Moboff: how coworking can stimulate entrepreneurship in Japan

Coworking can help entrepreneurs meet likeminded people and, then, give them a hand to grow their business faster. In Japan, the entrepreneurship spirit remain low as compared with other developped country.

DWF, an office design company, has started the Moboff (contraction of mobile-office) project. Five coworking spaces recently opened up in downtown Tokyo (Shibuya).

“Nomad workers and entrepreneurs aren’t looking only for a place to seat. They aim to meet people and join new kind of communties”, says Nicolas Koruni, product manager of Moboff. Our ideal would be to have such coworking places all over Tokyo”.
Moboff spaces, where event are organized on a regular base, are becoming a focal point for a number of topics, related to technology a.o.

Business schools do not teach the startup spirit, so we launched a Startup Academy

Alex Barrera is the co-founder of the Tetuan Valley, a network of web companies based in the North of Madrid, in Spain.

According to him, no business school in Europe teaches the spirit neither the vision of a startup runner.

“In Business Schools, we learn to replicate a business model that works elsewhere. Not to be and entrepreneur inventing something new. Operate a company is easy to learn. That is no rocket science. Starting a company requires another set of competences, though”.

That is the reason why Alex Barrera (who has his own startup, Inkzee) has launched, along with other, a startup academy.

It brings coaching, vision and entrepreneur solidarity. Here is his interview

“Why San Francisco is the best entrepreneurial ecosystem in the world”

Xavier Damman is a European web entrepreneur, coming from Belgium, who moved to San Francisco to get new support for his projects.

According to him, SF is the best ecosystem you can find in the World.

“A dream for any entrepreneur. You can find free Wifi and power plug in any café or restaurant. Coworking places are blossoming. The best people in their field are available to have a chat with you. Free meetups allow to be informed of state of the art technology, trends or topics. Seeing other entrepreneurs building up their own startup beside you is, on top of it, very stimulating”, says Xavier Damman.

“Europe should be inspired by the SF ecosystem”, he adds in the herebellow video interview.

Will a European blogosphere first arise within the community of European entrepreneurs ?

The precedent post about the reality of a European blogosphere on this website triggered a lot of reactions.

The words of Nicole Simon, German English-writing blogger, have hit.

“A European blogosphere remains and will remain a myth as far as local bloggers in Europe don’t look after a international audience. More precisely, as far as they produce content in their national idioms rather than in English, the most shared language among Europeans, it is an illusion to think an actual online European public opinion will ever take off”, can we sum up in a nutshell.

Nicole was attending the EventoBlog 2009 in Sevilla (the biggest event organised in the hispanic world regarding the web, and the second in Europa, according to some standards). She was invited with  other famous bloggers coming from Belgium (Robin Wauters, TechCrunch) or Italy (Luca Conti, Pandemia.info).

Like for Nicole, we asked Luca Conti his opinion about the reality or not of a European blogosphere (watch the video above).

“I don’t think we will see it coming ever, does he say. Culture and interests in our countries are too different and too singular”, he says.

Eurosphere vs European blogosphere ?

Julien Frisch, Eurosocialiste, Andreas Karsten, Joe Litobarski and some other reaction promptly to the statement of Nicole Simon, in the first post :

“No European blogosphere ? Are you kidding ? Every day, we write about Europe on our blogs. Look at BloggingPortal.eu, for instance, on which 488 blogs are now aggregated. Isn’t it the clue of the existence of a consistent European blogosphere ?”, all seem to say.

It is true that Brussels is growing more digital, today. The discussions around the European institutions are now taking place on blogs and social networks, thanks to energetic individuals and bloggers speaking up on the web 2.0.

However, the so called “Eurosphere” (community of bloggers speaking about European Union stuffs, mainly politics) is no synonym for a European blogosphere. The latter should be understood as the cloud of bloggers, writing about stuffs from their home country but looking for an European outreach.

A European blogosphere will arise from European conversations about day to day concrete issues

For my part, I think a European blogosphere will arise sooner or later.

The fathers of Europe used to say that Europe would be built on top of concrete projects (European Coal & Steel Community, Internal market, SIgne currency…). I think a European online public opinion will emerge from online discussions between European individuals, talking about concrete issues.

It happens already, sometimes, with topics like agriculture, altough I’m not sure the conversations occur digitaly at a European level.

But as far as people feel they experience the same problems and expectations, they will feel more tuned to each other. Then… they will talk, chat, comment, post or yell directly on the web, can we assume, and move the “agora” (I hate this word) online.

The Eventoblog in Sevilla (with a delagation of Belgian web startups, for instance, taking part) had that purpose. I was one of them.

In spite of many differences and roots, Belgian, Spaniards, Portuguese, German, British,… we all felt very European there. That is why I think a true European blogosphere could arise first within the community of Entrepreneurs. Squeezed in our national markets and looking after more European/International challenges, we will increasingly search for international contacts and conversation online.

Jean Monet or Robert Schuman would applaud…

Coworking and the future of entrepreneurship

“You startups, don’t look for perfection in the early days. Just go forward !”

A European video contest to promote entrepreneurship

2009 is the European Year of innovation and creativity. For those European not surfing from time to time on the jumble of European internet portals , it is a pretty hidden information. Though, a number of events organised during the year at the occasion are worth a glimpse. Undoubtly, the European Entrepreneurship Video Award initiative, organised ahead of the European SME Week, is part of the category.

Almost 250 internet video producers, rookies up to professionals, have uploaded their footages (maximum 3 min.) where they bore a message promoting either entrepreneurial spirit, innovative entrepreneurship or responsible entrepreneurship. The winners were announced in the award ceremony of May 6th, in Brussels.

The winner in the category Entrepreneurial spirit comes from Hungary. Ducsai SZABOLCS shows a race between two hamsters. The first is an employee, the second is the entrepreneur. No surprise, the latter demonstrates much more innovative skills and out of the box thinking than the “employee hamster”. At the end of the story, the entrepreneur gets it all: freedom and food.

I especially like the second best video selected by the jury, coming from Greece. Technicaly  simpler, the end message is targeted and strong.

The third award in the category goes to a Italian footage, advocating through a “dolls metaphore”, virtues of collaboration between entrepreneurs.

The other video a to be discovered on SME Week Channel. Or on Youtube ( tag: EEVA 09)

Johnny Kegels: “entrepreneurship is raising among employees, vc’s should be ready”

What treatens small businesses in 2009 ?