Three hundred enthusiastic supporters of coworking from all over the world started off in Milan to three vibrant days of Coworking Europe Conference 2015 organized at Base space last November, the major event in this sector held now for the sixth time, featured guided tours of some Milanese coworking spaces and convivial evening parties at the new workspaces round the town. Energy and participation were palpable; one could actually perceive the diverse identities of these workplaces. WOW! has covered the event and can offer the highlights of the themes, which have emerged and a few videos.

The Coworking movement is growing and is starting to influence the corporate world; their is one of the most relevant topics. Large companies are based increasingly on the model of coworking and begin to create their own version of shared workplace.

In “Corporate Coworking” the boundaries between corporate space and coworking space are not so clear-cut anymore: for example, Tiscali has opened Open Campus in Cagliari (Sardinia) a coworking space -presented by Alice Soru- in a no longer used area of its campus, while some big companies use coworking space for targeted projects or just for works requiring a different ambiance.

And that’s no surprise to us: the Neo-Nomad survey shows showed that employees are 65% more happy and 70% more efficient working in a coworking space.

The informal talks at the “unconferences” were about the chief themes concerning the coworking styles. There has been a lot of talk about how to build a Community, how to foster sharing, how to help growth and the coworkers’ synergies, but also about how this way of working can influence or be influenced by life styles; about how to offer new inputs to the tourist trade, as well; for example the start-up Hotel Schani Wein from Vienna.
But coworking spaces also interact with the city (Sarah Turnbull of Bootstrap explained how coworking spaces are reshaping London) and humanitarian projects were not forgotten ( Paul Keursten and Vasili Sofiadellis are planning to create a space on the Greek island of Lesvos, where refugees can work alongside with local and international entrepreneurs and investors).
Unfortunately the theme – not of minor importance – of the physical plan of the coworking office was discussed in a superficial and disappointing way; probably Oliver Marlow, StudioTilt –who cancelled his speech due to unexpected engagement– could have given more stimuli to the designers of coworking space.

The focus of attention was the Global Coworking Survey report that demonstrates that the number of coworking spaces continues to increase and in the last year they have grown by 36%.

The quite complex coworking scenario came out of the case studies presented and guided tours, and here you’ll find pictures and also videos, that were live broadcasted on Periscope by WOW!

Captions: from left, Unità di Produzione and Login, two coworking spaces in Milan.