Sergio is a freelancer specialising in informatics who first visited Athens six years ago while travelling. He came back to the city as a digital nomad and spend some of his time co-working with us.
Life in Athens
Having a Spanish origin, he feels very much at home in Athens and enjoys the Mediterranean climate and relaxed lifestyle of the locals. He has already toured a few of the islands as well as mainland Greece. What excites him the most is how easy it is to get away from the city into the countryside and ‘zone out’ as he put is.
‘I love nature. It makes me feel recharged and gives me fresh energy which I can then put into my freelance work. As a remote worker I am fortunate to get the chance to do that!.’
Workingininformatics
After completing his studies in Media, Sergio moved to Germany in order to to pursue a career in informatics. He is currently working as a web developer for a German finance company. During the pandemic he had to work from home most of the time, but accommodating himself into co-working spaces changed his mindset for the better.
‘I feel so much more concentrated when in an office due to the fact that I get to work without distractions. I especially like Stone Soup as a space because of the warm and welcoming feeling this place has. The atmosphere is quite the opposite from the stiff corporate environment I was used to be around and I really embrace that.’
Videogames&more
Sergio’s hobby is prototyping video game ideas and developing graphics for them. He finds it way more exciting than anything else and he hopes to be able to make a living out of it in the future.
‘Having a project of your own is really fun and rewarding at the same time. For me it has been great working in an office space because I manage to split my time effectively in between my job and my hobby as well!’
https://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IMG_1637-min-scaled-e1666179945548.jpeg19202560Stella Noutsouhttps://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ssl300x300.pngStella Noutsou2022-10-21 12:25:112022-12-16 14:54:22Meet Sergio, a freelance dev who fell in love with Athens!
The collaborative community formed in coworking spaces is characterized by fluidity, flexibility, mutual understanding, and trust among members of the space. The role of hosts or community managers of coworking spaces is crucial for the aesthetics and ambiance that each space represents and diffuses to its members and customers. Community management is a process of blurring the boundaries between activities that require communication, interaction, and reciprocity.
A coworking community is a story of stories
If we seek for a definition on the concept of community, then a collaborative goal is definitely the central point. Each member’s and host’s experience is built around this common goal that can take various forms!
The concept of community in franchises and independent spaces differs a lot. Each concept is based on the forms of relationships among coworkers and between managers and coworkers. The parameters that reveal these relationships are values, such as trust and the ambiance created, such as coziness. Sharing your needs is a one-way street. Hence it is an experience that all members of a coworking space will collect at some point. The truth is that most coworking spaces are hybrid forms. As a result, there are many variations of community and collaboration narratives.
Finally, the narrative of the community constructed in each coworking space is not introverted and isolated from the larger public space. The spaces are urban meeting points in the city and they have an impact on their surroundings. Depending on the relationship they seek with the public sphere, they are accelerators of growth for startup entrepreneurship, intervention and activism for public policies, and social action and contact with the neighborhood around them.
A coworking community is like a novel, a story composed by each member’s storytellings. That is why a host should love listening to people and learning their stories.
Social impact begins from understanding someone’s needs after listening patiently and carefully. Taking advantage of impromptu happenings and serendipity moments is a great start! Unexpected experiences are what make a coworking community look like a group of friends, colleagues, or strangers at the same time. Whatever you pick, it’s your choice, as long as it helps you flourish!
https://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/featureimage-scaled.jpg10132560Stella Noutsouhttps://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ssl300x300.pngStella Noutsou2022-09-28 11:00:342022-09-30 09:33:38What makes a coworking community thrive is you
We are seeking a professional to join our coworking business to manage our community of members and expand Stone Soup’s partnerships.
Office-as-a-service is booming and demand is growing rapidly. The coworking market requires different skill sets and involves a wide variety of duties and responsibilities, including hosting, sales, management, and marketing skills, but it is equally important that the candidate is proactive cheerful, and outgoing. During the internship, the candidate will learn to manage the physical space, interact with our community, represent Stone Soup, and promote our activities. There is the possibility of being hired into a full-time position after the internship is completed.
Key Qualifications
* Experience in customer service and sales * Excellent English language skills (verbal and written) as we communicate primarily in English * Interest and knowledge about the creative/cultural industry * Digital knowledge and familiarity with creating content that can be used for either social media or digital marketing * Familiarity with software such as Canva and photography or video editing skills is an advantage
Position Description
Stone Soup was founded in 2014 to offer a flexible creative work environment in central Athens. The business manages 900 square meters of fully equipped offices of shared space and other infrastructure, as well as a large rooftop terrace with views of all of Athens. Our services are provided with various subscription packages (daily, weekly and monthly) which are designed to offer the best solution for every professional who approaches us. The primary goal is to provide flexibility in the way our members work but also to create a community among them to form a strong network of support, interaction, and empowerment. Stone Soup community members are a very interesting mix of people from all corners of the world with very different skills and professional experiences. We are a social space that grows organically and we are always looking for new people to support us and we in turn give them the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.
