Are there any freelancers here in the theater?
Raise your hand, freelancers! I can't see well,
but I still can see several hands in the air.
Have any of you already experimented coworking?
One hand, two hands...
In fact, coworking is based on two principles.
The first principle is to share work spaces
and to form a network, a community.
And this community will favor exchanges, helping each other out, and creativity.
It's a very simple idea,
and it makes you wonder why nobody thought of it earlier.
Coworking was created in 2005 in San Francisco.
And in fact, what really promoted the emergence of coworking,
was the development of new technologies.
Nowadays, with your computer, you have become completely mobile.
You can go anywhere you like.
In one click, you have access to your entire office's content.
And to all the information, all the knowledge of the world.
It's the equivalent of entire libraries, and you're connected to the entire world.
Under these conditions, you can work from anywhere.
Do any of you take the train in the morning?
I took it for quite some time,
and I was surprised to see how before arriving at work,
the majority of riders were already working,
with their computers, on the train.
Now, trains are not coworking spaces,
but who knows, one day they may become coworking spaces.
In fact, anything is possible.
I'll continue with some more questions.
Are any of you subscribers to Mobility? Nobody?
Well, you're missing out.
I've experimented it for two years,
because I didn't have a car at one point, and it's absolutely amazing.
First, I had cars much better than the ones I have now,
and I also had no worries.
I encourage you to take a look at what Mobility offers.
Maybe I'll be more successful with my second question:
Are there any of you
who have already lived or who currently live with roommates?
Maybe back when you were studying.
Well, when you have tried Mobility, and when you have lived with roommates,
you are living in and practicing a collaborative economy.
A collaborative economy is a state of mind.
In fact, it's based on consumption and on a way of life.
When you share a car, you're experiencing collaborative consumption.
You're offered a good, and rather than purchase it, you use it.
Doing so, you optimize resources.
When you live with roommates,
you experience a collaborative way of life.
Rather than everyone having its own apartment,
you share the same apartment, you share the kitchen,
you share the living room, you take turns cleaning the apartment.
It's a collaborative way of life. You share resources.
Coworking uses the same logic.
In a coworking space, you have workplaces, you have wi-fi connections,
you have a photocopier for printing or scanning,
a kitchen where you can make food.
In other words, everything you need to work together with other coworkers.
Coworking is a response to the economic crisis.
And the collaborative economy is too.
They are responses to a gloomy situation, to distrust, and suspicion.
How does this happen in a coworking space?
In a coworking space,
you will look for and find the solution that works for you.
Most of the time, coworkers are freelancers.
There are several types of freelancers.
You can be a freelancer to the core
and still need a certain regularity, and structure,
but not necessarily ready to invest in very costly fixed structures.
So, you choose to go to a coworking space full time.
You have your office, you can get your own cabinet,
and you have all the basic technological tools
necessary to be able to carry out your work properly.
But maybe you don't feel like spending all your time
in a coworking space, as you might have done somewhere else
I might have done that in a previous life by working in an office.
That hasn't really convinced me, in fact.
So, in a coworking space, you can also choose to come
to break up the loneliness of working at home a bit,
to meet other people,
to test your opinions against those of your coworkers.
You can come part time.
When people work freelance,
they can end up in a situation where they are very busy,
and have to move around a lot and they need solutions that are flexible.
In a coworking space you can choose to come for a full day,
there are packs for four days, ten days.
At that moment, when you need it, you register in an online agenda,
and you reserve your spot in the coworking space.
All of this can be varied over the long term or the short term.
And when you have found the right formula, what happens in a coworking space?
Theoretically, when you get there, it is to work.
OK, I swear to you that on some days,
there's no way that anyone who goes to the Simplon 8 space in Martigny
can tell whether, in the space, there are one, three, or eight people working there.
You could hear a pin drop.
The concentration level is at its peak.
It's like being in a library: everyone is focus on its work,
and in fact, coworkers often tell me that it is
the concentration of their neighbors
that positively impacts them and enable them to finish their work
and to move forward, without being distracted by all sort of things.
On other days, it's buzzing with activity,
everybody talks, everybody exchange.
In a coworking space, you have an entire community of resources,
of people who are complementary, who want to share,
people who have talents
and, at any given time, are very likely to make contact and exchange with each other.
These exchanges come in several different types.
In my coworking space, I have somebody who might one day be called
to do an activity report on her work, on her small business.
To do the report properly, she decides do it in French and German.
She speaks German perfectly, no problem.
She prepares her activity report,
and at the last moment she has second thought,
"German isn't my native language,
it would be nice if I could find someone to reread my report."
There's a translator in my coworking space.
This person will ask him to take a quick look at her project,
to give her some feedback, to make a few corrections, if need be.
This translator hasn't been settled for very long,
and for some times,
he has begun to prepare the launch of his own website.
He fund a web designer who is working with him,
but it's not that simple.
