What Made A Travel Writer Open Up His Own Coworking Space

There are countless blogs and websites out there on the internet, which are dedicated to every imaginable approach to travel, and the most successful ones get paid to do what most of us spend months saving up for. While browsing through some of our favorite travel sites, we got in touch with one blogger who combined his love of the open road with coworking. If you are one of the lucky ones and travel is not only your passion, but also your main source of income, it is important to find a way to combine adventure with productivity. There are no guarantees when you are on the road, so finding a coworking space might be just the perfect solution.

Travel writer and founder of Nowhere Travel Stories, Porter Fox, spoke with Deskmag about his own experience traveling the world while using coworking spaces. In fact, Fox likes coworking so much he has recently launched his own space in New York City. 

As a travel writer, you have to embrace uncertainties while on the road. In many ways this can benefit one's writing. What are some of the challenges you face as a writer while on the road?

Porter Fox: I would say that uncertainty is one of the most exciting parts of travel. There are always challenges…where to sleep, where to eat, where to work. You get out of your world and into a foreign one. It is great for your writing because it's always easier to describe something foreign rather than something familiar. It is much easier to describe a place you've never been than the house you grew up in.

Before you set off on a trip, do you contact coworking spaces in your specific destination beforehand?

PF: I actually don't. I like to run into them as I go. I usually do so through friends, contacts, and strangers. Sometimes it is something informal; sometimes it's more structured. Predictability breeds tedium.

As a professional travel writer what does a coworking space give you that a coffee shop can't?

PF: People go to coworking spaces to get things done. It's always good to be around folks who are productive. In a coffee shop people can be catching, listening to music, anything… folks in a workspace are there in order to accomplish something. In the same way, if there are people in the space who are not working, they can also affect your productivity. The best scenario is to be around folks whose work you admire.

Do you have any specific examples of positive (or negative) experiences that you have had while coworking while traveling?

PF: I worked in one space with a wealthy guy who was in between jobs. He texted on his phone all day long, went out to a fancy lunch, came back and texted some more. His paintings were terrible, mostly because he never worked on them.  He sat right behind me and it was like a giant black hole sucking creativity out of me.

I would think that coworking might turn off some travel writers, because they might find it takes away from spontaneity. Do you agree with that?  

PF: Not really, because when you are a travel writer your work is walking around through the country. You simply need a place to sit down, be quiet and write at the end of the day. They say they you forget 80% of most detail within 48 hours so you need to get it down quickly...

Today, I think many find professional writing a daunting prospect. As things are changing drastically, I think people are afraid that journalism is no longer a lucrative field. Do you think that coworking can help aspiring bloggers and writers find a stable community, and ultimately succeed?  

PF: It helps because it's not just a coworking space, but also a collaborative space. Like-minded people are typically brought together there and you can benefit from that. I've worked for several folks that I shared space with it always goes very well.

Tell us bit about why you decided to open your own space?

PF: I've worked at coworking spaces in NYC for almost 15 years. I had a lot of ideas while I was working there so I decided to design exactly what I wanted. Outdoor workspace, garden plots, flex project space, kitchen/living room, event/teaching space, large communal area, wood-burning stove. It's going great... 

The interview was first published on Deskmag.

What I learnt from spending my Sabbatical at a coworking space

I spent 2 weeks of my Sabbatical to work on a few passion projects and to creatively recharge at one of the most unlikely places: a coworking space in the company of startups. What happened next was a series of discoveries and minor epiphanies.

A working vacation.

I confess I was greatly inspired by a Fast Co. article about why film director Joss Whedon followed up one of the biggest blockbusters ever The Avengers, with a low budget Shakespeare film, and why he needed a “Creative Shift” instead of a vacation.

While I didn’t write a sequel to the Avengers or create Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I had spent a decade at Ogilvy Singapore. Work had been exciting as well as challenging, given the technology disruptions that were happening globally at lightning speed. There was hardly a moment to pause and reflect.

After completing several high-profile campaigns and pitches, I decided that I needed a little time off. My wife, who’s also my creative conscience, suggested I take a vacation. However we both quickly realized I didn’t have to go back to one of my favorite cities, Tokyo to visit the Maraikan (Japan’s Museum of Emerging Science and Technology) or that I desired more Ramen. I needed a working vacation. I needed to “Creatively Refocus”.

My choice of a ‘holiday destination’ was a local coworking space. Apart from the practical reason of needing a desk to work off — I couldn’t attempt this at home as I was pretty sure I would’ve been distracted by my 2 year-old toddler — I also wanted to spend my limited 2 weeks with a sense of urgency and discipline which a sun-and-beach environment would most likely hinder. I deliberately chose The Working Capitol (TWC) as it housed some notable as well as up-and-coming startups in the region. My ‘itinerary’ included my passion projects and getting to know the startup community and their stories. I was all fired up to embark on this adventure.

