Wilmslow serviced office space with a difference
July 11th, 2008 | by James Welch
Thursday, following a comment on the news section of this site, we discovered that there is a relatively new and different serviced office venture operating literally yards from Choregus’ doorstep here in the charming but expensive town of
Wilmslow in Cheshire.
As investigative journalism doesn’t really exist in the office space world, I thought that I would go out and try some and get the scoop on this new venture.
Having had a quick look at the Demute website (www.demute.co.uk) - to ‘demute’ meaning to avoiding commuting, getting the work/life balance correct and so on - I had a quick conversation with Phil Gardener, brains behind the idea and set off.
OK, so what is different about this serviced office you say?
Well, firstly, the billing structure. Costing £10 per day, you are given a chair, desk, fast internet access (wireless) and the fair use of a printer/photocopier as well as the standard kitchen facilities and all the tea and coffee that you can drink.
At this moment in time, you cannot book weeks/months in advance, but simply £10 per day to use the services. Only £10 a day all-in!
The aim of the venture is for it to become a place to work from on an ad-hoc basis, rather than somewhere that you would house your new business from full-time. As an intermediary between home working and somewhere such as an office from MWB or Regus, it seems to work very well indeed.
The types of people that Demute are looking to appeal to are small businesses currently working from home that would like to get out, stretch their legs one or two days a week, without having to hunch over a laptop at a Starbucks and consultants looking for a place to work from that is not an area of Holiday Inn Express along with 84 other lost souls.
Other types of user are large, local firms that will allow the space to be used by employees to save travel time every so often, or to give them a working space outside of the usual environment, so that things can actually get done.
Then there is the opportunity of local small businesses getting to meet potential business partners, suppliers or even customers in a more natural, relaxing way than at a meeting where the whole explanation of one’s services must be done in a short space of time.
The whole short-term nature of the environment is very refreshing. Knowing that you cannot camp down there, but use it only as a frequent place to stop and get some work done gives it a very different flavour than a normal serviced office. There are literally no extras to pay for or even to consider purchasing.
Pay your £10, work there for the day and then leave. Thats it. A great way for the very small business and consultants to get on the serviced office ladder before they become established enough to use a Regus desk or hire a meeting room.
I was so impressed with it that on Monday I am going to work from the office as a test for myself, to see how the working day works there. I will create a further report upon this and let Choregus readers know how it goes.
Added: Here is a very small video of some of the office space:
[youtube width="425" height="335"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=low4P_48OZo[/youtube]
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