A SUCCESSFUL GARDENER

Eric Ries describes entrepreneurs as “visionaries”: people who “can see the future of their industries

and are prepared to take bold risks to seek out new and innovative solutions”. He also underlines

that other than having “all the prerequisites”, like “proper team structure, good personnel, a strong

vision for the future and an appetite for risk taking”, they should “convert the raw materials of

innovation into real-world breakthrough successes”. [RIES, 2011]

Davide Dattoli, class of 1990, is a digital strategist from Brescia, and, as a startupper, he founded

Viral Farm, a social media agency, and co founded SaveTheMom, a family social network. Though

he is starting to be known offshore especially because he is co- founder of a young start-up, Talent

Garden (TAG).

Brescia is a city in the North of Italy, in the most powerful region of the Country, Lombardy. It is

known to be an old industrial town, famous for its reinforcing rods and in general for the

mechanical sector. Despite of its recognized prosperity, during the last years it suffered from the

recession like the rest of the Country, and lately maybe more: according to the data provided by the

Istat – Italian Institute of Statistics -, during the first period of 2012, 10 enterprises went in

bankrupt, while in the first four months of the current year they can be counted as 138.

[BISSOLOTTI, 2013]

Talent Garden was born in Brescia in December 2011. With an upstream tendency, exactly when the

national financial crisis was affecting its town, it was rapidly growing, and even expanding

offshore.

TAG is a co-working space. From a superficial view there is no novelty: the co-working movement

started in San Francisco, California, in the far 2006, and reached Milan, Italy, in 2009. Nevertheless,

the story of Talent Garden differentiates it from the others, insomuch as it is becoming an

international case.

Teresa M. Amabile and Mukti Khaire convened a two-day colloquium at Harvard Business School

with students, many innovators, representatives of successful companies, and powerful internet

giants. They listed the characteristics that a company should have to manage creativity. Talent

Garden fits in almost every of them.

The first priority they individualized was “engaging the right people, at the right times”. They

underline the importance of giving autonomy and distributing responsibilities, while encouraging

and enabling collaboration. In addition, they should open the organization to diverse perspectives,

because is it proved that “innovation is more likely when people of different disciplines,

backgrounds, and areas of expertise share their thinking”.[AMABILE, KHAIRE, 2008]

It is better to specify that Talent Garden is a co-working space for digital related professionals and

start-ups only; it is therefore not a space for everyone: it is a “passion-working space”; the

fundamental requirements to become a resident of the space are a strong passion for the digital

world, and a relevant professionalism linked to it.

It is also a franchising: since 2011 they opened 7 different locations all over the Country, and now

they are looking offshore. [STIZIOLI, 2013]

The reason those characteristics are important emerge from the words of Davide: when is asked to

describe TAG, he always replies that it is “more than co-working”. And its leading edges are two:

ideas and people.

TAG has to manage many different kinds of relationships with people:

� the co-workers;

� every single Talent Garden;

� industries and investors.

The firsts are selected through a peer-voting between all the co-workers, and, to be chosen, other

than being working in a digital relative setting, they should be “brilliant, creative, enthusiastic,

passionate, courageous and imaginative minds”. These criteria are defined in order to create a high

quality environment where the co-workers could not only help, but also compete, collaborate,

compare and contaminate each other in a spontaneous way, and “give an entrepreneurial humus to a

place where, from the blossoms of new ideas, could flourish and grow new plants, new enterprises

which will have the better ground to become bigger.” [TAG, 2013] Giving to the co-workers the

responsibility to choice the aspiring one, was decided to “keep a high qualitative level, and let the

people to get known each other even better” [DATTOLI, 2013].

The mission of the project is therefore exactly either to encourage and enable collaboration and to

be opened to diversification (it hosts startups, freelancers, communication agencies, photographers,

video-makers and many other professionals).

This opened spirit carried his challenges, other than choosing and motivating the people. Like in

every co-working space, the inhabitants from an economical side are not employees, but they work

close to each other: from the human and relational side the founders of TAG are supposed to

manage the people, which is a complex job.

However it is clear that within the intention of the company, other than on people, there is a focus

on ideas as well: they define themselves “a sort of franchising of ideas” [STIZIOLI, 2013]. In fact,

as anticipated, they actually are a strict franchising, in terms of model, but extremely opened in

terms of contribution from the peers. There is still a central brain, composed by all the founders of

all the locations, which takes the biggest decisions and gives some small directional lines, in order

to make all the TAGs to have similar activities, though all of them are locally contextualized and

have freedom to organize initiatives and propose ideas. Thus it is a company either decentralized, in

order to divide responsibilities/ give importance to people and their ideas, and guided from a short

list of common features (philosophy, layout, brand, communication, costs). Davide says that “it

becomes a chain where, if it works in a case, it gives a push to all the other rings”. “Many times –

he continues - the most important thing is to manage to find all the sparks (people who are

interested in opening a TAG, author's note) and link them and give them the right direction. And this

is what happened to me during this year and some months. Take sparks and link them. [DATTOLI,

2013]

Therefore, if is it a more than a co-working space, it is urged to define what else it is. The founders

always define it as a “passion-working space”. But what exactly does it means? Even if the

inhabitants are passionate, as already specified, they aren't employees. There is a need of connection

between their passion and the founders' one. There is, indeed.To open a new Talent Garden the first

requisite is to be passioned- as it is a start-up, there is a few money to earn from it- and ready to

share and collaborate as well, like the co-workers. Actually, the fist co-worker of a TAG is its

founder. There is a big net of TAGs to manage, and it contains several local nets of co-workers to

manage as well.

The importance of being locally settled, is the key for managing the third relationship: industries

and investors.

It could be easier to understand this issue while looking at the case of Brescia: it is a entrepreneurial

and industrial province; it also has a network of business companies, and it is organized in sectorial

districts, like kitchen and bath furniture in the Lumezzane area, dining furniture in Ospitaletto,

weapons in Valtrompia. According to the words of Cristiano Rastelli, founder of WEBdeBS, the

old- school entrepreneurs of the city do not have the basic economic culture to understand what is a

start-up. Even just the English language becomes an obstacle, because they aren’t able to read a

book which is not translated in Italian, and so they miss a huge piece of culture of the lean

movement” [RASTELLI, 2013].

In such a complex context, TAG managed to find the investors, proposing a disruptive model, and

trying to diffuse an Italian style co-working. After the first year, the balance of Talent Garden was

therefore closed in break-even.

The forth step to be an innovative organization, as listed by John P. Kotter in the far 1995, is still

valid, and the success of Talent Garden is also motivated from that. After having created a vision,

which is strong recognizable in the analysed company, it should “communicate the vision”, by using

every vehicle possible to spread it. The reason why Kotter underlines that is due to the idea that

“transformation is impossible unless hundreds or thousands of people are willing to help”, and

“without credible communication, a lot of it, the hearts and the minds[...] are never captured”

[KOTTER, 1995].

