Web Worker Daily

Eclau (pronounced eck-lo) is a coworking space in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded by Stephanie Booth. Booth spoke with me about her motivation for starting Eclau, her experiences running it and her future plans, and offer up some tips for anyone thinking of starting a coworking space.

WWD: Tell us a little about the background for Eclau — what were the motivations for coworking in Lausanne?

Booth: I’d heard about coworking, and visited Citizen Space in San Francisco. I thought it would be lovely to have a coworking space in Lausanne, but at the time, I was quite happy working from home. A couple of other people in the area were interested, but I was in “follower” mode — not “leader” [mode].

In autumn 2007, a friend of mine approached me. He had some free space in one of his shops that he wanted to transform into a community office for freelancers and other local innovators, and wanted to know if I could take care of it. I told him about coworking and he said, “That’s it!”

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Though the second edition of Going Solo – a conference for freelancers, planned for September – was cancelled, organizer Stephanie Booth pressed ahead and hosted a BarCamp-style unconference, SoloCamp.

Though I was only able to attend the opening sessions with around twenty participants, the initial session to shape the day’s agenda revealed some useful and interesting topic areas for freelancers and indie workers.

Participants collectively decided to divide the day into four one-hour sessions, each moderated by a volunteer and intended to draw out the room’s collective knowledge and experience in each area. This generally resulted in sprawling mind-maps, that helped both to drive and document the discussions… Read the rest of this entry »