Welcome to the age of the open office, where quirky facilities and a sense of community replace cubicle boundaries. Co-working spaces make that switch from your typical café to a haven where you have everything you need to meet deadlines.

Drifting eyes follow you as you tread unfamiliar ground. With tables of various shapes and sizes, the sweet aroma of coffee in the air, and baristas at the ready, the scene may look like your typical café until you see the showers, napping area, and conference rooms. It doesn’t matter if you plan to stay or not. Despite the alien feeling, you decide to see what these places have to offer.

The further you go, the more laptops you observe cluttered with plates of food and cups of coffee, amidst the sounds of typing and talking. In this small space, you find a mix of both work and play—an oasis of sorts.

With the ever-changing trends and the need for sources of motivation, it’s no surprise that people find places like these appealing. Co-working environments thus present a new sort of productivity—one that transcends office cubicles, library desks, and distractions that would be best left at home. In such settings, ideas can brew from like-minds and caffeine-fueled thinking. The challenge now is for these shared spaces to match the ever-changing needs of millennials.

Two-in-one

Technology Venture Planning lecturer Kristine Claire Ongcangco says “Hindi pa uso [before] ‘yung co-working space [that] you rent, [or] pay a minimum fee to stay half-day or the whole day [that also served unlimited] coffee.” She explains that co-working spaces are expected to be a more formal and conducive place to work in while remaining an affordable destination for students.

Ongcangco herself co-founded Concept Machine, an information technology start-up, while she was still in college—back when there were no local co-working spaces, and her nights were spent programming with her colleague in cafés along Katipunan.

Focus is the name of the game when it comes to co-working spaces. “You can work at home, but [there you have] all your dogs, siblings, and parents. Then there’s the coffee shop, [where you don’t know much people],” she continues. “Then [you have] co-working space[s], talagang office set-up with the nice tables and ergonomic chairs.”

True enough, there is a certain aura of productivity in co-working spaces. However, like any other business, these establishments must find ways to keep themselves fresh in the eyes of the public. One relatively new place with unique facilities is Diligence Café. The café boasts of its unlimited beverages, shower facilities, and pillow services for nap time. And these are what appeal to its target market: College students.

“Hugot ko ‘to lahat from college (I got this all from college),” says Elmerei Cuevas, CEO and founder of Diligence Café, when asked about the café’s conceptualization. “I realized that as students or as people in general we all have dreams; we all have goals,” he explains. “But we don’t have the place to do the nitty-gritty stuff.”

For students to tackle the nitty-gritty, Cuevas designed Diligence Café with comfort and concentration in mind. There, one can focus on work and accomplish tasks within a relaxed environment. “We opted to actually follow the business model of a co-working space pero hybrid with a café,” Cuevas recalls. The presence of all the basic needs such as food and other facilities within a public business setting adds to the efficacious atmosphere of such co-working spaces.

Select and connect

Diligence, which sits squarely between café and corporate hub, is just one among many shared spaces in Katipunan. Places like Cuago and The Study have also emerged to offer meeting rooms for students. Long before these, however, was 47 East, which was aimed at helping young professionals get their ideas off the ground.

A man named Allan Cristobal had predicted this co-working trend. By 2012, the entrepreneur had transformed an old house along Esteban Abada into a student dormitory—one that also boasted of Katipunan’s first co-working space on its ground floor.

Today, this address is 47 East, with a couple of function rooms above and working areas below. “The main idea here is to be a business incubator,” explains Lei Natividad, 47 East’s business unit head. “We want to help young ones—the entrepreneurs—if they have something in mind.”

Office trimmings aside, 47 East offers the chance to build a brand. “They, [the entrepreneurs], can use the address for their correspondences,” says Natividad. The formal venue then gives weight to calling cards and client meet-ups, without the expense of a private office rental.

But careers still thrive on connections, and 47 East engages its coworkers for that very purpose. “We try to do business matching,” Natividad continues. “If you don’t initiate that, some people will just be quiet about what they do. We try to look at their profiles and make recommendations.”

The result is a community soaked in learning opportunities. 47 East’s staff occasionally directs freelancing patrons to certain jobs. The space has hosted tech seminars and coding contests, among other events. The semi-annual “Oh Minds!” networking night allows start-up enthusiasts to come together and mingle over food and drinks. Through these efforts, co-working extends its benefits past physical housing. As Natividad puts it, “[The perks are] these services we offer to them. It’s not just [about] the client relationship.”

Maximum efficiency

Students and professionals alike find comfort and productivity in co-working spaces. While they can simply accomplish tasks at home or in other cafés, they still choose to stay in places like Diligence Café, 47 East, or The Study. A regular Atenean customer of The Study, Riz Comia, says, “I live eight kilometers—and two main avenues of traffic—from Ateneo and these co-working spaces, but I still [visit] them because there are just too many distractions at home. Traditional cafés also are quite peaceful most of the time, but they have become millennial pools for meet-ups and dates.”

Moreover, the facilities in co-working spaces cater to the work-related and external needs of customers. “The very atmosphere will make you want to work, especially if you’re surrounded by people who are focused on their work as well,” Comia adds.

The abundance of electrical outlets, high-speed internet, and specialized meeting rooms prove useful to customers in achieving productivity. With the work atmosphere and avant-garde utilities, co-working spaces can be seen as the place for efficiency.
As proof of co-working spaces’ success, Diligence Café is already undergoing optimization, the process of making their business system fully functional and near-perfect, only after its first month. However, Cuevas knew his co-working space would be a hit, but not at such a fast pace.

“People would comment, tag, or share doon sa isang post namin na, we need this in ganito, we need this in Manila, we need this in Cebu, we need this in Davao,” he says. “People come to us and they’re asking, ‘Hey, I have money right now, where do you want your next branch to be?”

At this rate, people are sure to see more of co-working spaces and their innovative services that diverge from the traditional café setup. These co-working spaces likewise serve as avenues for efficiency and platforms for networking. With fast-paced shifts in the interests of millennials, these shared spaces stay in the now.

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