TAG has either a strong and disruptive communication strategy. As Lorenzo Maternini, co-founder

of TAG, explains, they first try to use “all the existing channels to broadcast their vision”- from

their blog to the social media to magazines and newspapers, “in order to reach different age

groups”. [KOTTER, 1995] [MATERNINI, 2013]

It was made a survey between co-workers and citizens of Brescia, to obtain more data and opinions

about the company. Every body has a great consideration of the high quality of the communication

strategy, which help the co-workers as well in terms of giving them more visibility: “usually when

journalists come to visit the space and to interview the founders, then they interview the startups as

well, providing us with further visibility on press”; some even consider it as “the key of its

success”. In fact, almost every week the newspapers speak about the phenomenon, and the founders

have at least 3 meetings per week with journalists or authorities. [PIAZZA, 2013]

The disruption is to be found within the “approach” which was chosen to communicate their vision:

TAG does not use “any official press release”. All the articles which speak about the company are

indeed one different to one other: they “involve every time the journalist in hand pushing him/her to

write an article where he/her would describe TAG with his/her eyes” [REMONDINA, 2013]. They

are also willing to make “the Internet world closer to the traditional one, to educate the enterprises

to this tool, with which they can communicate in a more spontaneous way with the clients”.

[STIZIOLI, 2013]

It should require many efforts and time spending, yet likely it should be worth it, because not only

the local press wrote about TAG, but all over the Country and even offshore “it is spoken a lot about

Talent Garden”. [PIAZZA, 2013]

Marla M. Capozzi, Renee Dye and Amy Howe realized a guide for executives about sparking

creativity. Their research focuses on perception: “to perceive things differently” – they say – “we

must bombard our brains with things it never encountered”. Moreover, only by forcing our brains to

recategorize information and move beyond our habitual thinking patterns can we begin to imagine

truly novel alternatives” [CAPOZZI, DYE, HOWE, 2011].

Talent Garden aims at being literally a garden of talents. Yet choosing high-quality professional is

not enough to make it a centre for innovation. Other than putting brilliant minds together in the

same space, which, as already explained, is one of the key points of the project, TAG needs to

cultivate the small plants it incubates, either we referring to the co-workers or the founders.

What differentiates Talent Garden from many other co-working spaces, indeed, is that, according to

their vision of “cultivating talents”, it put many efforts in organizing many events, not only being

part of the Startup Weekend movement, of which Davide Dattoli is the Italian facilitator, and not

only setting up meetings and conferences presenting successful case studies and “deep- rooted

company orthodoxies”- already seen an extremely positive way to generate new ideas and

inspirations by the quoted “Executive's guide”-; in fact, it also hosts many BrainPirlo (informal

issue-focused aperitifs, created by WEBdeBS) and collaborates with several other creative

organizations, like Creathead, Startup Business, Frontiers of Interaction, TheNextWeb.The

objective of the partnerships is the creation of occasions of sharing knowledge between creatives

through the training and informational occasions.

Within the survey it was asked about the effectiveness of those initiatives, either the informative or

the informal ones. The feedback was positive for both: the words used to describe the first were

“stimulating”, “enlarging my horizons”, “engaging and thrilling”, “innovative”, “great to keep

ourself up-to-date”, yet in the end the majority of the users underlined how deeper was the effect of

the latter: “To date the highest value of TAG remains the people I met” - it was answered, pointed at

the importance of “networking and sharing knowledge”. Therefore, the vision of TAG appears to

work.

Nevertheless, it is not to forget that Talent Garden was born just one year and a half ago, so it is

maybe too early to be definitely sure that its view is correct. As Rastelli notices, they “aren’t able to

create enough critical mass yet. […] In the garden everyone has his small plant, but while not

making a mass, they aren’t able to create a big plant. But it is true as well that the startups weren’t

born to make a big plant: on 100 startups usually just 2 are the ones that then become really big

plants, so actually it could be that the system works.” [RASTELLI, 2013]

What is undoubtedly true, is that the phenomenon is growing fast – 7 locations opened in such a

short time. This is due to another step of success which was taken right from the company:

“establishing a sense of urgency”. [KOTTER, 1995]

In Italy, indeed, what was missing was a pole which could aggregate, from the province, the many

freelancers who were working alone at home or in small uncomfortable offices. Coming back again

to the words of Cristiano Rastelli, he is giving a big part of the credits for examining the market and

identifying potential crises and opportunities to Davide Dattoli. He applied design thinking. “He

grasped an unexpressed need. Davide found in Italy many people who wanted to run a start-up”

[…] and then “he followed the flux, he found his fertile ground at the right time: within the

recession it is the ideal moment when people are thinking that they don’t have anything to loose,

without a job, without anything”, and so they join” [RASTELLI, 2013].

Davide spread the vision, and, with the guidelines to the other TAGs, but moreover with his

enthusiasm, empowered others to act on it, and make it theirs.

This rapidly drove the company to the mission to be not even only a network, but a proper

movement: while diffusing the digital culture, and with the aim of making the start-up culture grow,

soon they started to organize events opened to the public as well, not only for the co-workers: the

sharing of knowledge is even enlarged to the all the citizens, in order to bring innovation

everywhere. “We cannot change the world, but with the co-working we can help to create that

ecosystem which Italy is lack of. And develop a sector which seems one of the few which can beat

this crisis”- declared Davide Dattoli. [SIMONTI, 2012]

Going back to the guidelines emerged from the colloquium held at Harvard Business School by

Amabile and Khaire, there is another point, shared with the “Executive's guide” which valorises

Talent Garden: managers should provide good settings of work, which could improve immersion.

Therefore it is necessary to spend a word about the symbol of TAG: its environment. Iother than

having relax and aggregation areas like the kitchen and the table football, it is an eco-friendly and

low cost open-space, principally made by carton; it has numerous different kind of spaces, from the

single desks usually rented by web developers or freelancers, to small rooms for the startups, to

meeting rooms and fablab. Elisa Remondina, Head of Campus, underlines that “even the furniture

of Tag is fluid: the desks and the […] furniture are easy to move in order to modify the space on

necessities. Our photographic studio can be turned into a meeting room where we hold training

courses for companies.”[STIZIOLI, 2013] The flexibility of the office brings a message with it: be

open to change.

A good work environment doesn't mean just “funny”, “dressing-room spirit”, “relax”, “agility”,

“pleasant”, “fresh”, “beautiful”, “easier”- like the co-workers described it within the survey-. The

term “good work” refers to ethics and sustainability as well, according to the research of Amabile

and Khaire. So the management should try to set a kind of contagion. TAG found a way to to that

with all the furniture: its eco-compatibility, “the use of the separate collection of rubbish, and the

abandon of certain restricted formalities”, the company gives an example of ethic as well.

[STIZIOLI, 2013] Furthermore, the light model they have for keeping the budget low is due to the

choice of local architects instead of famous ones, low cost materials- but still of quality- and of

assembling the desks on their own.

