Co-Working in Barcelona: Flexible Like You

The way we do business is constantly evolving to be able to compete and offer new products, services and experiences to our customers.  But not only the way we do business, also the way we work. Physically.  Going to one office building, day in- day out, with a 9am to 5pm mentality no longer belongs to the 21^st century. We want to work on the spot, when we have inspiration or when the city has gone to bed, without the barriers of closed doors or having to be affiliated with an organization.  We need flexible work places, where you can open your laptop and start working. Instantly.  

What are the requirements for offering a great flexible work space? Having abundant power outlets, fast internet and good coffee.  Depending on the task; a specific level of surrounding activity can be desirable. Lastly, the best co-working spaces provide an inspirational enrivonment with enough natural sunlight.  The benefits? You can have your perfect work environment, without having to worry about furniture, utility services, long contracts, or square meters.  Depending on the work you have to do, you can choose the right location that gives you the ability to concentrate, host meetings or events, and connect with new people in order to meet, share and create.

Barcelona offers different platforms to find your way to these flexworking places.

• When you are on your way, an app like worksnugg might be exactly what you need. Currently 252 locations are available for Barcelona.  Worksnug also has an option to search for formal areas (meeting places).  Currently, the formal areas aren’t very well covered in Barcelona, but you can improve that by contributing to the open-source directory.
• To figure out the right atmosphere upfront, you can make use of dekswanted or comunidadcoworking. They have a lot of overlap and can also be used if you want to rent a room for an appointment or workshop session. Some, however, are co-working spaces which require a membership and are less flexible, since you hire a fixed desk for a certain period.
• The national website on coworkingspain offers information on rates, occupation level and insight in the community currently working in the location.

And the city is still expanding its offer.  Tonight, Monday the 29^th, you can go to the Made Makerspace Launch Party. MADE is a flexible space designed for artists, designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, creators, engineers, makers, fabbers and hackers to build their own projects. MADE is organized to facilitate open source community development, peer-to-peer learning, co-production and entrepreneurship activities. In three weeks, there will be the Coworking  Spain Conference in two Barcelona co-working spaces that you you may want to check out: MOB (Makers of Barcelona) and the recently opened Valkiria HUB space.

This weekend I discovered the best spot in Barcelona to be inspired and write about the city. Free internet, great chairs and a fabulous sight: the second floor of the Mobile World Center on the Carrer Fontanella 2.  And I was told that currently they are talking with Nespresso to also provide this black gold as essential source for good business.

So, when we can have a seat anywhere and order a meeting room everywhere, why do we need a permanent address or a fixed routine? Switching to a flexworking space lets us work when we’re inspired and frees up extra room on our business cards for creative information.

What’s your favorite co-working space in Barcelona?