The moto; “don’t waste your time”, the aim; education, innovation and infotainment (media that provides a combination of information and entertainment). 12 min.me is a non-profit organization in more than 30 cities worldwide, which is why here at TLR we are proud to be the of host these events in Malaga! I’m one of the co-founders of 12min.me Málaga and also a family member at TLR coworking, a match made in heaven!
The regular 12min.me events feature three informative and inspiring talks, lasting no more than a breif 12 minutes per speaker in order to get their point across and inspire the audience. After the talk, it’s the audience’s turn to ask questions and discuss the topic all within… you guessed it, 12 minutes!
The focus of these events is to connect people from diverse backgrounds who wouldn’t usually get the opportunity to connect and share ideas. This creates a networking platform which in turn expands your circle of business contacts and/or friends. Only funded by donations, our partners (ie.TLR in the Malaga region) lets us use their event spaces and supply all that’s needed to make the talks as interesting and accessible as possible.
The events are free of charge, all you have to do in sign up on meetup.com if you want to join the team, attend an event or support the organization!
The 12min.me event at TLR
Speaker 1: Ben Kolp. “My journey building Málaga’s best coworking space.”
I wanted to tell you about my journey over the last 4-5 years and how the TLR coworking idea came about. I worked at Oracle for nearly 5 years but it got a bit boring after a while, I always had this entrepreneurial spirit inside me so I thought I had to do something about it! I left Oracle and joined a friend at a social media agency working from home, however I didn’t even make it 1 week working from home! So, I contacted someone who has an office here in Málaga (the current TLR space!), he had 14 desks upstairs and 1 spare. I signed up to this desk and it was a dream come true! Then, he ended up having to sell the office space, so I figured it would be a great opportunity! And henceforth the Living Room Coworking was founded! My ambition was to just cover costs here, however after only 1 and a half years, word got around and people took an interest. We were full and we squeezed in one more desk, sitting facing a wall. Behind that wall was more space, luckily the office there were moving out and we were looking to expand! Eh voila! A knocked down wall, and 5 months later the newly expanded office was full! Then a year and a half ago we managed to get a second TLR office space in Alameda Principal, which is slowly but surely filling up. Nowadays, we’re focusing on a new concept ‘TLR Agency’.
Speaker 2: Volker Meyer. “What I learned from opening amusement parks abroad.”
I am a manager and consultant in the entertainment and tourism industry. We are based in Marbella now after a long career living in different places and doing different things from being in the German army to moving to Saudi Arabia (Jedda) in order to renovate and restructure 3 amusement parks. After this we moved to Marbella where I now work from home, we have many video conferences with people from all over the world and it works really well. We are now creating family entertainment centres in shopping malls together with national geographic, they will combine the storytelling from national geographic films and documentaries with attractions all around the world. We opened the first ‘Ultimate Explorer’ National Geographic in China and Mexico in premium shopping malls. We use a lot of augmented and virtual reality to make the experience engaging and exciting. What I have learned over all these years is that we have to be open to different cultures, not assuming that our way is always the right way, listen to your coworkers and employees and most importantly have a good work/life balance.
Speaker 3: Pamela Smit. “A different approach to solving world problems.”
Around 1 year ago I decided to buy a camper van leaving Holland for Portugal and Spain. I wanted to start experimenting with buying some land and having a more sustainable lifestyle. I used to work in customer experience as I believed businesses should always be customer-focused. However, I realised I wasn’t focusing on the right problems and felt like people were led away from the customer journey, into a money-making machine. Amazon is a good example of this with the ‘buy now with 1 click’ button. So, I began wondering “why is everything about growth in business?” In nature, growth stops at some point, so why are businesses expected to continue to keep growing? One answer, GDP (Gross domestic product). Where the success of a country is measured by the monetary value of all the goods and services it owns. But it lacks measuring other things such as happiness! I believe we should be finding a way of being able to measure this. ‘Doughnut Economics’ by Kate Raworth is a great read as she measures the social foundations (such as access to food etc). In the end, we extract resources, make something from them and then dispose of them into nature as waste. Now, we have huge environmental problems because of this. We need to find another way of doing things! Maybe a circular economy?
To find out more about 12min.me Málaga and when the next event is, click here.
Written by Behsaad, co-founder of 12min.me Málaga.
