Community Archives • Σελίδα 4 από 5 • Stone Soup Coworking Space

Coworking empowers a lifestyle of diversity

24 Νοεμβρίου, 2020/in Community, coworking, Interviews, News, Office Space, Personal, Remote Work, Residents, Workspace

Diversity is the product of community and collaboration blended together with openness. This is, after all, one of the key reasons people want to be part of a coworking environment. This allows them to diversify their vision and experience by collaborating with people from different backgrounds, interests, experiences, and thinking. By creating a community of experiences we try to bring together various perspectives and opinions of people who share a feeling of mutualism.

Jelia has always been looking for diverse experiences and new links. She has chosen Athens to be her new home and she recently joined our coworking community. Since it is one of our core values, we discussed why she is constantly seeking diversity both in her work but also in her lifestyle.

“We carry so many places within us and it’s through these places that we see everything new.”

This is what it feels for Jelia when she travels to a new community and gets to meet new people. Coming from a diverse background herself, Jelia is originally from Senegal but she was born and raised in London. She is a lawyer at Doughty Street Chambers working remotely from Greece and she specializes in refugee law, human rights, and international criminal law. Working on a diverse range of issues in these areas, she provides legal assistance to unaccompanied child refugees seeking family reunification in Europe, and to victims of mass crimes seeking to access justice. Jelia joined Stone Soup in October and we had the chance to speak with her about her coworking experience in the diversity of Athens and the importance of inclusion in a community.

Travelling for diversity: Jelia’s background

Jelia studied Law and Spanish language at the University of Sheffield in the UK. She also studied in Barcelona for a year before pursuing a Master’s degree at UCL. After finishing her studies she worked abroad in different parts of the world from Argentina and Colombia to Cambodia. As a result, these travels truly enriched her vision of a world where diversity plays a core part. She first came to Greece in 2016, to work as a volunteer in the camp on Samos island. In 2018, she was able to come back to Greece for another volunteering stint, this time with Safe Passage. And that’s where her story with Athens begins.

Living in Athens: diversity seems familiar

Jelia has been living in Athens for two and a half years since then. For her, Athens is spatially diverse and is “becoming” culturally complex too. So, she loves the ecosystem of the center of the city because it is imperfect and not homogenous. Moreover, she enjoys the diversity of the urban small streets, the micro-neighborhoods, and the variety of independent coffee shops and small businesses. She also likes to cycle and walk in the area of “petroukaki”, which is the name she gave to the Petralona and Koukaki areas! In general, she highlighted the feelings of familiarity this imperfect environment creates in her. It reminds her of all the different cities she has lived in, like Buenos Aires. Driving in Greece is terrible like in Senegal too, she adds! Jelia notes that living in Athens has deepened her work because she is more directly exposed to migration. As a result, she can better understand the needs of the community she is trying to help.

Coworking in Athens: diversity in the workspace community

The choice of coworking in the diversity of Athens has offered her more work-life balance than London, she admits. The city doesn’t stress her out and meets her needs while she is trying to integrate. She decided to join a coworking space because she felt isolated and stressed working from home during the lockdown. She picked Stone Soup because the privacy she can have makes her feel settled. Now she laughs when she gets home and only has to say “Hi, flat!”. As a self-employed professional she needs both privacy and proximity to an everyday community. Her work and traveling experience add to her words about the elements she looks for in a workplace: “People always bring diversity and complexity and that enriches a community”. So, for Jelia, the coworking community should be a respectful place where people can express themselves without fear in these crazy times. She also works as a human rights consultant for the United Nations and NGOs. Her part-time work for the NGO All Survivors Project, which focuses on male survivors of sexual violence in war zones (gay, trans, non-binary), highlights the need for a safe space for everyone who challenges the norms.

Coworking for diversity in Stone Soup

The Stone Soup philosophy and Jelia’s work experience are based on the pursuit for inclusion and the expression of diversity. Here, Jelia adds, you can choose your friends because there are no office politics among the coworkers. Here, she gets to learn about tech and algorithms from Paulin and meet people who can be friends and not colleagues. She misses many things from pre-pandemic Athens though. But there is one thing she can’t wait to have once again: live concerts and drinks on the roof!

After-work drinks and networking on the roof

28 Ιουνίου, 2020/in Community, coworking, Events, Residents, Rooftop, Workspace

Welcome to our summer rooftop sessions!

This Friday we are opening our beautiful rooftop to host an after-work summer drinks event. We invite you to enjoy the sunset and views with casual conversations and informal networking. Drinks and cocktails will be served, a DJ will handpick the music and we will make sure you love our sky-is-the-limit atmosphere. With our rooftop events, we wish to bring together members of the Athenian creative and business scene so they can make new acquaintances and business contacts while enjoying their Friday evening.