In conclusion, Talent Garden is a start-up which in just one year and a half demonstrated to fit

almost every characteristic of a successful enterprise. “It is still too young to train the Country out

of the crisis – it is said by one of the answers of the survey - but it's an important example of how

things are changing in Italy, ready to evolve towards some models and concepts that abroad have

been adopted for years”. [PIAZZA, 2013]. This happened due to many factors, some were more

pragmatic, like the communication strategy, the light business model, the sustainability.

Nevertheless, it appears that the biggest reason the TAG model is working, it is becoming an

international movement and it is going overseas – like in China, Kenya, Brasil, New York, London

– is related to the people.

“The real capital is the people”, says Lorenzo Maternini - “The old-school economy was used to

work like this: hiring 3 people, buying machines, the market asking 10, so selling and gaining 5. A

lot of maths. The new economy is everything about people, which is a higher risk but it is worth it”.

[MATERNINI, 2013]

And the person who made everything possible, as sustained by Cristiano Rastelli, was Davide.

Because he was an effective leader. It could be recognized as true, actually: to spark and sustain

change, like Peter Fuda and Richard Badham underline in a HBR article, a leader should motivate

rather than be scared of fail, should be authentic rather than wearing a mask, and should be able to

cause a “snowball effect”: a cycle of mutual accountability that creates momentum for change”.

[FUDA, BADHAM, 2011]

Davide literally threw himself in TAG, he is extremely a passioned and talented guy. “Without

asking himself whether they would have succeed or not, which is the typical behaviour of the

startups- I start, I try, eventually I fall and then I raise-, he threw himself and trailed behind him

many people, creating a “snowball effect”. [RASTELLI, 2013] Furthermore it was possible because

he actually needed a space like Talent Garden, it was truly what he desired: and the people are

connected by passions and desires.

Another person with the same capabilities of creating a light business model, finding low-cost

materials, and creating an efficient communication strategy, but without the same “fire”, the same

that Eric Ries describes in “The Lean Startup”, “it would have not work” [RASTELLI, 2013].

REFERENCES

[AMABILE, KHAIRE, 2008] Teresa M. Amabile, Mukti Khaire. “Your Organization could use a

bigger dose of creativity. Here's what to do about it”, Harvard Business Review, October 2008, 101

- 108.

[BISSOLOTTI, 2013] Erminio Bissolotti, In April two companies per day in bankrupt, Giornale Di

Brescia, 08/05/13, Appendix n. 1

[FUDA, BADHAM, 2012] Peter Buda, Richard Badham, “How Leaders Spark And Sustain

Change”, Harvard Business Review, January- February 2012, 20-21

[CAPOZZI, DYE, HOWE, 2011] Marla M. Capozzi, Renee Dye, Amy Howe, “Sparking Creativity

in teams: An executive's guide”, McKinsey & Company, April 2011

[DATTOLI, 2013] Davide Dattoli, Francesca Piazza, Interview with Davide Dattoli and lorenzo

Maternini, 30/03/13, Appendix n. 2

[KOTTER, 1995] John P. Kotter, Leading change: why transformation efforts fail, Harvard

Business Review, March-April 1995, Reprint Number 95204, 59-67

[MATERNINI, 2013] Lorenzo Maternini, Francesca Piazza, Interview with Davide Dattoli and

Lorenzo Maternini, 30/03/13, Appendix n. 2

[PIAZZA, 2013] Francesca Piazza, Talent Garden: Creativity and Innovation,

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WB5CDNV, [23/05/13], Appendix 3

[RASTELLI, 2013] Cristiano Rastelli, Francesca Piazza, Interview with Cristiano Rastelli,

13/05/13, Appendix 4

[REMONDINA, 2013] Elisa Remondina. Talent Garden Case Study. Email To: Francesca Piazza.

19 May 2013 [23/05/13.] Personal Communication., Appendix 5

[RIES, 2011] Eric Ries, The Lean Startup – How Constantly Innovation Creates Radically

Successful Businesses, Portfolio Penguin, 2011

[STIZIOLI, 2013] Marco Stizioli, Talent Garden - When working together shorts the distances (an

opens the mind), Battaglie Sociali, n. 5, December 2012- January 2013, 20-21, Appendix 6

[TAG, 2013] Talent Garden,Talent Garden, http://talentgarden.it, 2013, [27/05/13]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Marla M. Capozzi, Ari Kellen, Rebecca Somers, “Making Innovation Structure Work”, McKinsey &

Company, 2012

[CROCI, 2013] Valentina Croci, The Coworking, a systematic sharing of the place of work, is

exploded in Italy as well. The crisis is an accessory, but also the diffusion of atypical, flexible and

tramp professions, Interni – Panorama, 04/04/13, [24/05/13] Appendix 7

[DI STEFANO, 2013] Andrea Di Stefano, Fair and Sustainable Wealth: First Istat and Cnel Report

which shows 7 millions of Italians in difficulties, Radio Onda D’Urto, 11/03/13 [25/05/13],

Appendix 8

[FICARA, 2013] Lorenzo Ficara, The event on coworking and digital start-ups: Creathead e Talent

Garden, the online creativity meets the Digital Campus, Assodigitale.it, 08/03/2013, [24/05/13]

Appendix 9

[LEONARDI, 2013] Morena Leonardi, Interview with Davide Dattoli from Talent Garden, Uomo

&Manager, March 2013, [22/05/13] , Appendix 10

[ZENTI, 2012] Giovanni Zenti, In Tag the experience of Mr. Motorshow With an increase of capital

Alfredo Cazzola enters with the 20% in Talent Garden Brescia, Giornale di Brescia, 20/12/12,

Appendix 11

APPENDIXES

1 Erminio Bissolotti, In April two companies per day in bankrupt, Giornale Di Brescia, 08/05/13,

Available online in Italian at http://www.giornaledibrescia.it/economia/ad-aprile-fallite-due-

aziende-al-giorno-1.1663959

Every day, in April, at least two companies gave their book at the Tribunal. Generally, in a month,

53 societies have been reached the end of line and so Palagiustizia registered its umpteenth negative

record.

Comparing to twelve months ago, the sentences of bankrupt register a horrible increase: +30%.

During the first four month period of 2012 they were 10 the societies in bankrupt, while in the first

four months of this year they can be counted as 138. Proceeding so on, if the records office and the

Enterprise Tribunal functionaries of Brescia will succeed to sustain this amount of work, by the end

of December they will be forced to define a new “Caporetto” of the Brescian economy.

From an analysis done by Cribis D&B, it can be noticed that, in the first three month period of

2013, the region more damaged by bankrupts is Lombardy, or the area of the Country which

presents the higher number of enterprises, with 848 cracks and an incidence on the national total

like the 23.32%.