Even if you find someone who can do it,
you must provide the person with text and images,
and he is experiencing just that.
At a certain point, he didn't know anymore and wondered,
"What pictures should I use what can I put as tabs,
what kind of themes are there?"
A web designer recently began to come regularly to the space.
Well, he won't build the site for the translator.
However, when he heard about the website's problems,
he advised the translator.
He told him, "Pay attention, don't use too much text,
make sure that each page is very easily accessible,
that users know where they are in the site."
That advice is extremely valuable.
Since he's new, this web designer has just opened his box
to set up his start-up.
When he's received some orders from clients,
sometimes he gets a bit stuck with the graphics.
Because that's not his strong suit.
He prefers programming, working with the back end,
but the graphics aren't what he's good at.
There aren't any graphic designers in my coworking space.
Despite this, he's tried asking other people:
"Is there any chance you know a graphic artist who could help me?"
And I know a graphic designer who I work with regularly,
and I've given him his address,
and from then on, he works with this graphic designer.
And this graphic designer will maybe need a translation later.
And it continues that way, in all directions.
These aren't big jobs. There is not exchange of money.
People are simply helping each other,
"I'll help you one day, then you help someone else,
and the next day that someone else will maybe help me in return."
It's a formula of mutual assistance.
It happens in a very informal way, almost every day.
One other form is bartering. You all know what that is.
People who come to coworking spaces regularly
are very often people who work in communication.
And when they write texts, it may be useful to have those texts reread.
I myself write texts.
In the company where I used to work official reviewers were paid to do that.
Now I don't have anyone.
I have people to ask occasionally, but they are not always available.
There's another person in Simplon 8 who works in communications and writes.
And he regularly gets asked to reread texts. It's a barter.
So, the translator, with his website up, says to himself:,
"I need to do a Google Adwords campaign."
But he's never done one. Social networks are not his thing.
All of a sudden, he talks about it,
and realizes that there is a web communication specialist there.
Since the web specialist is very busy, she really won't be able to take the time
from her professional work to do his AdWords campaign.
But, they've worked out a price, they come to an agreement
and finally the translator hires the web communication specialist
to make him a Google AdWords campaign.
Who are the people involved in coworking?
As I told you just now, mainly freelancers.
I've had the occasion, at the beginning of the year, to host a business manager.
He owned a small business with about 30 employees.
He came to see me because he wanted to sell me internet services.
So, he came over, and some other coworkers were there,
we had something to drink together, and began to chat,
and he found it really nice to have all these resources in the same place.
He happened to be in the process of getting a postgraduate degree,
and he needed to write a publication.
He was a young father,
he didn't have time at home to work on it in peace.
At his job, he was always preoccupied.
So, he decided to come to the Simplon 8 space to work on his publication.
He came, he took out a subscription of 4 flexible days,
he came when he had time;
it was very useful not to have to worry about anything else for four full days.
What's more, he made exchanges with the others.
I don't know if he sold his internet services,
but it may be possible.
In addition, there may be directors, managers,
who at any given time in their lives
need to take a break from their relations with their company.
In a coworking space, relationships work horizontally.
There is no hierarchy, no vertical functionality.
There is no competition, or judgment. That's a change for a business manager.
Imagine the pressure and tension of leading a whole team.
Who can you trust when you have problems? No one.
It's a jungle.
And maybe there are a few people who dream of taking your place.
It's not easy.
In coworking, this problem doesn't exist.
He can come to work and exchange with the others,
find solutions to his problems, get completely disinterested advice,
and there's even an innovation specialist in our coworking space.
Well, I can tell you that he has already given some solutions
to a number of people who have come there,
whether they are coworkers, or clients, or just visitors.
And there are also people who use it as a home office.
If you live in Martigny, and you are required to work
in Lausanne or in Geneva, perhaps, if you have an understanding boss, he will say,
"OK, one day per week you can work from home."
So, you begin to work from home.
Except that you aren't used to working like a freelancer,
you are not used to scheduling and disciplining yourself
and this isn't easy.
In addition, the people around you,
if you are at home think that you are available.
For kids, it's the same.
You are tempted to get food from the fridge.
Your house is full of temptations.
The solution might be, effectively,
to work one day per week in a coworking space.
Obviously, this doesn't have to be in Brigue or in Bulpliz,
because it would not solve anything.
But if you have one space near you,
going there to work once a week is an excellent solution,
to create a home office a bit farther away from home.
Now, I'd like us to have a bit of an experience.
I'd like to ask you to imagine
that you just created your own event production company.
Your event company.
You work alone, and you decided to schedule
part of that time in a coworking space.
Your coworkers are you. Your other coworkers, also you.
Everyone you can find there.
At the end of the evening, the TED organizers come to tell you,
"We know that you have an event company.
And we have too much stuff, our organization has gotten bogged down,
we'd like you to organize the TED event for the next year."
