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The Mindpark Helsingborg year of 2018

What a great year we have had! We would like to share some of our highlights of this past year. Enjoy!

WORKING WITH OUR DEAR COWORKERS
When we started to think about what we could do to support newly started companies we had to start with figuring out what we had to offer, which is, of course, a bunch of offices and desks. So we decided to launch Mindpark Go! where newly started companies get to sit at Mindpark for six months, paying a very small fee. Our hopes are that the companies get a context, business contacts and a nice atmosphere to help them develop. And of course, share their knowledge and thoughts with our coworkers. It´s a win-win!

In addition to this, we later launched a concept that we call Free Pass Day! where you get to sit at our coworking space, take part of all its benefits (like nice discounts on our meeting and conference rooms, free coffee and prints) and get to experience what it’s really like at Mindpark Helsingborg.

Once a month we treat our community with a common breakfast. Why? First of all, it’s just nice to get together. It’s also a great opportunity for new coworkers to get to introduce themselves and for others to know what these new people are up to.

We started to host common cowork lunches every Tuesday. Quite quickly, we realized that it started to live a life of its own and suddenly it seemed to happen every day. It was dynamic growth and we love it! So instead we started to host more organised lunches every month where a coworker got to tell what they are working on at the moment and if they have any challenges they would like to have input on. At two occasions we invited a guest on a “health-edition” lunch, one on how to prevent stress and the other was a business yoga session.

In addition to our monthly events, we always host Summer and Christmas parties where we all get together and have a lot of fun. One of our challenges with the coworking space is to make the coworkers more involved. Creating a wishing box for more simple ideas, was one solution and another one was our community budget where ideas from our coworkers are founded if they get the support from at least two other coworkers (from other companies) for their idea.

GETTING THE WORD OUT THERE!
Regarding our social media approach, we always try to keep it personal and with a sense of humour. Have you watched our Friday dance-off? On the other hand, we have started to use LinkedIn more, where our approach is more business-like.

During this year we have got 200 new followers on Instagram and on Facebook, our reach has gone from 10041 to 22386 people. Hurray! (This with zero money spent.)

Every month we send out two newsletters on different subjects. Is there anything you would like to know more about? You can always sign up for our newsletter here.

THE CAFÉ
Looking at the world around us, we’ve been reviewing Mindpark and decided to serve vegetarian and sometimes pescetarian alternatives as our standard options. When treating our staff to dinner or lunch it is the same. We are looking for affordable options for the disposable plastic we use in our café as well but haven’t found anything that is good enough yet. We will keep looking! In the meantime, we encourage our guests to pay attention to what plastic they really need and we love it if you bring your own reusable cups. And finally, we have set up a more visible recycling station. Do you have any suggestions or ideas about more things we can do, please let us know!

So, what about our coffee? Each day we serve around 75 liters of coffee, only counting the filter coffee. All Fairtrade certified. Café latte is the most ordered drink, we get two times more orders of that than of cappuccinos. Coca-Cola Zero is the most bought soda and “chokladboll” is the most common fika. Do you fit into this description?

Two times a year we change the design of our take away cups, just for fun! The design is made by one of our co-worker, Charlotte at Profilkassar. Do you have a favourite?

CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS – CONNECTING PEOPLE
For our meeting and conference guests, we also made a decision that the food and fika should be vegetarian as the standard option. There have been some people complaining, but the absolute majority is positive about this change. And our vegetarian buffé is just super-delicious!

During this year our conference and meeting guests can be divided into three groups:
40 % Mindparks coworking space members
30 % Private sector
30 % Public sector

This year we also noticed that many new guests found their way to Mindpark – and they came back!

We asked one of our regulars, Anna Rydberg, project leader at Familjen Helsingborg why she chose to organise their conferences at Mindpark. Here’s her answer:

At Mindpark, I feel that there are meeting rooms for different types of meetings, both for smaller groups and for larger gatherings. We have arranged both kickoff and workshops – all in a creative, innovative and exciting environment. An extra plus for vegetarian options and fairtrade products!

At Mindpark you can have larger conferences, but we also welcome smaller meetings, spontaneous fikas, coaching sessions and dinner parties at the space. The space is very flexible and the creative environments work for almost all kinds of meetings and gatherings. Our spacious fika area, next to the café, is just perfect for mingling and spontaneous meetings when there are many groups in the house having fika at the same time. We love connecting people from different areas and this is one way to do it.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING – EVENTS
Helsingborg is filled with companies within tech and there is a lot of knowledge within the area. We wanted to strengthen the tech sector in Helsingborg and what is really better than knowledge sharing? So, we contacted a bunch of tech companies and started Mindpark Tech. Frankly, it didn’t turn out just as we expected since we had a hard time to make some of our collaborators make events. But it has also led to a great collaboration with tretton37 with the Code Lunches each month and several other tech-networks are now connected to us. Among these, you find the female tech network Techella! There have been seven lunches and 166 participants since May and it has led to other companies organizing techy-stuff here, like the VR/AR try-out with Symetri! And also the CoderDojo continued, and Øresund Fintech had events here as well.

This year we didn’t organise a Camp Ven but we will do so next year, bringing startups, angel investors, entrepreneurs and the support system together. So keep your eyes and ears open for 2019!

MINDPARK CREW
During this year we said “so long” to some of our most loyal crewmembers. One moved to Thailand and the other one ended her studies at Lunds University Campus Helsingborg. A part of our strategy is to always have one or two students that can spread the word about Mindpark to the students at the Campus here in Helsingborg. But as a natural part of this, people come and go.

When working at Mindpark you become a part of a very small crew. That means that we have a very direct communication and share a lot of the work tasks. Have you, for example, noticed that everyone working at Mindpark knows how to make a cafe latte? And that you can ask any of the staff about the meeting room technicalities? We are also very much into testing and trying. If anyone has an idea – we will be testing it (even if it is a really bad idea)!

Our CEO has monthly personal evaluation meetings with the staff members. We are using a feedback and goal model where everyone sets personal and professional goals for the upcoming month. Apart from using this as a tool to make everyone develop in their role of work, this is also a way to make sure that all the staff are sharing the Mindpark values. The staff also have common monthly meetings where we educate each other in different areas such as sales, digitalization, and community building.

UPCOMING IN 2019!
During 2019 we are happy to say that Mindpark is opening in Malmö. In April the first coworkers will move in! Yey! You should come and visit us!

The biggest news about Helsingborg: We are finally expanding with thirteen new offices! The companies that have their home at Mindpark are growing and so are we! So instead of leaving when they have outgrown their office, they can now move into a bigger one and still be a part of Mindpark Helsingborg. People have long asked for this since they do not want to leave us – and we never want them to.

Like many others, we are facing a bunch of challenges in the future. One of ours is that there will be several new congress buildings and offices in Helsingborg in the upcoming years. This means that we have to make our offer to our guests even more specific and show them what Mindpark is all about. Why are you choosing Mindpark?

We are looking forward to a new exciting year together with you! <3

/Mindpark Crew