To be more detailed, from the beginning of 2009, in our region 10.819 enterprises went in bankrupt

and half of them are in the construction sector. A trend which is reflected into the provincial

landscape as well where the agencies connected to the world of constructions are at least the 70% of

which are forced to close. The other sector in a huge crisis is the bulk trade.

At a national level, basing on the last data, in the first 3 months of 2013 in Italy 3.637 enterprises

were in bankrupt, the worst data since the first three month period of 2009, with an increase of 65%

in three years and of 13% comparing with the first three month period of 2011. This escalation

brought the average to over 40 bankrupts per day, including Saturdays and Sundays as well.

2. Interview with Davide Dattoli and Lorenzo Maternini, co-founders of Talent Garden,

Brescia, 30/03/13

Francesca: Davide, what drove you, which need you found in the city of Brescia that push you to

open a space like TAG?

Davide: Well, the idea wasn’t mine only, but of a group of people. It came from a necessity: we all

were busy with communication and web in different settings, and we were all working in Brescia at

a distance of a few kilometres from each other. Some were in Accademia (SantaGiulia Academy of

Fine Arts, author’s note), we were close to Mompiano (a borough of North Brescia, author’s note),

other were close to the Oz Multiplex (Industrial Area of Brescia, author’s note). We were used to

communicate via Skype, maybe we meet each other once or twice a month to chat and to drink an

aperitif. Since during the aperitifs we collaborated, we compared each other, we exchanged ideas,

we thought why it wasn’t the case to create a similar situation everyday by getting closer to each

other. And from that it came the idea of building a kind of space which in some way could have let

everyone share with the others ideas and proposes, while doing its own stuff.

F: Lorenzo explained me that you give the space as a co-working one, and obviously you select the

applicants who could join in, in two phases: first you evaluate them, and then the people who are

already working inside TAG can put a veto or anyway give their opinion about the new startups

which apply. How was this idea born, or, how did you decide to give so much importance to the

people who are already working at TAG? I guess there is no hierarchy, isn’t it?

D: Well it was born in line with how all the project started. It was born from a group of friends, and

it was a necessity that the other persons with whom there is collaboration should be of high quality,

because if there is a student, maybe he simply comes to ask something to a professional, while the

professional should also work. So giving the possibility to the occupants to choose with whom to

work with was in order to keep a high qualitative level, and let the people to get known each other

even better. And so again everything comes not only from a need to share the office as a real estate

property, or a common space, but from the idea of a space which starts from a necessity and tries to

give it an answer.

F: What and how you manage to communicate to the city who you are and what you do? Or, which

channels and tools do you utilize?

Lorenzo: Well, we try to utilize many channels, because there is also a problem of age groups,

because the core of communication is the web, so we have a blog where we always publish our

events, we also have obviously a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but it is always very

important to utilize the printed paper news media as well. We are followed from the newspapers as

well, and it is positive because it reaches a completely different age group than the web. Our events

are open to everyone, they aren’t just for youth, startups or digital friendly people, but we would

like to reach the world of publishing, of craft and sensitize them to the digital communication. Thus

also the communication campaigns should be guided to the part of citizens which is not used to the

web.

F: how does it work the campaign on the newspapers? Do you use advertisements?

L: No, the 99% of the entire advertising we had it is all editorial. TAG is a National phenomenon,

thus many magazines and almost all the newspapers are interested in it, and locally in particular the

Giornale di Brescia follows us regularly, we have almost a dedicated article per month, maybe

more. And on their website they often reintroduce us, we are really chased.

F: Regarding the links between the TAGs all over Italy, how do you manage them? When do you

decide to do events together, or collaborations between the members?

D: Well, keep in mind that TAG is a franchising in the strict sense, so every TAG is very similar to

all the others because we all follow the same format. Thus there is a central brain which tries to

make the other TAG to have similar activities somehow, obviously all of them then locally

contextualized, but also in some way in line with all the others. Now we are launching CoderDojo,

with which we teach the children to program since they are young, and we are doing it in Brescia,

Bergamo, Milan, and then probably we will take it to Padua and Turin. Thus it becomes a chain

where if it works in a case it gives a push to all the other rings. To make the people know each other

even more, we organize national events rotating between the TAGs, where we try to do locally

specialized events, but all the persons of any TAG could attend them. This let us to connect people

on a thematic basis. So if every developers need to talk about a particular task, we call a global

expert at one of the TAGs, and the developers of every TAG can come and listen to him/her.

F: It has already happened that workers of different TAGs opened collaborations in terms of

projects?

D: Considering that between the first and the second TAG there have been just 8 months, and the

first TAG was born 1 year and 2 months ago, so I guess it is too early.

L: Well for example I run a startup which is not inside TAG, though through TAG it knew the

founders of the TAG of Padua with which it collaborates very often. So the interconnection will be

a natural consequence.

F: Which risks did you face and which problems did you encountered since you started?

D: Well, consider that TAG is a small business. It is about making an investment and finding a

location, then looking after it, setting it up, and managing it right at the level of the consumption.

The business model is to rent the space to other people. The rent is at a square meter, which is sub-

rented at a desk. The margin on the rent is really low, so managing to cover the investment and to

economically grow is really elaborated. This is the most complicated problem, because is a difficult

business model, in general within the co-working there are many difficulties in having big margins,

and if there aren’t big margins it is difficult to build big things.

The second problem is about people: choosing and motivating them. Here the paradox is that they

aren’t your employees, apart from one or two, at a legal and economical point of view, but it is like

they were at a human and relational level, so managing the relational set of problems inside a TAG

is one of the most complex problems.

F: Regarding this, do you have an internal social media or internal communication channels?

D: Yes we do. We have some Facebook groups and we are designing a dedicated social media.

F: Did you receive any feedback from companies with which you collaborated, and from the

citizens?

D: Yes we did, and it was really positive, because this should be an activity made from the public

sector. At this time we are making a typical activity of the public sector, as the co-working should

be, in something private. So, on one hand, the public sector obviously sees it in a great way, because

it creates many activities on the area, and on the other the companies are really interested in it

because obviously within the recession speaking about startups, digital, innovation, having 60

people in the same place is one of the best methods to connect the traditional business methods with

innovative ones, and having a typical series then creates the unique binding agent. We are working a

lot with every kind of companies which ask us everything: some tell us that they would like to

invest on the startups which are inside TAG, others maybe are entrepreneurs who ask for expert

advices, others would like to utilize the people who are inside TAG as testers of innovative services,

others would like to give support to the startups, or sponsorships to events and initiatives. We are

really working with many different enterprises and organizations.

L: Yes, just for Brescia we would have 2-3 meetings per week with people who have proposes,

projects or just people who want to understand who wer are and what we do.

F: So you have never encountered any difficulty in making the enterprises understand your mission,

haven’t you?

