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In this video, Natalia Davydova discusses the opportunities that COVID-19 has brought to their space in Tokyo: Nagatacho GRiD.
Natalia Davydova works for GAIAX, a Japanese startup studio that develops social media and sharing economy solutions to tackle social issues. Gaia operates under the Principles of Steel organization, which grants employees complete freedom to choose when, where, and how they work, what projects to participate in, and even allows multi-employment. The company also provides various programs and facilities to promote work-life balance, such as playrooms, yoga and meditation facilities, and child care. Employees can also work remotely and are supported in pursuing educational courses.
Opening their office to everyone through Nagatacho GRiD
GRiD is a six-story building with various shared spaces, including coworking areas and event spaces. The building’s purpose is to connect people and provide them with a platform to collaborate and inspire each other. GRiD has both for-profit and free sharing models, and the free model is sustained by the for-profit model. The building also offers community lunches, art displays, and wellness services like yoga and meditation. The space is designed to promote well-being and multi-functionality, with each floor having its own role and resembling a living room filled with home furniture and natural light.
Handling of the pandemic at GRiD
Natalia’s team built a safety committee to build policy and safety measures when the state of emergency was declared in February.
“We created a guideline how to keep grid safe and said set up a daily routine of disinfecting surfaces, offering face masks for free. We moved all of our events online and had only a few central employees basically come to the office on a shift basis to take care of plants and mail and things like that.”
Moving events online
GRiD actually started experimenting with online streaming of events in 2019, and already had some popular events set up for online participation using YouTube streaming and chat system. When the COVID-19 outbreak happened, the team started using Zoom and had team members learn about running online events using Zoom and Discord. They offered free online lectures to the public and had community managers facilitate online events and share their knowledge with the public.
Many offline events were moved online, including book clubs, game nights, and movie nights. They also created new events for people stuck at home, such as a daily community lunch and networking through a tool called REMO.
New Business Opportunities Through Covid-19
COVID-19 brought new business opportunities for GRiD. As said before, they shifted most of their offline events online, including book clubs, board game nights, and movie nights, but also created new ones such as a daily community lunch that includes a yoga workout and remote networking.
This resulted in attracting more participants from all over Japan, which brought in more revenue. They moved some of their offline businesses online, such as their experience-sharing platform that now offers online meetups with professional Japanese geisha and a platform where fans can meet their idols online and drink together.
GRiD also developed a consulting service to help big businesses run festivals and events online, and they plan to turn great event spaces into YouTube video recording studios to sell them to companies wishing to broadcast their events online.
“We provide the space and the operational support for these sort of events. And we already have actually a high demand for that. So we’re trying really hard right now to to sort of create this marketable package for them.”
Adapting the physical space
GRiD has already made changes to its physical space due to COVID-19. They have reduced the number of seats, changed the layout of their floors, and implemented a policy of disinfecting all surfaces every two hours. Additionally, they have a new rule that requires people to close the toilet seat and the toilet to prevent the spread of infection
Besides the pandemic, and because GRiD is a free coworking space, there is no lack of demand from people. Loneliness is a problem for people in Tokyo and GRiD can provide a platform for communication. Since the pandemic, many people have sent requests to open sooner comforting the team that they won’t have any problem with people returning.
A shift in Japanese work culture?
In our interview, Natalia notes that they have noticed a shift in some companies wanting to move towards remote work and investing in cloud systems for secure remote work. GRiD has also noticed a shift towards companies moving into shared spaces as owning things has no benefit while sharing things is a win-win situation for everyone. Gaiax is supporting remote work financially, including helping purchase office chairs and devices or covering the cost of using local coworking spaces to avoid commuting.