene and Spanish companies that have invested much capital in spaces of coworking like Utopicus or Loom House have also emerged.
Large real estate companies such as CBRE Group, Cushmann Wakefield, Jones Lang LaSalle are investing in the sector. The coworking industry has already settled in the country. More and more investor groups are interested in coworking and there are many funds investing in it.
It has grown a lot over the last 5 years, what changed really in your opinion and where do you see it going?
It is true that the sector has grown a lot in recent years. I think the big investment of large groups will bring the professionalization of the sector on the one hand, but on the other hand there will be a great competition, which can come to a price fight among the big coworking brands. I think many small spaces that opened for the only purpose of reducing office costs will close.
The highlight of what is happening in the sector is the professionalization that is being seen, not only in the amount of capital invested in opening new spaces, but in the large number of services that are being created around; Consulting, design, platforms, software, etc.
The coworking spain conference of 2019 is happening soon, can you talk about it more? Any speaker you are excited to welcome? Will there be a focus this year?
Yes, the conference is just around the corner. It will be on April 24th and 25th in Alicante. The truth is that we are very excited about this new edition, because we have quite some news.
On the one hand, as I said, we have the challenge of attracting more international public, for that reason we have increased the foreign speakers, such as James Rankin, Ivan Lopez (Republikken, Denmark), Joana Carvalho (Dinamo 10, Portugal). This challenge has led us to incorporate simultaneous translations into English of the main lectures, in order to attract foreign public.
On the other hand, the conference is divided into two rooms. A room is more focused on talking about the coworking industry and the smaller room is focused on creating conversations among the attendees and discussing about coworking in a broader way.