The post includes the following responsibilities:
* Responding to requests from members or potential customers and resolving any problems * Creating, scheduling, and publishing web content in English * Working on new ways to engage the community * Assist with marketing and promotional activities for the business * Represent the company and support events and gatherings
The internship program is powered by the Life Skills initiative. Life Skills is a professional and personal development program for young people run by the British Council with funding from HSBC. The project aims to develop the career prospects of young people (18 to 30 years old) who are either out of education, employment, or training or who are looking for a positive career change to pursue a better future. Life Skills aims to make a real impact on Greek society by promoting work in social and solidarity economy organizations or in SMEs with a social impact, as an alternative and inclusive career option to combat youth unemployment.
The deadline for submissions is Wednesday 14 September 2022, 23.59.
https://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Coworking-FAQs-2400-x-950-px.jpg9502400Stella Noutsouhttps://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ssl300x300.pngStella Noutsou2022-09-09 15:48:362022-09-09 15:52:41Community management internship at Stone Soup!
Last six months, we had the pleasure to host George and Carla, a couple of marketers who traveled with their family from Barcelona to Athens! We talked with them about their international marketing projects and their experience as a family in Athens. We also inspired them to create content featuring Stone Soup! As part of his content creation aspirations, George just completed a Videography course in SAE! Stone Soup proudly starred in his first attempt at directing a corporate video!
Working remotely
Firstly, we asked them how they got involved in marketing as well as the pros and cons of working remotely. Before the family came to Athens they added many pins to the European map. Carla started working remotely back in 2015 after quitting her job at SoundCloud in Berlin. Back then she had already been away from her homeland, Spain, for 10 years and she was looking forward to finding her way back home. A friend was the one who connected her with a big digital project. Ever since she has remained working remotely either as a freelancer or in a permanent position. She describes her first few years as a “rollercoaster” as she craved social interaction with other team members. However, she now admits that she has mastered it and she truly enjoys the freedom she gets from working remotely. From her current perspective, going back to her previous life with a 9-5 office job seems distant and weird.
As for George, remote working came along with his promotion to a Regional Marketing Manager at SAE Institute 7 years ago. He points out that getting to work from anywhere as long as you have WiFi is very tempting. You only have to find the strength to defeat the “pyjamas syndrome”. Professionally his main challenge was to train, manage and inspire a team of young professionals exclusively from a distance. Interactions are limited to online tools and this fact consequently limits the dynamics between people.
Marketing projects they are proud of
Their positions as marketers granted them the opportunity to work remotely and enjoy traveling all over Europe at the same time. They involve themselves in many facets of marketing, so we wanted to know more about their interests in this continuously expanding creative field. Carla enjoys working on digital marketing strategies. She loves thinking of ways to find the target audience of her clients online. She also finds challenging to plan out multiple a/b experiments to test what type of targeting may perform the best. As for George, he prefers working on social media projects as there is a more direct interaction with the audience. Aside from that, he likes running event promotion projects, as they move faster, with a greater variety in designs.
Working in the marketing field means that you are designing projects that can be both impactful and creative! We asked our members to pick a couple of marketing campaigns they dealt with that are worth mentioning. George feels quite proud of a marketing campaign he runs across five countries, promoting a new portfolio of Games Production courses. It was challenging as he had to overcome cultural and market diversity issues and manage to create consistent storytelling. Carla could not help but point out that she is currently running a campaign to promote the platform adeccojobsforukraine.com. It is a portal created to connect employers with refugees and this goal motivates her to give her best. Any employer can sign up and upload their vacancies and the displaced workers can upload their CVs. It operates as an effective matchmaking platform supporting all the Ukrainians in this terrible moment of their life.
Traveling to Athens
Their story continued in Athens, where they have been staying for the last six months. Together with their one-year-old daughter, Emma, they traveled to the Greek capital and decided to try focusing on their marketing ideas from here. They both agree that Athens is a lively and exciting city with plenty of things to do and international people to meet. They comment that strolling around may not be that easy but there are so many nice spaces to go to, like the Niarchos Foundation and the National Garden. There is no doubt that having a family limits the number of outings they can have. However, they have realized that there are also plenty of international families in Athens as well, even in Stone Soup!
Why work from a coworking space?
Working from a coworking space can help in achieving a work-life balance. They find it motivating to leave the house and add some flavor to their work life. If the coworking space neighborhood is full of choices (as it is in the case of Stonesoup), then even better! This way they can also pursue their interests as well. For example, aside from their marketing work Carla is exploring the digital art scene and curates content for her Digital Art District project on Instagram. They both find it inspiring to stay creative so they also do some paste-up street art together every now and then (instagram.com/lovnoir). When we asked them what is their biggest motivation lately, they passionately agreed that their number one mission and success story is named Emma, their fantastic daughter that rules their colorful world!
https://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/GEORGECARLA.jpg7121800Stella Noutsouhttps://www.stonesoup.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ssl300x300.pngStella Noutsou2022-04-19 10:56:552022-04-19 14:48:28An Expat Family In Athens: Working On International Projects Remotely
