Time-out

December 02, 2009 by alex

Upstream is taking the december off. Except from support for running projects we haven’t taken on any new projects for this month. The reason is that we wanted some time to think about the future of our company, but also to have time for other things.

We have already done this for a weekend in January when we went to Maine. It was a fun weekend but we spent a lot of time walking around at the beach and in the sauna, which left too little time for developing any significant ideas. So this time we are doing it for a whole month.

For the thinking part we will be doing a few meeting throughout the month to talk about different aspects, like the kinds of customers we want to attract in the future, the kind of work we want to be doing, how much and where we will want to work and also how much money we want to be making with all this. We are not going to do any fancy brainstorming-like things. Instead everyone spends their time doing whatever he or she thinks will produce the best ideas - be it sleeping in every day, long breakfasts or running around in the park. We will then gather occasionally to collect and exchange ideas.

For the “doing other things” part: first of all we want to give our <a href=”“https://co-up.de/about.html>new office and coworking space</a> some love. The walls are all white and empty yet and there are still a few ikea boxes stacking up. Another part is to attend some of the many events Berlin has to offer, but that we mostly have to skip because of work.

I already spent yesterday at the coworking day, where Germany’s coworking community gathered to discuss the issues of setting up and running coworking spaces. That was my first day off and I already got a few new ideas from it that could help upstream in the future. Next up is TedX Kreuzberg, where the smart people of Kreuzberg will come and tell us about their brilliant ideas. I’m very much looking forward to that.

I will report back on our progress here from time to time. So far I can only say: “Please try this at home”. Not having to worry about projects and day to day problems all the time is very refreshing and I am confident 2010 will be a great year for us.

This entry was posted on December 02, 2009 by alex.