This new job is ambiguous. I don’t have a job title. The company doesn’t have a name. At the moment, there are only three of us. We don’t know what this will become, we only have a general direction. My office will be at my house… in Austin… and in cyberspace on IM, Twitter, Facebook… To many, this recipe might spell fear. To me, it’s comfortable. I thrive in the unknown–no rules, no baggage, no momentum to pull us into mediocrity. We get to build this from scratch in a thoughtful and disciplined manner. It’s my opportunity to bring my engagement ideas to life and the perfect time to leverage my background to apply a design thinking approach to the way we, and our clients, do business.

I had the joy to experience the reviving entrepreneurial spirit at yesterday’s public beta launch party at the Wuala office in Zurich. And I experience it daily when working for my own company – Printscreen GmbH. A great feeling indeed, and inspiring others, too.

(Bloggy Friday will start at 8 PM, guess where ;)

[UPDATE 20080802: I probably can't be there due to military service :( At rather short notice as they managed to send the march order to an address that doesn't exist. No comment.]

According to the newsletter they’ll have several multimedia performances, serve sausages from USB-Grills (I wonder how that will scale ;) and open source beer brought to you by [project 21].

tweakfest group on Facebook

Flyer (PDF)

More information in German in this post on the tweakfest home page..

[UPDATE 20080802: I probably can't be there due to military service :( At rather short notice as they managed to send the march order to an address that doesn't exist. No comment.]

By now, the home page of the new coworking location “citizen space Zürich” (see my previous post) is up and gives some more details about the (currently) planned offers and pricing [1]:

An excerpt (in German):

[...] citizen space vermietet Arbeitsplätze an unabhängig arbeitende Menschen in den vier Meter hohen Räumen der ehemaligen Steinfelsfabrik in Zürich West. Tageweise, wochenweise oder unbefristet. Allein oder in Gruppen arbeiten? An fixen oder mobilen Tischen? In der Lounge? Alles ist möglich. citizen space ist von Montag bis Freitag von 9 bis 19 Uhr offen, ab 19 Uhr Barbetrieb oder Events, Infos auf www.citizen-space.ch
Tarife: Tagesticket für 30 Franken, Wochenticket für 170 Franken, flexible Monatsmiete für 450 Franken, fixe Monatsmiete mit Schlüssel für 680 Franken, Friendshipticket für 15 Franken pro Tag und Person.
Verpflegung: Kaffee, Getränke und Snacks im Haus. Take-outs, Restaurants und Bars in unmittelbarer Nähe. Zur Josefwiese oder zum Unteren Letten sind es drei Minuten zu Fuss. Öffentlicher Verkehr: Bahnhof Hardbrücke und Escher-Wyss-Platz befinden sich in drei Minuten Gehdistanz. [...]

So basically, this boils down to:

• Opening hours: Monday to Friday daily from 9 AM to 7 PM for work, after 7 PM, the bar opens or events are taking place
• Offers and pricing:
  Day pass: 30 CHF (in about 30 USD, 19 EUR)
  Week pass: 170 CHF (167 USD, 105 EUR)
  Flexible monthly ticket: 450 CHF (441 USD, 279 EUR)
  Fix monthly ticket with an office key: 680 CHF (667 USD, 421 EUR)
  Friendship ticket: 15 CHF (15 USD, 9 EUR) per day and person
• Coffee, drinks and snacks in-house (but there’s no hint whether these are included in the price of a pass)

At first sight, this looks quite pricey (more than double the price) compared to its namesake in San Francisco (citizenspace.us). Further, there doesn’t seem to be any “24h access”[2] option (not even for keyholders?) and whether coffee, drinks and snacks are included remains to be seen. Conceptually, there’s also a difference in that there are no free drop-ins (it costs 30 CHF for random drop-ins and 15 CHF for friends), but in addition to monthly tickets there are also weekly tickets. I wonder particularly what influence the “no free drop-ins” policy will have on the idea of mingling people (well, the mingling will probably be less spontaneous and less heterogeneous and coworkers likely more commercially oriented and less willing to contribute to the idea of coworking or do things for free. Which might well cost more in the end [3]).

BTW, office space in Zurich West isn’t as cheap as in less central and less trendy districts, but this also applies to many areas in SF. The thing that’s generally somewhat more expensive in Zurich is food and beverages.

Let’s see how this develops.. my guess is that these offers and prices aren’t carved in stone and will probably also depend on the feedback they get (i.e. on supply and demand). Will ask them ASAP..

Thumbs up for starting it, in the first place :)

[1] Please note that these figures have not been officially announced or confirmed yet. They’re just published on the public web site (which has not been announced yet either).

[2] Some coworking space providers even guarantee 24/7 access and are open for public access on Saturdays, too

[3] I’m currently reading a great book that, among others, deals with the very thin line between social norms and market norms. And it also discusses the (predictably irrational) appeal of anything that’s for “free” (knowledge that can be leveraged for marketing purposes and profit, of course). (Book: “Predictably irrational” by Dan Ariely; 2008; HarperCollins. I’ll probably post about it in more detail later..)

11.07.2008 13:19: Ich bin daran ein solches zu eröffnen:
NEW: citizen space zurich. start: 18. Juli 2008
Auf 150m2 und einer Raumhöhe von 4 Metern völlig flexibel arbeiten.
Mietpreise ab CHF 30.-. Freie oder fixe Plätze. Komplette Infrastruktur.
Reingehen – arbeiten, besprechen, relaxen.
Im Steinfelsareal, Heinrichstrasse 267, 8005 Zürich

and

16.07.2008 11:36: Hallo
Das citizen space Zürich eröffnet am 24.7.08, wer Interesse an weiteren Informationen hat, kann ein E-Mail an [see below] senden, die Informationen sind natürlich kostenlos. Gruss in die Stadt. JR

The e-Mail is info at type and more remove spaces dot ch. The homepage of type’n more: typeandmore.ch

I really like this new groove here in “my” neighborhood.

Looking forward to it! :)

P.S. The domain citizenspace.ch is registered already, I don’t know though whether this is related to the citizen space to be opened in Zurich. Let’s see..

(Source: Ronorp.net)