D: Well, No, we haven’t. But consider that we have a blemish: we are a really small structure. Thus,

being really small, many times we don’t even look for an opportunity: it finds us. This is a blemish

because if we would search maybe we could find thousands of other opportunities, but it is also a

virtue because the people who contact us and come here are already really interested. Thus who

arrives here may not deeply understand TAG, sometimes they make not that clear proposes, but they

are always interested and opened to TAG. For example big banks look for your contact, write you,

fix an appointment, come here, maybe the general director comes…they don’t come without being

already informed.

F: You have a young story, but I was wondering to know, analysing your story, if there are any steps

which you would not retake or others which instead you would retake for sure. I mean which are the

steps which have been fundamental for you to reach success, or the ones which could have been

avoided or took in a different way.

D: Everything we made should have been remade because drove us somewhere. Luckily we did

many things, not thousands because in less than one year and a half it is difficult, and all of them

push us forward.

L: Yes, I agree, I can’t think of steps which I would not remake, also because everything was

thought and big mistakes didn’t happen. Big successes were many, instead.

D: Yes, maybe I would just do something we did in a better way.

F: But how did it work? I mean, how did you manage to reach people in other cities?

D: it has been an absolutely natural process. Some people read about TAG on the newspapers,

others were friends of friends who introduced you to other friends who had some friends who

wanted to make something similar…now are opening in Genoa persons who I didn’t even know

before 2 months ago, I didn’t know anyone from Genoa. In 15 days there have been activated a

series of coincidences: a friend fixed me an appointment on another issue, and he introduced me to

a friend of him which was from Genoa and wanted to do something similar to TAG, another friend

introduced us to another person who was working in the real estate market and needed a partner

who could do that…they were 4 on 10 days in a totally coincidentally way. Many times the most

important thing is to manage to find all this sparks and link them and give them the right direction.

And this is what happened to me during this year and some months. Take sparks and link them.

F: When the persons visited, contacted or asked you “I want to open a TAG in my city” which kind

of guideline did you give them?

D: Essentially we have a section about manuals and a section about knowing the people, so to open

a TAG they should come to the TAG of Brescia for a week and breath it.

F: Regarding this: the experiential part is fundamental for TAG?

L: Yes, one of the keywords other than Passion is Experience.

D: Yes, here we do not rent desks, we don’t give something particular: we give the ideas.

F: Yes, and I believe this is the fundamental, I mean I believe it is the thing that makes the

difference, because anyway your key strength is that you are an excellence point, here are the

professionals of sectors connected to each other, and so the participation to TAG represents a

possibility to receive many incentives. It is really your experience which is being enriched.

L: Yes, you give it and you receive it.

F: It is the win-win principle.

F: If you should think that one of the startups might encounter some problems, like bankrupt, how

would your approach be?

D: It is too complicated to decide. The support is human, not of any other kind. We as TAG aren’t

anything, the community does everything.

L: It is true though regarding the quality issue that it is really difficult, because here come people

who already had their experience, they already know how to face the market, in fact the startups

which were born here had all a reasonable success.

F: In your opinion, considering the recession and that many enterprises closed even in Brescia,

which was one of the cities which have more resisted to the Italian economic crisis, how do you

think that instead your company could have been born, grown, diffused and maybe continued to

grow in a recession period? Speaking about managing, which learning you eventually would give to

other enterprises about managing resources and sustainability?

D: Well, first of all it is likely a sector matter. Ours is the sector which is less in crisis, in fact it is

the one which is helping the others to resist to the crisis.

Secondly, if an enterprise starts in a period of an economic boom it is structured in a certain way. If

an enterprise starts in a recession period instead, like ours, it is structured in a completely different

way. Today the real problem of many companies is actually that they have been structured in

economic boom periods. For example publishing is one of the sectors who are struggling more. It

was born in a moment when were sold pages for dozens of thousands of euro, and it structured itself

to support a load of that kind. Today, with the advertising in decrease, a whole series of sectors are

in decrease, and they have enormous structures which are not able any more to satisfy the market

demand, but I don’t know how much it would be a business problem rather than a sector problem. If

you start like us without initial investments, in a recession period when no one is willing to give you

anything, it is much easier that you develop a lighter and more sustainable model.

F: How did you furnished spending the less money possible while succeeding to create a really

liveable and, in my humble opinion, beautiful space?

D: For example we didn’t go to involve a famous atelier of Milan of architecture, but we asked to a

young architect of Brescia, who is still really capable but very simple and concrete, we adopted

really low budgets while having really high expectations, we reduced at most the costs, for example

the desks were assembled by us and our friends who, prevaricated by our messages which told

“Come and see the new Talent Garden”, once arrived at TAG noticed that we were assembling

desks, and they helped us. In the end we put everything together in 2 days.

F: Wow, so it started already as a co-working!

D: Yes.

L: But the fact is that it is not only a co-working space, it is a movement. Here we are developing a

new idea of entrepreneurship network. Not intended like it was since now, or let’s make an

enterprise network, we have to cooperate but there are the percentages, we should divide the

shares….It is saying: I have an experience, I cede part of mine to you, because I am sure that both

of use will double our experience. In Maths it isn’t acceptable, but the new economy it’s all this.

F: Yes, because it is not the economy based of money, but the economy based on experience and on

people.

L: The real capital is the people. I remember that when a bank came here we spent 40 minutes to

speak about their capital. The man was saying “Ok, I invest on startup named XY, but what if this

can’t give me any conversion?” but this is a mistake, because they see the business plans and

sometimes they see them going down, and other times they see some hikes which will never

happen. Because they didn’t understand that the real investment is on people, not on the business.

Though the old economy was used to work like hiring 3 people, buying machines, the market

asking me 10, me selling and gaining 5. A lot of maths. The new economy is everything about

people, which is a higher risk but it is worth it.

F: how did you choose the furniture made of carton?

D: Sometimes it’s all about randomness. The carton is a low cost material, we got lucky in

searching online and finding a small company which produced it. After a year we found that this

company was a startup like us, they were two brothers and their father had a carton factory, one of

them was particularly creative and started to make furniture out of carton. When we did the first

invoice we sent it to the company of the father. A year and a half after they have became an

enterprise which just this year invoiced 4 millions of euro. And it wasn’t worked out, we didn’t

know each other before. Though now we will probably open a Tag together in Ancona, where their

enterprise is settled, because then a great collaboration was born between us. Of course it was

contingency, maybe if we had chosen a big company it would have given us the furniture for free,

while the small startup couldn’t do more than a discount. Though it is great to have a story to tell,

even if at the beginning we didn’t know.

3. Francesca Piazza, Talent Garden: Creativity and Innovation, Survey Q & A – available

online in Italian at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WB5CDNV

1. Since when and how do you know TAG?

- I know Tag since a year and I knew it through word of mouth in my borough.

- Since it was born, through Davide

- Since it was born, the project fascinated me since the beginning. I knew it through friends In

common with the founder.

- From the foundation, it has been an event of which everybody was speaking about in the IT sector

(as an innovative model). I didn’t participate to the event, but some of my colleagues yes: then we

spoke about it.

