#1 Collaboration

Collaboration is the topic of the first in a series of blog posts about what 'makes' a shared office space. We've been inspired by the book 'Working in the Unoffice' by Genevieve V DeGuzman (Author) and Andrew I Tang (Contributor). They've come up with the five things that make a coworking space a great place to work, so we've borrowed their themes as they are also five things we we love about Spaceworks. First up ... Collaboration.

Two businesses who work from Spaceworks shared office space are Cadence Works and Spiky Communications. The former a Sheffield based consultancy, specialising in writing winning tenders (and tutoring others to do the same) and the latter is a social media and creative marketing expert, passing on knowledge through Social Media Super Groups. Together they have collaborated in Spaceworks to form the Third Sector Cafe; a network for third sector organisations in Sheffield, meeting every third Thursday of the month.

By collaborating to form the Third Sector Cafe, Cadence and Spiky could combine their skills, expertise and contacts. Not only was the formation of the Cafe collaborative, but the way it is run is collaborative too. Each Cafe looks at a different topic relevant to the third sector and speakers work with (not for) the Third Sector Cafe to make each event engaging and informative for third sector participants. In addition, the TSC collaborates with outside organisations, using local business people to facilitate discussions. The wonderful I-Am-Auriel, Madame Zucchini & Organise Chaos have experience of facilitating and running workshops and coaching sessions, for their own businesses, and can bring those skills to Cafe meet ups too.

More recently, the Third Sector Cafe recently celebrated collaboration at their MADE Festival Fringe event in September: 'Philanthropy - what's in it for me?' At this event attendees from both the third sector and businesses in Sheffield discussed: do businesses only support charities in order to improve their image with their customers? And are charities only really interested in talking to businesses to get them to donate to their cause? The discussion explored the benefits of businesses and charities working collaboratively, with case study examples of such collaborations in Sheffield.

Get in touch with your stories of collaboration, or stop by Spaceworks to see if a shared office space could work for you.