Help! We #NeedABetterPlace to work

Still fixing your office while you should already be working? Luckily for you there’s coworking!

Thank you @Nextspacesf for your entry! Feel like promoting the coworking movement and get a chance to win a spot in a Gidsy activity or a lifetime account to Grasshopper? click here. Have a look the pictures already posted here.

“Work in Progress”

As a mobile worker, there are many places you can build your projects. A building site isn’t one of them.

“Work in Progress”

#NeedABetterPlace to work? Luckily there’s coworking.

Thank you @SaraVainer for your entry! For competition details and your chance to win a spot in a Gidsy activity or a lifetime account to Grasshopper, click here. And for most photos, click here. Do it. We know you want to.

Deskwanted reaches 1000 coworking spaces – becomes biggest coworking portal

Deskwanted.com, a Berlin-based startup, welcomed its 1000th listed coworking space, a milestone that mirrors the growth of the flexible workspace movement. Deskwanted‘s global community of collaborative workspaces and independent workers represents over 50 countries worldwide.

The website, which acts as a portal to find and book coworking spaces and shared offices, has enjoyed a new growth spurt in recent weeks, following a redesign and renewed media attention. User activity on Deskwanted has doubled in the past eight weeks, with more people both searching for workspace and listing available desks.

The addition of the 1000th listing confirms Deskwanted as the biggest coworking-focused search, booking and management site on the web. It differentiates itself from other office search sites by customizing for coworking spaces and shared offices, with tools to help manage a collaborative workspace.

By offering online organization tools – such as coworker information management and meeting room bookings – Deskwanted allows any office to become a shared workspace.

“We want every office to become a shared office, and every flexible worker to become a member of our community,” said Joel Dullroy, co-founder of Deskwanted and its sister site Deskmag. “Coworking spaces are setting an example of openness and collaboration that all traditional offices should follow.”

For the past ten months Deskwanted has been a resident of the YouIsNow incubator, run by Immobilienscout24, Europe’s biggest real estate portal.

Deskwanted will finish its year-in-residence at Immobilienscout24’s YouIsNow lab in September, having received development support, business coaching and expert mentoring.

‘Need a Better Place to Work?’ Photo Competition

Are you a freelancer? Entrepreneur? Mobile worker? We’ve got good news for you.

Deskwanted is teaming up with Gidsy – the online skills and experience sharing platform, and Grasshopper – a virtual phone service for entrepreneurs, to promote collaboration, independent professionals and the spaces which support them. And we’ve turned it into a competition, so everyone has the chance to win awesome prizes that are valued by independent workers, hooray!

The competition

The competition asks independent workers, freelancers, startups, entrepreneurs, and anyone that can work from anywhere to take photos of themselves working in ridiculous situations. You know, to highlight the fact that coworking spaces are awesome. A little something like this:

So ridiculous that the lolly pop tree makes it look like he’s naked from the waist down.

Here’s what you need to do to win:

1. Take a photo of yourself or a friend (you need consent…) working in a ridiculous situation.

2. Post the photo to @Deskwanted on twitter with the hashtag #NeedABetterPlace

3. That’s it! All photos submitted will be put in a Facebook album, to be laughed at for many months to come, with due credit given to the entrant. And if your photo is chosen as one of the best, you’ll win a regional prize that will have you blessing the day you became a mobile worker, namely…

One lucky winner will receive a complimentary placement to the value of 100€/USD in an activity listed on Gidsy, in any city they choose. Art and culture tour of NYC? Turkish food class in Istanbul? It’s up to you.

All North American entrants will also go in the draw to win a lifetime account to Grasshopper, the entrepreneur’s phone system. And the next ten best entries after that will receive a $100USD discount on all Grasshopper services.

In addition – yes, there’s more – the very best 12 photos that are submitted will be included in a coworking calendar, hung in coworking spaces around the world to be laughed at for the next 12 months. These snapshots of mobile-workers’ ‘workspace options’ will serve as a constant reminder that coworking spaces are the only option for entrepreneurs, and that collaboration and skills sharing is the only way forward.

The nitty gritty details

The Gidsy prize is transferable and valid for a period of 12 months upon Deskwanted’s notification of the winner. Contact details will be passed on to Gidsy, and all communications will thence take place between the winner and the delightful Gidsy crew.

Both the lifetime Grasshopper account, and the 10 best entries chosen for a $100 Grasshopper voucher, are transferable, and must be redeemed within 6 months of Deskwanted’s notification of the winner. Grasshopper and the winners will then do all the talking.

All photos submitted are open source, and can be used at Deskwanted’s discretion and shared with third parties on social media platforms. Deskwanted reserves the right to use and print any of the photos submitted, including their use for a calendar.

Anyone can enter. Winners will be notified on Twitter using the account they used to submit the winning entry. If no contact is made by the winner to the prize giver within a fortnight of a winner’s notification, another winner will be chosen in their place.

Deskwanted will select the winners. Close friends and family of the Deskwanted, Gidsy, Grasshopper and Coffee Circle teams don’t have a chance of winning. Sorry guys.