Where: Stone Soup roof, 8th floor at Charilaou Trikoupi 18

When: Friday 3rd of July from 20.30

Who will you meet: You will meet local business owners, entrepreneurs, and a variety of professionals from the Athenian scene.

Stone Soup is organising the drinks together with Locotravel, so let us give you a company background.

Building a business around the things you love

Locotravel was established in Germany back in 2009. The company owner, Sascha Koch, has a background in the travel industry working for Lufthansa and a passion for electronic music. At some point in his life, he decided to combine the two things he loved most, traveling and music and build a business around the two. The Locotravel company grew organically as their client base increased by word of mouth and their network and pool of resources become bigger.

They are managing the travel arrangements of famous electronic music artists like Ricardo Villalobos and Boris Brejcha and support many EU festivals, like the Awakenings and Time Warp. They also work with some of the most famous clubs like Fabric London and Watergate Berlin.

Expanding your business in Athens

The Locotravel team is spread around various EU capitals but the owner Sascha and the administrative assistant Dimitris are operating from Athens and their office is located at Stone Soup.

In the Greek music industry, they collaborate with the promoter company Blend Athens and have arranged gigs both in Athens and in Mykonos. Locotravel quickly expanded its business into the Greek fashion industry. They started working together with greek production agencies like This Is Not Another Agency, several magazines, and model agencies like the d models. Locotravel is on a strong footing in the music and fashion industry, however, its operations are not restricted to only these two industries. Locotravel often facilitates business arrangements and traveling for various entrepreneurs and professionals around the globe.

In the aftermath of the coronavirus, they decided to start a new project: Locotravel Holidays. Their new venture is a travel agency specialized for holidays in Greece. They wish to meet all people’s needs. Clients that want to enjoy the sea and the sun, visitors longing to explore the cultural history or demanding customers looking for luxurious holidays. Their business goal is to create supreme tailor-made vacations according to their customers’ wishes and needs.

The creative industry after Covid-19

The creative industry has been hit hard by the spread of COVID-19 and the economic crisis that has followed. The overall outcome for the industry and the future of creative workers is still unknown. As Sascha points out, music and events will unfortunately be the last to recover from coronavirus. The fashion industry is slowly rolling out its activities again. Local brands have started shooting to promote the country and themselves. They also race to find new ways to reach their customers and sell their products online. As long as traveling across countries is still limited and problematic, there are no guarantees for incoming tourism to Greece. Online marketing and sales are now the big things in the creative industry.

With our rooftop sessions, we want to motivate and inspire the creative industry to start making plans again. Being mindful of-course of all the safety measures that will prevent a COVID-19 relapse. Have a great week ahead, we can’t wait to meet you on the roof!

Protective measures for a safe coworking space

22 Απριλίου, 2020/in Community, coworking, News, Office Space, Residents, Workspace

Our coworking life and our safety at work were disrupted about a month ago. Since then we started working from home and avoiding social interactions to protect ourselves. Is it too soon to start thinking about the end of this social distancing experiment and imagine that our lives are going back to normal?

I guess one thing we all realised is that physical distancing really sucks! And that we take our social life for granted.

End of April we will start operating again and we want to make sure that our coworking space will be safe for all of you. We plan to be at the space 2-3 days a week for a few hours to manage member requests, play music and brew some coffee for you!

Coworking with safety at Stone Soup

We are in a fortunate situation compared to other busier coworking spaces and office environments. The number of people who use our space at any given time is usually quite low compared to the size of our workspace. That makes it possible to implement social distancing within our work environment.

However, for extra safety, we will not allow member drop-ins. We will also rearrange some of Stone Soup spaces to enable distancing ourselves (meeting rooms, kitchen) and we have installed additional disinfectants for members to use.

Some new rules will apply to make our workspace a safe environment to work at. Can we change alone or do we need the help of our members?

We are all in this together: let’s maintain the space clean

Help us keep our community safe and protected by implementing physical distancing measures and enhanced hygiene practices! We would also like to draw your attention to areas of high traffic, where lots of people engage with the same items and surfaces. Let’s be aware and protect ourselves from those areas!

Door handles: They are one of the most touched spots in the office. Use some tissue, your elbows or your hand within a sleeve to open the door. Before getting back to work, use anti-bacterial gel – especially if you’re about to eat.
Desks: Use one desk and don’t swipe seats in the coworking space. Please don’t share desk equipment and clean your phone, pens and your bag at least once per day.
Toilets: Always wash your hands after using the toilet and try not to touch the faucet or door handle on your way out.
Meeting rooms: We will reserve the meeting rooms for single-person use for virtual meetings, phone calls etc. We will charge no additional fees.

We will focus on providing a safe environment for our members and we hope that we will see you all coming back in the next weeks! If for some reason you think that continuing working from home suits you best don’t worry! Our COVID-19 mission is alive: to ensure that all our members can remain connected to their community, no matter the distance. We will continue the Virtual Coworking and you will still be able to interact with our members!