- 1 year, word of mouth

- From July 2012 for a meeting with the founders of a startup.

- Since a year, through friends of a startup

- 1 year, I won the Startup Weekend Brescia and they gave me six month of free space.

- Ten months, through some colleagues of a web agency, for which I work, for an event which was

organized in TAG. Afterwards I asked to join TAG.

- I've heard about TAG in late 2011, when it was an idea becoming concrete. I had some common

friends with on of TAG co-founders, Davide Dattoli who deal with this new opening coworking

space

- 7 months. From friends

- Some months. I know them from an entrepreneurial network

- Almost a year, on local newspapers an Twitter

2. TAG hosts many startups with different competences and mission.

- If you are a startup: as a team do you already experimented collaborations or shared

projects with other startups? Or did you have the occasion to share ideas and competences?

- If you are not a startup: do you know the startups which are in TAG? How? What do you

think could mean for them sharing the office with other startups? And do you know that there

are 7 TAGs all over Italy and that often they will open others in other Countries?

- I am in tag since some months as a freelancer, I didn’t have the occasion to know well all the

realities yet. The monents to knoweack other and sharing informations are during the breaks and not

always there is everyone at those times. I know some of the startups. I hope to meet the others soon

at the next meeting of presentation of the members of TAG. Sharing the office with other startups

could be interesting when doing co-working doesn’t mean only sharing the physical space, but

sharing and exchanging ideas, projects, jobs, competences, problems. I know that there are in Italy

other TAGs and that soon there will be on other Countries as well. I am really happy about that

because it means that the model actually works.

- Yes we very often collaborate with other startups as to complete some jobs we are always in need

of different competences.

- Actually in Brescia, which is the space I live daily, there aren’t many examples (let’s say that a

startup doesn’t choose Brescia as principle location even if it is founded by Brescians, maybe it

moves in bigger cities), anyway I know startups of other TAGs, either by name (some are really

famous) and thanks to the channels of communication of TAG (blog, Facebook, twitter). The

sharing is fundamental for every single kind of enterprise, for a startup, which usually sees as actors

young people at their first experiences, the sharing lets them to adjust their mistakes while going on.

Of course I know about the new openings, this project is fashionable and engaging(not without

defects, of course, but it is better to take the better from the situations

- I am not a startup: I have an enterprise located in TAG. We already collaborated with the other

people of TAG about some specific jobs which required other competences than the ones already

within the enterprise.

- Yes, I knew them sharing the space

- Yes, italia2013.me

- As a start-up we haven’t developed a social relationship with other co-workers yet.

- Yes, it happens to us of asking collaborations with professionals who are busy with specific

matters (ex app development) . Generally we are not use to ask help to potential competitors.

- I am not exactly a startup worker. I know the startups which have been and are in TAG. I guess

sharing a space with other realities is in doubt a positive fact which brings an increase on both sides.

Yes I know the other TAGs.

- I work for a startup, Jobberone (a job focused social network). We didn’t have any collaboration to

date, since 4 months, thus it is giving us visibility.

- One of the most valuable point of strenghts in TAG is the interaction between people working

there, called Taggers. As a tagger, you interact with lots of people with differenct background, but

all we share a common passion and a deep knowledge of digital world, internet and communication.

Developers, Project Managers, Designers you meet people working in different domains. As a

startup, we hired lots of time people to collaborate in some projects, as a direct supplier or to

outsource some projects

- Shared projects no. Sharing of ideas and competences. I know that there are other TAGs and about

the foreign ones. But there are no news coming from those realities, and it is a shame.

- I am a professional and I work in TAG Bergamo. I am slowly knowing all the co-working startups.

The benefit is the network and the comparing. Then, a surplus is that from a thing derives another,

and so ther could be realized projects with new co-workers

- Yes, I know about some startups of different TAGs all over Italy. The sharing is decisive,

especially in entrepreneurial and startup projects: to learn from the others (people, companies,

markets), it is better to sustain each other and have some fun as well, which into the managing of

the risk doesn’t look bad!

3. TAG organizes different both internal and open to the public events. If and which did you

attend? Do you think they stimulated your creativity and that they gave you more tools to

work with innovation?

- I am in TAG since few months and they have aldready organized several meetings. Unfortunately

I haven’t been able to participate yet because of my working hours

- I attended several events organized by TAG, especially the startup Pirlo (BrainPirlo, author’s note)

where are told stories of big and small entrepreneurs who actually succeeded.

- I attended to some Startup Weekend and to different events organized by TAG, even just for

personal curiosity. Living a space like TAG is doubtless more stimulating than working at home!

- I attended some workshops (PNL, and some meetings of Associations like WEBdeBS e GDG

Brescia- Google Develop Group), and definitely they enlarged my horizons.

- I don’t participate.

- A lot.

- The meeting in TAG which I attended were ever always engaging and they thrilled and stimulated

me to deeply analyse the issues of the made speeches (like GDG Brescia, interviews to startups,

WebDeBs)

- It hasn’t been possible for me to participate yet, though it is a good way to create networking andi,

for TAG, to let the people know them.

- I never attended them. I participate to different meetings, in other realities.

- Yes, I participated to most of the events. Those events, I may confirm, stimulate creativity and

give interesting ideas at an innovative level.

- We took part in many events. External people (e.g. entrepreneurs, experts, teachers ...) come often

to hold some speeches or lectures. Big Corporations like Microsoft or Google do the same. Other

events are related to startups, like hosting a Startup Weekend, or conferences (es. TheNextWeb).

They are great to keep ourselves up-to-date and to meet and interact with new people.

- Some. I would not say that they developed my creativity. To date the highest value of TAG

remains the people I met.

- Yes, Aper-info (not BrainPirlo, this is held at TAG Bergamo- author’s note), funny, opportunities

of networking and sharing knowledge.

- I participated to an informative aperitif organized from TAG Bergamo. Useful, both for the sparks

and the network (it was an open event).

4. What do you think about the internal communication of TAG (if you are working in one)

and the external one (the channel it utilizes, social media, newspapers)?

- If I would have to be sincere, being an inhabitant I don’t care that much about the external

communication, even if I know that there were published several articles and interviews regarding

TAG. Let’s say that TAG gets itself talked about ; and it is talked about TAG. It is a reality still to

understand and promote, especially for a small town like Brescia. Concerning the internal

communication nothing to complain. Being in the same space facilitates the internal

communications, already efficient via web.

- TAG has a great visibility and so helps us like startups to improve our network. The internal

communication is good, even if it is mostly let to the individual inhabitants, while the external is

great. The channels I prefer are still the traditional ones.

- I agree with the communication strategy they apply, and with the channels they use to spread the

messages.

- It has been a long year and TAG Brescia was the first experiment: the internal communication had

some faults (above all for what concerns the administrative communications, which should have

been more formal, while they were treated like informal). The external communication was good,

especially during the first period when TAG Brescia was the only TAG of Italy, and gave to the

"inhabitants" many good opportunities of visibility.

