Finally, Zurich starts catching up with its partner city San Francisco (and other Californian cities like Berkeley, Stanford/Palo Alto etc.) in regard to shared workspace for so called “Digital Nomads” and the like: According to these great news, a “citizen space” will soon be opened at Heinrichstr. 267 in Zurich:
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)
Finally! That is so exciting.
my thoughts on coworking.
Indeed and I totally agree with you. Concluding from the discussions I had with other people at today’s TechCrunch Euro Tour meetup in Zurich, there’s really a need for such new kinds of shared offices and public workspaces here. Let’s hope many other office space providers and web cafés in Zurich will jump on the bandwagon!
This is pretty exciting to see –and it’s an interesting situation with regards to trademarks and the like since this space (and the name) have no official affiliation or relationship to the original space in San Francisco — and may lead to some confusion, especially given their policy of no free drop-ins.
The spirit of community and sharing should extend to a certain degree, but when it crosses into the realm of commerce, do the community or commercial expectations apply? I’m more curious generally about this question… since I’m not sure. If, for example, the folks starting the space in Zurich came up with the name and we, in San Francisco, were so impressed by their project that we started a local effort under the same name, would they be thrilled or concerned? For now I’m open to seeing how this plays out — and how much the community demands of the space the things that we’ve built into the model of Citizen Space.
Chris, these are indeed interesting questions that need to be answered. It’s odd that you haven’t at least been contacted and informed about these plans beforehand? Or asked for advice and co-operation? Maybe it all happened too spontaneously and there just wasn’t enough time so far. Maybe it’s in the plans – I don’t know (couldn’t contact them yet).
As long as I don’t have any information about the circumstances, hope remains that it’s rather inadvertence or absence of consideration than intention.
I hope they will contact you ASAP, also if perhaps that wouldn’t be required from a juridical point of view. I also believe that the community spirit and fairness are important aspects of the coworking idea. People who know the original Citizen Space in SF would likely feel misled by the identical name of the “citizen space” in Zurich, once they found out about the conceptual differences.
So for the sake of fairness, I think the concept should be adjusted to match the one of the original more closely and there should be some kind of endorsement or co-operation. Or one should consider changing the name of the “citizen space” in Zurich.
Well, to be clear, they’ve not contacted me or been in touch about their plans. I don’t know the people involved or what their goals are — admittedly I’ve been lying low on the coworking mailing list lately so if they’ve been present, I’ve missed it.
Anyway, I’m certainly open to having a conversation with them — trademarks exists to serve a purpose, which is to prevent confusion in the marketplace. If Citizen Space Zurich opens and our former patrons show up, again, expecting to drop-in for free and can’t, if they come back to us and complain, that’ll be an unfortunate situation — for everyone involved.
Here’s looking to a positive resolution and progress being made on these kinds of questions!
It’s always of interest to read about digital nomads around the world, and different interpretations of the terminology. I think being a digital nomad has to do with a mindset and the goal to be mobile.
The changing global economy and technology are contributing to the ideas surrounding telecommuting and distance working.