During my tour and visit, Nathanael explained to me that this is the original La Cantine and that there are now 5 of them throughout France. The spaces are very dedicated to building communities. Besides offering coworking/office space community building and facilitating is one of their biggest focuses. They host around 1,500 events per year and structure them around the communities they’re building.

A little bit more about La Cantine:

La Cantine is a technology focused “coworking” or collaborative workplace.

• Open to everyone, La Cantine offers actors and workers in the digital realm an environment conducive to innovation and collaboration. The space also provides a set of services (logistics, consulting, communication) to foster cooperation, accelerate innovation, and encourage the growth of an already booming sector.
• In 2010, La Cantine welcomed 757 coworkers and 16,000 visitors, and hosted over 400 events.

As a collaborative workplace, La Cantine is dedicated to creation, experimentation, and innovation.

• The unique nature of La Cantine’s mission is to offer those in the digital and tech sectors a place to meet and an environment conducive to collaboration and the development of innovative projects.

Some photos from my visit:

The exterior of the space, located in the heart of Paris.

The bar, and one very dedicated coworker!

My work station for the day! Note the comfy over-sized bean bags and the cool cactus planter box. Love the feel of La Cantine’s open space!

A bird’s eye view of the open space.

So thanks La Cantine, I had an awesome visit to your space & thoroughly enjoyed the bean bags! Your community building is inspiring and impressive. My one regret: I was not able to talk to more of the coworkers, my visit was too late in the evening! So, if I’m back in Paris I would love to stop by again and talk to more of the community.

And now, to wrap up pariSoma visiting Paris, one of those “by chance” stories. On my way out of La Cantine, while trying to decide between eating a full meal or just sampling some of the delicious and unbelievably tempting pastries Paris had to offer, I saw a familiar face. It was Christian from MakeSense, who had coworked at pariSoma! Christian and two of the other MakeSense team members set up shop in pariSoma for a week in July, they were working on their site which is dedicated to connecting social entrepreneurs.

So, here’s to coworking, where you can meet someone in San Francisco and see them again across the world in Paris!

And next up on my list of coworking spaces to visit: Coworking Lille.

This weeks marks the start of what will prove to be a great coworking adventure! I, Stephanie Ng, your friendly social media manager for pariSoma, will be visiting several coworking spaces in Europe for a month. I’ll be starting in Paris, moving my way up to Lille, and then to Rome, Florence and Barcelona! However this itinerary is not set and I plan to add as many spaces as possible! I’ll be visiting the coworking communities and spaces and meeting with some of the coworkers and employees to ask them questions about how their space works, why they are unique and why they love coworking.

But, before I started this Coworking Voyage, I decided to start at home – why do pariSoma coworkers love coworking so much? Here a couple of the answers I got:

I love coworking because you meet remarkable people that are innovating and creating new companies and new products. You meet them getting a cup of coffee or eating lunch, enjoying a party or a happy hour. At a “normal” work setting, you generally only meet your colleagues. Here, you meet people from so many different places. I find that inspiring.

– Paul Salazar OTRS

I love coworking (and especially pariSoma) because it gave me not just office buddies, but a “family” when I was a newbie to the city and didn’t know many people. Because we all work on different things for different companies, we get all the fresh perspectives without any of the office politics. And amazing people to grab beers with!

- Patti Chan Intridea

…Because the vibe is always just right and the people are inspiring

-Candace Locklear MIGHTY PR

So, thank you pariSoma coworkers for your answers, and I hope to to hear more inspiring stories and learn about coworking from my travels!

For the first pin on the map: pariSoma goes back..to Paris!

Stay tuned for pictures & a post about pariSoma’s visit to: La Cantine.

Pictured below is Mayor Newsom with faberNovel founder and CEO Stephane Distinguin.