Safety rules for the protection of our coworking space

Here is a list summing up all our protective measures for how to maintain the coworking space safe and clean.

Keeping enough space between you and other people
If you can reach out and touch someone from your workstation, then your office isn’t set up for physical distancing.
Spray and wipe down your workspace before and after you use it.
Please use one desk and don’t swipe seats in the coworking space. Don’t share desk equipment and clean your phone, pens and your bag at least once per day.
Promote fresh airflow throughout the office
Open the windows and doors for at least 15mins, several times a day.
Consider taking all meetings online.
We will reserve the meeting rooms for single-person use for virtual meetings, phone calls etc. We will charge no additional fees.
Rearrange your private office plan.
Separate desks and give each member of your team their private space.
As you work, make sure you regularly wash your hands.
Door handles are one of the most touched spots in the office. Use some tissue, your elbows or your hand within a sleeve to open the door. Before getting back to work, use anti-bacterial gel – especially if you’re about to eat.
Limited use of the kitchen.
Minimize the use of the fridge. Use disposable cutlery and keep your own office mug which you will clean at the end of the day.

Lockdown & Remote Work: How to Adjust to Working From Home.

6 Απριλίου, 2020/in Community, coworking, News, Remote Work, Residents, Workspace, Μη κατηγοριοποιημένο

COVID-19 lockdown has forced the majority of the workforce worldwide to work from home. Lyda Michopoulou is a freelancer and a member of Stone Soup coworking space. She has worked remotely since January of 2017, and she has long experience in distributed work. One could argue that being a remote worker, Lyda would have an advantage over other workers who were abruptly forced to change their routines. But let’s see to what extent this is true.

Lyda will help us answer the question, whether working from home is the same as working remotely. She will also share her own experience.

Adopting a work from home routine and how is that different?

Lyda considers herself lucky as she didn’t struggle much during this transition. Her life as a freelancer requires her to travel around Europe and work from different countries. One of Lyda’s consulting gigs is to an American startup in the travel industry called NextVacay. She is working on US time, following a specific time frame and specific online tools. For that reason, the processes and dynamics within the organization haven’t changed much with the lockdown.

Because of the corona crisis, Lyda is telecommuting from home and she spends most of her time hosting or participating in online meetings. This has decreased her actual working time and disrupted her usual working routine from Stone Soup.

Lyda had a functional working routine for herself, allowing her to work from anywhere as long as the WiFi connection was strong.

However, working from home is completely different from working from “anywhere in the world”. Social distancing, the new norm that has been given to all of us, is hardly a gift. Being able to keep a working pace, your motivation high and your productivity under control can be compromised especially when you are forced to work without a suitable working environment.
It is quite easy to fall into traps such as working all day long, without proper breaks or even realizing that your working time is up and you should relax. Lyda sees the value of participating in virtual coworking spaces such as Stone Soup’s and Digital Nomad Girls’ Inner Circle, in finding a sense of belonging and support.

How to do your best during the COVID-19 era?

Instead of isolating yourself at home binge watching TV-series and movies, you have the opportunity to do something to better your skills and develop yourself. You can host or join online meetings with friends (networking), figure out how to support others with the skills you already possess or participate in activities that are valuable for the community.

During the previous weekend, Lyda participated in an online hackathon, called: “Hack the Crisis Austria”. She mentored a team who was tackling a challenge: “How can we support the mental health of people”. Lyda has only positive feedback to give about it. It made her more eager to participate in a bigger scale and even think about organizing something similar in Greece.

Shaping the future of remote work after coronavirus

The corona crisis has unprecedentedly escalated the need to work remotely. The situation might be temporary but it pushes the gears of change and those won’t come back. Companies keeping previously a negative pose to the idea, are forced tο consider continuing with remote work after the lockdown.

Having a global network of contacts, Lyda has heard discussions about the struggles of friends and partners and has acquired some interesting insights. Many companies don’t understand how to use the online world to better support their work. There was no time for guidelines and transitioning. A new culture and priorities need to be set on the go. And of course, this changes the balances and threatens the up to now acquired stability. Companies and teams are being troubled by basic aspects of functionality such as what would be the best way, time, frequency, and means to conduct online meetings.

The discussion moved from online meetings to how people handle the grief that comes with being locked inside their houses. Lyda’s perspective of the situation was altered due to an article on Harvard Business Review. If individuals and companies go through the stages of grief we will be ready to accept what lies ahead and work with that.

After the lockdown is over a changed situation and land of opportunities for digital nomads and remote work is to be expected. The ground will be paved for the companies to keep workers distributed. And they would most probably like to shape their businesses in a way they could cope with similar future situations.