- The internal communication I guess is really efficient.

- Great, high- level

- Elisa Remondina, if she would not exist, it would be necessary to create her!

- The communication is always efficient and timely especially through the social channels.

- The communication is definitely one of the reasons of the success of TAG.

- I believe that the communication is valid only if it reaches you, not only if it starts. Therefore it

should have been asked to the public, if it knows Talent Garden, and which kind of opinion it has.

Only at that point it could be understood if the channels and the methods are coherent with the

target which Talent Garden chose…

- Internal communication is informal, and maybe it's too much informal, since we may enjoy

instruments as shared calendar, internal intranet and so one. From an external point of view we take

benefit from the interest that media show to the TAG concept: usually when they come to visit the

space and to interview the founders, they also interview the startups working here, proving us with

further visibility on press.

- Terrible internal communication. Great external communication about the TAG project as a co-

working environment.

- I know only the activity which TAG Bergamo is organizing and I would say it is really optimal.

They are putting great efforts to give visibility to the internal startups.

- Good, coherent with the objectiveand the mission of TAG.

5. Today it is mainly spoken about creativity and innovation as pulling progress and success of

enterprises, especially now during the economic recession. Do you think TAG is an example

of success in this way? Why?

- I don’t have enough competences to answer this question. I don’t know if TAG is a success in this

way. I don’t know well yet all the realities in TAG, which jobs they do and for which companies

they work. I work as a freelancer in design, graphics and communication. My job is more about

creativity rather than innovation. I guess so that creativity and innovation could be a pulling for

progress for the enterprises it would be needed some inclination and investment from the enterprises

themselves. It should be a mutual work and unfortunately right now in a recession period many

companies do not invest I creativity and innovation, but they simply go for “the best offer”.

- At TAG can live creative people only . Not artists, but creatives able to find every day solutions to

the problems of their business. TAG is an example because only creative entrepreneurs can live

there.

- Of course yes, definitely it is a positive Italian message spontaneously born without any political

push.

- TAG is the possibility to give visibility to enterprises which offer services based on innovative

technologies (innovative for the Italian market) and make the benefits known to people who still

don’t use them.

- Not really.

- Yes, it is an office Cloud.

- Innovation for what concerns a co-working system in Brescia…But not creative at all…TAG does

not give you the job, don’t forget it. Here every one works hard on its own, after all, autonomously

finding clients and projects. After the first 5 minutes of charm with the clients while seeing all those

colours, everything else is substance of what you tell them, not where you live. The people of TAG,

the enterprises of TAG, are well- structured and autonomic realities. And those which are not, or

which hope that TAG would give them to work, will close soon. If anything, they are their creativity

and innovation which can let them to float in this recession, undoubtedly not the ones of the spaces

where they hire a desk.

- It greets the necessities of who doesn’t have enough earnings yet to rent an own office, especially

now, and it lets different professionals to meet each other.

- Yes, I believe that TAG is a great example. The continuous expansion is a demonstration. Because,

to reach our objectives, we have to create our own job.

- TAG is still too young to train the Country out of the crisis, but it's an important example of how

things are changing in Italy, ready to evolve towards some models and concepts that abroad have

been adopted for years. Innovation is a key for companies both for success and to improve the Value

Generations. We are used to think of both supply of physical products or services in term of

quantity (high volumes at low costs) instead of quality (value added products and services).

Innovation is the key to improve salaries and growth and by doing this to make a Country

successful or not

- Today it is spoken too much and it is done too less. TAG is a nice project of communication but it

is far from having a measurable impact on the ecosystem. There is the potential of having put

talented people in the same place, but it is evident that it is not enough

- Absolutely, because it can be as an adhesive between the new innovative/ entrepreneurial

generations and the mature companies.

6. If you have you ever stepped in a Talent Garden, you should have noticed the non

convetional environment (or the carton furnishing, the grass, the table football, cushions,

poufs…):

- If you are an inhabitant of TAG: is the environment important for your productivity? If you

would have been in a normal office wouldn’t anything have changed?

- If you are not an inhabitant of TAG: what do you think about the environment? Do you

believe that it would be more a distraction or an inspiration?

- The environment is really important and at Tag is a relaxing and juvenile one. More than about an

increase in productivity, I would speak about the quality of the working environment. Having

merry furniture it doesn’t mean having sources of inspirations, but moments of relaxation and

cohesion. As it is said, they help to “create a dressing room” spirit, to do co-working

- The environmental is fundamental to show to the clients the creative lode of the inhabitants. At the

bottom even when you are working the first impression which a client has about the office really

counts to acquire jobs.

- It is simply enjoyable and small conventional, it helps to live the working day with more agility,

without feeling pent-up in an old and grey environment.

- The environment has its own importance. A traditional office would have had less

distractions/sources of interference, but it would have been less pleasant and it wouldn’t have

transmitted that "sensation of novelty" which it is breathed at TAG.

- I like it but it is also a small source of distraction

- It is better to specify the “normal office”. The open space normal office doesn’t have the colours

and the furniture with the TAG style, and so the TAG environment becomes important to the

productivity due to how much importance is given from the eye of the client to who you are

proposing. Personally without a table football I can live anyway and I don’t need a carton desk

instead of the one made by wood to work better. The normal office but NOT open space let you to

avoid many distractions instead

- Well the environment in my opinion is fundamental and the one of TAG reflects the standards of

semplicity, welcome and beauty. Many people, after all the pedestrians who look inside the glass

walls, are always fascinated and look with amazement the objects

- It is definitely 'cooler' of a normal office, but obviously it has his pro and contra: the continuous

coming and going of people, who also speak at the phone in a big, often prevent me from being

focused. The table football is a great idea but, even though they have been created some hours of

curfew, they aren’t always respected and there is a small lack of respect for who needs to work even

during the lunch break… Actually the poufs aren’t used that often: the dream is a desk with an

integrated pouf - A comfortable environment is appreciable when you are asked to spend the most of your day at

office. When you run a startup, you have no 8-18 job, but a job that takes all your time, week end

included. Having fun at the office, with humor, letting you having some spare time there, makes

your life easier

- The environment is pleasant. It helps to keep the right mind set but it is not enough to have

important results.

- Funny environment, it isn’t a source of distraction at all, but of pleasant distinction instead.

- Inspiration!

4. Interview with Cristiano Rastelli, founder of WEBdeBS, 13/05/13

Francesca: Since when and how do you know TAG?

Cristiano: Since when it was born. Davide asked to WEBdeBS, of which I am still the president

until June 2013, because then I cannot manage it any more (living and working in London), what

did we think about his idea, and to have some forms of collaborations.

As a collaboration he meant having the contents, not just the usual forms of cross marketing like I

put my logo on your website and you put your on mine, but really at the level of doing something

together, and actually, since TAG was born, that have been the relation between TAG and

WEBdeBS.

