Grüezi, salut, hallo! The Coworking Switzerland Association brought together coworking operators from all corners of the country at their annual gathering in Zürich. On a beautiful early spring day, Kristina from Cobot joined the event and kicked off this year’s coworking conference season!
On March 16 2023, Mélanie Burnier and Claudius Krucker, co-presidents of Coworking Switzerland welcomed around 30 association members and guests.
Right after the introduction, everyone got out of their seats— for a much-welcome icebreaker session. Tanja Bender of Zentroom Bern made people move around and get to know each other in a “speed dating” format. The tone of the day was set: Meaningful conversation, learning each other’s stories, and forming connections were the focus of the event.
Coworking has been a tradition in Switzerland for well over a decade. The beginning of the coworking movement in Switzerland can be traced back to 2007, when Citizen Space first opened its doors in Zürich. Today, Claudius Krucker estimates that there are around 320 coworking spaces in Switzerland. Since 2015, the Coworking Switzerland Association has grown to ~150 active members and works to represent the coworking movement in the country.
During their annual general assembly, the presidents gave insight into the association’s activities and achievements of the year. And also celebrated a launch: The website coworking.ch has been fully redesigned! The new portal features resources about coworking in 4 (!) languages, a map with rich data of Swiss coworking spaces, and a member section where spaces can manage their data and access additional resources and networking tools.
Part of these tools and resources are the legacy of the recently dissolved network Village Office. Another project offspring of this is Flesk: A software that aims to connect local coworking spaces with Swiss enterprises moving towards hybrid work. This great initiative shows how a well-connected national community of coworking operators can grow the overall recognition and customer base for coworking.
The lunch break that followed was a special treat thanks to the sunny spring weather, we could enjoy fresh food and conversations outside! The event was hosted by Trust Square. Their impressive location at Paradeplatz, Zürich’s first address, features terraces opening to a wonderful yard and views over the city.
After the break, two international coworking experts delivered inspiration and insights about coworking worldwide. Pauline Roussel and Dimitar Inchev from Coworkies talked about how they visited almost 500 coworking spaces, and the resulting book project “Around the World in 250 Coworking Spaces.”
This sparked many questions (“How did you finance this”? The answer: “Well, where there is a will, there is a way!”) and led into the last session of the day, the open Share & Inspire. There we learned how spaces in train stations work creatively around the branding limitations of the national rail company, as well as how one can fall in love with coworking and acquire a coworking space in less than 10 minutes!
Thanks for having us, Coworking Switzerland! We’re traveling back full of new learnings about the Swiss coworking landscape, and ready to put those learnings into practice. The quantity and quality of the Swiss coworking network is a constant source of inspiration for us all, here’s hoping that we can all learn from their example. Looking forward to sharing what we saw and taking in even more inspiration from all the upcoming events in 2023!
