CeBeta – Coworking at Europe’s Biggest Tech Fair

CeBIT is Europe’s biggest consumer technology fair. Over 5 days and across 26 halls, big-name businesses, middle players and startup companies showcase their products, drawing crowds in their hundreds of thousands. The annual expo, held in the Hannover Fair Grounds, usually attracts a certain attendee: buyers, distributors and company representatives, suited and corporate, come together to compete against one another, showcasing products that have been created in firms with closed-house policies. In essence, it represents the antithesis of the coworking movement, which is based on principles of collaboration, co-creation, and openness.

This is partly the reason why, this year, betahaus was invited to CeBIT to introduce the concept of working collaboratively to the corporate world. The space that was created was in every way different to the other stands populating the expo, and came into being with the help of dozens of individuals from different professional backgrounds. Together, we created an environment which reflected the betahaus philosophy.

JAY – core group, project coordinator/catalyst/facilitator: We went to CeBIT with the objective to bring our culture – the Spirit of Betahaus and Coworking communities in general – into the CeBit Global Conference. For those familiar with the conference this is no small task as the environment is somewhat formal, austere, tightly scheduled, organized and controlled. Coworking, by contrast, is distinctly informal, chaotic, and evolving. Ironically, in order to create an open space of engagement, we had to create our own walls, and build an environment where our participants felt at home.

Openness: Community & Participation

There is a growing trend to use the term Open-, and the fields where this applies vary from programming, design and even data.
We see a huge opportunity to change the way we work together, how we consume (or prosume) things or even understand the social structures. Even though it is starting and we still do not know if it is an utopia or a plausible reality, we already see how we could create solutions for the every day life and for very complex challenges in a more collaborative, creative and effective manner.

In our research we wanted to find out the current situation in relation to this current trend of opening up. And we found several topics that people are discussing: community, participation, business models, copy and authorship, misuse of the term open-,…. To share our findings with the community, we started a series of episodes that gather these discussion insights and help others to understand what is going on and hopefully trigger some interesting discussions.

We have chosen to start with “Community and Participation”:

How do we create Open Culture?
How do we let the community take part in the process?
How do we structure collaboration?
How do we design complex things involving the user?

Openness is dependent on the community behind it and the content they create. It is a personal choice and a way of living.

Interviews: Pedro Pineda
Production: Hans Goedecke
Filmed at DMY Makerlab 2011.

Hacking the public space

Last week some of the We Creative People crew, together with many others (MakerLab Milan crew), went down to Milan to spark public action during the Milan Design Week.
As MakerLab, we took part in the Public Design Festival and set a public workshop in 4 different locations. We set up a workshop (with a working bench and tools) and brought some expertises from Berlin, to instigate Milan citizens to design their own public space.

How much do we need to change our public space?
Time? Money? People? Designers? Architects? Policy makers? ….
Most of us are always waiting for perfect situations, which normally never happen, in order to start to make a change.
It was great to meet the guys from Stortplaatsvandromen and the FOUNDation project. They set them self to make a cafe, in the public space, with whatever they could find in the street. With a clear goal in mind, but with a creative approach wich allows them to modify the concept according to what is available. They produced not just a very nice -temporary- cafe, but also a wide range of great furniture and tasty soup and coffee.  The cafe was full every day with the neighbours, first those who contribute by donating some materials, and then through word of mouth many others. The cafe was a great and lively place to be.

As citizen I want to be involved in the design of the urban space that I use, and want to have my say and propose solutions for those challenges that are common to us all.

As designers, how do we encourage and facilitate people to change the city and the urban space by them self?

As entrepreneurs and policy makers how do we create flexible and open structures which benefit from the input of the citizens to create solutions for us as society?