My first day at TWC was filled with fresh faces in a whole new space. I noticed quickly how everyone had a real energy to them. They were single-minded and frighteningly focused. I was determined to meet all of them. Oh, did I mention that they were all very well dressed?

The entire space felt like a school campus. People mingled at common and break out areas, sharing stories and lunch. No one was hiding in cubicle hell. Often I heard the words “I’m excited, let’s do this”. Every startup here wants to change the world. They are both the employer and employee with great passion for what they were doing. Guys and girls stood in corridors with earphones and sounded absolutely convincing with their business pitches.

What I saw and heard had me worried and envious at the same time — yes, I did a lot of eavesdropping. I wanted to know their motivation and see what I could learn from them.

From discovery to realisation.

One of the startups I met was Photomoolah, a branded photo content service.Photomoolah match brands and photographers to create custom imagery in response to briefs. I found out that one of our Fortune 500 clients worked with them and would be speaking at an upcoming Photomoolah event. This got me thinking: if our clients are now working directly with content creators, how do advertising agencies maintain their competitive edge?

That same afternoon I met one of Singapore’s top photographers (he declined to be named for this post) for lunch. With competition like Photomoolah and average joes with a keen eye and affordable camera equipment, he’s feeling the heat and even had to give up his studio space recently. He then told me about a recent photoshoot where the client was making changes over his shoulder. He had glanced over to the creatives from the agency (not Ogilvy fortunately) and they simply shrugged! What’s going on here? What is the worth of agencies if we have lost our unique creative vision and our right to fiercely defend it? Is this why some clients now bypass agencies because we no longer brought value to the table?

“In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.” — David Ogilvy

Drawing a parallel lesson in my own work.

I’d admit to have fallen over the wayside recently. I had accepted that the solution to selling emotional ideas to a client was to have safe, objective conversations with them. But if we stopped for a moment to believe that our art and commerce could be analysed with cool detachment, we would never provoke any response. At the end of the day a lot of our art is based on intuition. A lot of music is like that, it’s about ‘gut feeling’ — yes, data analysts in our agency might just roll their eyes at that term.

We must then think and operate like startups. We need to keep up and get down to doing things. We need all creatives to understand technology, platforms, media, trends, data, and how to generate ideas. We need to pick up cameras to shoot videos ourselves, use software to string the stories together and get our hands dirty. Do WHATEVER it takes to materialise and sell an idea.

Could agencies start sharing in a shared economy?

If you think about it, coworking spaces are occupied by various startups with varying agendas and ambitions. Just like advertising agencies with our business units, disciplines and client cells. The biggest difference perhaps is how everyone here gets together to leverage each other’s expertise and connections to pursue a shared goal of becoming successful. I heard one startup asking another for help in data analysis. It wasn’t commercial, it was trade bartering.

Could advertising agencies benefit from this culture of shared economy? Would this community be open to agencies bartering both our services for opportunities for great work?

Big inspiration from a Genie.

Crowdfunding is fast becoming a route for startups to raise funds, and Djenee’s (a resident at TWC and pronounced “Genie”) recent record-breaking equity crowdfunding in Asia had me quite excited to meet them. Investor interest in Djenee comes hot on the heels of Magic, a similar service based in the US, which recently raised money at a US$40million valuation just after six months of operations.

It’s interesting how digital concierge services like Djenee could change how we get stuff done on smart devices. Think of it as Spotify meets Uber: on-demand requests fulfilled by an army of “Genies” in a UI free experience through your Apple Watch.

Now imagine Djenee working with brands hoping to create a live-response CRM programme. Or for a campaign, rebrand Djenee to become a brand’s mascot on your wrist, transforming an otherwise faceless service into a human to human experience. The possibilities are endless.

Let’s go back to the start(up).

It’s been an amazing 2 weeks. When you’ve worked in the same place for a long time, being in a different environment and meeting diverse folks make you recall why you started in this business eons ago. The ambition, hunger and courage these startups possess all come flooding back to you.

With my work-cation is over, I return with renewed focus and energy to 2 big upcoming new business pitches and a baby girl coming in October.

Oh, what about that personal passion project I spent 2 weeks on at TWC? Stay tuned my friends. :)

This article was first published at Medium.com and crafted by Melvyn Lim, the Executive Creative Director at OgilvyOne, Singapore. Follow Melvyn on Medium and Twitter to read more.