Manuel Zea runs the Coworking Spain platform, organizes the Coworking Spain Conference, and operates his own coworking space in Madrid.
Hola Manuel, thanks for taking the time to answer our coworking questions and share your community expert insights! Let’s dive right in. What does coworking mean to you?
Coworking is a physical space that offers a great place to work and a community of people that allows you to grow as professional.
What’s a best practice that you learned when running a coworking space?
Like many spaces, my coworking space is small, and as a professional I have other projects that require more of my time. Reducing the time I spend managing tasks that give no value but that are necessary has been my main objective.
What’s a great coworking project or initiative we should be aware of? Something that inspired you recently?
The most ambitious coworking project now in Spain is the Utopicus project. They’ve been acquired by Colonial, a public company that got into the coworking industry with this purchase and positions itself as one of the three big players in Spain. I’d recommend that you observe the strategic moves that these big players are making.
The coworking projects that inspire me are the spaces that maintain a low profile, but continue to grow smoothly.
What makes the Spanish coworking scene special? What do you love about it?
What I love about the Spanish scene is the big picture of the last seven years. This is a personal view and quite a nostalgic vision, but I love how we arrived at this point, how all the small spaces made this movement in Spain, how all the spaces joined together from the beginning and started communicating the coworking philosophy to all potential coworkers, and how this altruistic union raised the coworking movement to a coworking industry.
Maintaining this union is what I love the most about organizing the Coworking Spain Conference. As organizer of Coworking Spain, I love the community of coworking managers and the bond between us all. There is always a big group of managers available to help each other.
Where can we find you (and your space) on social media?
I own a space called Working Space located in Alcobendas (Madrid). Working Space is a small and welcoming space that you can find on our Facebook Page.
And of course you can also follow the Coworking Spain platform:
linkedin.com/company/coworkingspain
You can follow Manuel online on Facebook and LinkedIn.
If you aren’t already using Cobot as your coworking management software, give it a go! You’ll find that our features can help you run your coworking space more effectively and grow your community. Just sign up for a free trial or a live demo session. And if you have questions, our support team is all ears!
Happy Coworking!
