Learning opportunities between European Creative Hubs

 

Next week we will be flying to Spain to experience at first hand the coworking life in  Malaga and more specifically in the creative hub The Living Room (TLR).

Olga Paraskevopoulou (founder of Stone Soup) and George-Carey Simos (Digital Strategist, Stone Soup resident), will spend 5 days in the beautiful Andalusian city in order to learn and exchange best practices, engage in learning experiences and knowledge transfer as well as to co-create and present a joint event at the hosting hub.

Stone Soup was selected by the European Creative Hubs Network (ECHN) and the Goethe-Institut and was awarded the Peer 2 Peer mobility grant. During the exchange Stone Soup and The Living Room Coworking will share experiences on how to scale a hub from a small operation to a successful and profitable business with space management technology and automation as a key component. We will also look into the great synergies that can happen, if we operate an agency within our hub and work on impactful projects with our members.

The exchange programme is supported by the Creative FLIP project, which is co-funded by the European Commission. Creative FLIP supports healthy & sustainable ecosystems related to Finance, Learning, Innovation & Patenting for CCIs in Europe. The project is implemented by a consortium of six partners, spearheaded by Goethe Institut Brussel and the European Creative Hubs Network.

The best coworking spaces in Europe: Find yours in Greece

We are very happy to be mentioned in the latest Nomad Capitalist article, titled: “The best coworking spaces in Europe”. It feels great when your hard work gets recognised!

Are you a digital nomad? 

Nomad Capitalist is all about helping people like you “go where you’re treated best”. You may read the full article here and when the road leads you in Athens would be fun to pay us a visit!

Embracing the nomad lifestyle entails so many opportunities for expanding yourself either professionally or personally. Changing your basis frequently can be super exciting and could rock your world as you have the potential to meet so many people, be exposed to new ideas, different cultures and try new things.

How do you achieve to get some real influence?

It is helpful to keep track of local meetups and checking the local fb groups for digital nomads to find events relevant to you and generally keep an exploring attitude. Or you could go straight to the source of all the magic itself and mingle with the locals at hubs while you’re also having your work done. In a previous article we shared some tips you need to know to start working remotely and we vote for the first and fifth suggestions we mentioned there. Sharing some real time conversations on your break time with people from the local community may lead you to discover so many more than what you could merely by yourself.

Find your hub/ coworking space

Wherever you may happen to be, there are plenty of options for creative hubs and coworking spaces all over the world. Helping you with that choice there are numerous articles reviewing the crop of the cream of them, and many platforms (e.g. coworker etc) where you may find actual ratings of them. 

Wanna learn from the best? Join the Open Office Hours at Stone Soup

In a recent post we touched upon the opportunities derived from the reversed brain drain, a very exciting process to witness happening in Greece the past year. Everyday we feel inspired by the people based at our coworking space and the example they set: fellow coworkers who are traveling around the world carrying with them their social and personal skills, transferring knowledge, and enriching the local markets they engage with.

We are happy to share the latest news from our community and the background of our highly skilled coworking members. We are also thrilled to announce our new venture that is designed to contribute to this positive change.

Open Office Hours

Open Office Hours are one-on-one sessions with experts in different fields. The sessions will take place at Stone Soup and they will be open to all, and fees won’t be charged. Their objective is to share the knowledge beyond our walls and to strengthen the Athens Digital Creative ecosystem.

Wanna learn from the best? Let’s cut to the chase, and introduce George Carey-Simos, a Stone Soup resident, and the first expert you are invited to visit during Open Office Hours.

George is a Digital Strategist and helps people and companies use the Internet to their  advantage. Born in South Africa and having spent most of his life in different countries; South Africa, Czech Republic, UK, and Greece, he eventually decided to anchor his life in Greece for good.

He has a solid 15 years of working experience gained from numerous positions in different industries and countries. He started his career in Sales and moved into more traditional Media & Communications and PR work – and worked in the field for several years. Then in 2013, he switched to a small digital agency, running various digital projects for SMBs and large multinational brands, also advising clients on social media and digital strategy as a whole. His passion to explore the cutting edge developments in the digital sphere, also led him to co-found WeRSM | We are Social Media at around the same time. It didn’t take long for WeRSM to be recognized for the value it provides to digital marketers of all kinds – and agencies – by keeping them up to date on the latest news, practices, and trends. WeRSM very soon became international.

For the past 4 years, George splits his time between WeRSM and working as a freelancer for his clients. His multidimensional experience gives him the advantage to provide holistic consultancy, project management, and custom training for his clients. He is well-connected, and has a broad network to tap into when he needs to recruit and orchestrate any project.

Apart from his freelance projects, he also runs custom training sessions in digital strategy, social media strategy, and growth hacking. His growth hacking course is taught as part of a series of seminars organized by KnowCrunch at Deree college. Finally, he is also a startup advisor, mentor at Founder Institute, a regular judge at social media awards and startup events, and a speaker at international conferences.

Book your slot!

Whether your business is up and running or you are just starting out, the sessions with George could give you valuable insights on your digital strategy, your resource and team management, but could also help you refine your pitch and develop your USP.

We will announce George’s availability and time slots next week.

Stay tuned!