You are very honored, you accept the offer,
you discuss the conditions a bit.
You end up back at your coworking space
and now you tell yourself, "How am I going to do this?"
First, the most important thing is to think of the basics.
So, this event, for example, has a theme, it's called Galaxy.
You say, "I'm going to need to find a theme,"
All alone in your corner, your little idea lab, it's still not easy.
Maybe within the team members here,
there is someone who has a talent for animating events,
and who would be capable of brainstorming.
Is there anyone capable of doing one, who has already done one?
I see a few fingers up in the back.
You'll be able to "brew" your ideas, and all kinds of other things.
The only person missing is the leader, but other people can send ideas.
I think that you will find
some people who will agree to giving some of their time
in order to help find a theme for the evening next year.
Now, you have the theme. You still need to find speakers.
Based on the theme, you will reflect on who can come to speak next year.
Maybe among you there's someone.
I don't have the theme yet, you're the ones who, with your team,
will see which theme to use.
Maybe among the coworkers, there are some people who might be able to help,
who have abilities, resources, knowledge,
whose experiences and lives you can benefit from.
But, if there's no one who can come to bring their abilities as a speaker,
I'm sure that among you, there's someone who knows someone else,
or who has heard of other people who might come
and fill the role of TED speaker next year.
When you've done the brainstorming, you're helping each other out.
Now, you're in the network.
Everyone makes their own network work, and they find solutions.
Now you have the theme and the speakers,
you now need to think about the practical things.
The location, that's good, you can do it here again.
But you will need to promote the event.
You'll need to make a program, to load the information online.
To put it online, you must have someone who can write text,
you must have someone to do the graphics.
You understand how this works.
You're going to find someone for the communication
and to put information online on the website.
You're going to find a printer,
and I'm sure that if you cannot do this
you know some people who can fill these needs.
Then, you'll need to pay a bit for the services, though.
I think that TED would have given you a budget.
You'll need to find partners, sponsors to finance the event.
But that's easy.
With all the people who are here,
I'm sure that you have some connections with banks and insurance companies,
with private parties who have money and are ready to back the event,
who believe in TEDx.
So, that's good. You've got money, the website, the information,
Surely there are some things I've forgotten, but you'll think of them.
And now, there's one important thing left. That's you, the audience.
How are you going to find the audience? Well, you're going to use the network.
And this event will be exciting and memorable.
So, there you go.
That's the way that this can work in a coworking space.
There, you're in project management,
but there could be all of configurations in terms of coworkers.
The most represented people in coworking spaces,
as I've said, are people in communication,
there are creatives, there are graphic designers,
At my space, as I've said, there's a translator, a web designer,
a specialist in web communication.
And starting this week, there's a researcher
who's interested in what's happening in Greece.
So, I can tell you that he has some work to do.
And it's open to all sorts of personalities.
We sometimes get the feeling
that there is exclusively creatives working in coworking spaces,
but I also have a finance specialist and you could imagine an accountant,
a trustee, really the possibilities are endless.
And the people who come to a coworking space
very often, have been informed about it in advance,
they have already acquired the coworking values.
So, what are these values?
I've already told you about them informally.
The first of these values is durability.
There's a wifi connection, materials,
and all these resources are actively made available to the coworkers.
The second value is community.
Community means all the people who work in a coworking space
and this is what you try to create with other people,
by trying to respond to their needs,
by trying to respond to their expectations,
by trying to respond to their values.
The third value is cooperation. I think that you've understood.
I don't need to redo the demonstration.
That's good, you can cooperate in a coworking space.
The fourth value is openness.
You share experiences, and ideas, you enrich each other mutually,
you believe and you make your business grow.
And finally, the last value is accessibility.
Working is fine.
But working where, when, how, and who I want to work with,
that's possible with coworking.
These values make up the five pillars of the coworking base.
Once they're in place,
they are the generators of creativity, innovation, sharing,
exchanging, and quality.
I have told you before
that coworking was born in 2005 in San Francisco.
In Switzerland, the first coworking center was opened in Lausanne.
It was "L'Eclau" which opened in 2008.
It was quickly followed by "The Muse" in Geneva
which you have certainly heard about
because it's a very dynamic place, that has got lots of coverage.
It's the standard for coworking in Switzerland,
and since 2009, it's already hosted more than 400 coworkers.
Later, there were other centers that opened,
in Lausanne, in Freiburg, in Montreux, in Neuchâtel, in Geneva too.
The Simplon 8 space, that I founded a year ago, is the first,
and to my knowledge, the only coworking center in Valais.
But, through the network, I've heard it said,
that there's a center being prepared in Sierre,
that there was another being prepared in Colombais,
and that there's a center in preparation in Sion.
So, if you're convinced by coworking, don't wait any longer.
Do it, get involved, experience it.
(Applause)