Often we organized events at TAG o they organized events and we contributed with spread of voice,

or physically we participated at the event and contributed with part of the code or helped in

organizing the event. Usually our events were organized at TAG. If they were too big no, like big

international conferences, because there wasn’t the space, even if now Davide is working on the

first floor to make a conference room big enough for big events, though events of 50-60 persons

were organized at TAG anyway. Moreover the BrainPirlo: the BrainPirlo are event similar to the

most known meetups, but more informal, they were done at evening time at WEBdeBS, and on a

rota we decided to speak of different issues, so since TAG was born they were moved to TAG. The

environment was really informal, I mean, at the beginning we made them in the basement room,

then we moved them where there is the green wall because this often helped people to write on the

board. The informal aspect, so no front lectures: the beauty of the board was that we could easily

show the slides, but at the same time it was like a catalyst of discussion, and then the cushions, the

people seated, so in an informal attitude…all this made interesting discussions growing, and it was

also really simple to organize.

What I have always seen in TAG is “On Thursday we would like to make a BrainPirlo, can we?”

“Yes” “Ok, let’s go”. Obviously we had a contract, we bought a defined number of prepaid

evenings, like 5 or 10 evenings, and this has always permitted us to organize our events.

At the beginning, and I am speaking of my personal experience, I was really sceptic about Davide’s

propose, because it was called Talent Garden, and it was considered exactly like a garden of talents,

and I was saying that in Brescia it was impossible to find so many talents, because somehow or

other we knew the circle of WEBdeBS, so where could so many guys could be found willing to run

a startup who weren’t already in our circle- and in our circle they were a few- ?. Actually it was an

absolutely mistaken evaluation, I mean, in the way WEBdeBS was born, like saying “there are

people who work in the web context, why don’t meet each other sometimes to discuss”, and in a

few time we found ourselves to be, I don’t know in Brescia, but anyway a hundred of persons at our

conferences. With the people from Brescia I don’t say we reach a humndread but almost, and

before of WEBdeBS we haven’t ever counted ourselves, we didn’t know how many people was

working in the web in Brescia, we didn’t know because we didn’t have an aggregation space. With

WEBdeBS we found it. The same thing happened with the startups, I mean, in our circle there were

a few, but in the entire province there were many guys who have never been I contact with us but

who actually as soon as they know that there were a place where they could realize their idea and let

it be born, went to TAG and took their space.

This is was credit to Davide, in the way that his characteristic is that if ther is a thing, and he likes

it, he does it and takes care of it. Just after he cares about the feasibility and the evaluation. He is

opening so many TAGs that I would have never said. Since the beginning I was used to tell him that

it would have been difficult in Brescia, and at the end he would have found himself with all

professionals and it will become simply a co-working space. It didn’t happen. It was a bit like that

at the very beginning, but somehow or other it is a system which purges who is using it only as a

co-working space. And in fact from that he begun to open different TAGs in Italy and now he is

travelling the world and it seems that the model is actually effective.

So I saw it growing, even physically, I am one of the guys who assembled the carton desks.

F: According to the fact that it is not only a co-working space, but it is a Passion Working space,

which is the definition of TAG, and it is its key point, so you at the beginning how did you see the

fact that they wanted to open a co-working space without naming it like that, considering that it

already existed since 2008 a Co-Working movement (the Co-Working project) in Italy?

C: Well, the Co-Working movement in Italy wasn’t strong, it was being born, and they were a few.

We were starting to speak about co-working, but not in that structured form, for example I was

sharing the office with other persons, but a real co-working space was really rare. I could say the

DeHub in Milan, but they weren’t that many when TAG was born. It was starting. At WEbdeBS we

were starting to think about the fact that there were many unutilised spaces in Brescia, like in other

cities. What made us angry was that we noticed that the more we, professionals, were getting

together each other in a physical space, not only at a conference, but even in front of a beer, ideas

and collaborations were born. Having unutilized spaces was frustrating: an authority like the

Council of Brescia, the Lombardy Region, or the Italian State, should just have made them liveable,

like putting the electricity, water, gas, a good powerful broadband, not even the furniture, that could

have been bought at IKEA with 100 euro, and having an automatic system of the structure, like

“you enter, you don’t have to pay for 2 years, and just then, if you want to stay, you have to start

paying, because you should be able to pay if you survived for 2 years”

So we were thinking all this, thus it wasn’t a new thing the co-working space, we were discussing.

What Davide did of exceptional value was finding visionary investors who wanted to put money

inside TAG, because the space in Brescia, for the area where it is (Brescia2, an office posh area,

author’s note) has a commercial value.

So Davide literally threw himself in TAG, without thinking at the economic feasibility apart from a

minimum of a business plan, and without asking himself whether they would have succeed or not,

which is the typical behaviour of the startups; I start, I try, at the limit I fall and I raise. Though

someone like me- I am not a startup man- tends to say “no but before I need to know if there will

come many people, no but I need to know if it is sustainable… ” thus about this we must give credit

to Davide, he throws himself and trails behind him many people on his enthusiasm. It was the thing

that floored me because my evaluation had been totally different.

F: You obviously know the startups which are inside the TAG of Brescia, but are there some in

particular of which you recognize the value? I mean I would like to understand if considering that it

is a creative cluster, it results from how the startups are working or if it is still too early to say or if

anyway you are not able to say it.

C: Well, it is still an opinion of a non startup guy, so maybe I have not a prejudice but a different

point of view. For me it is still too early because they aren’t able to create enough critical mass yet,

thus small startups are born which make small things and you can say that they are finding it hard,

and so somehow or other they are like many small ecosystems. In the garden everyone has his small

plant, but while not making a mass, they aren’t able to create a big plant. But it is true as well that

the startups weren’t born to make a big plant: on 100 startups usually just 2 are the ones that then

become really big plants, so actually it can be that the system works.

What I see is that many people went there using the space as a co-working one: friends or followers

of WEBdeBS, everyone working as an employee for some societies, all averagely exhausted, say

“let’s make a startup”, so they do and come in TAG. They call themselves a startup but actually they

aren’t, at the end sometimes they have a product behind, but more often they have a participation to

some Startup Weekend, maybe they have a product, they try to get it done, but actually to eat they

put together the relative jobs and then become really good, like the society of Gandellini or

Comparto Web, so aggregations of small pofessionals. If this becomes a system of co-creation or

interactions of course yes, absolutely, because then they start to make the jobs one for the other,

they exchange their clients, but they aren’t from a startup view. Maybe they do a part of the job

which the other isn’t able to do, if there is a brochure to do they ask to Magenta, or magenta needs

to do a website and asks it at Comparto Web, but it isn’t a startup view yet. It is a co-working space

a bit more enlarged, so passion working, but from the point of view of the lean startup it is difficult,

also because the lean startup is not that easy to have. We like Italians do not have it, and like

Brescians least of all. We are really pragmatic and actually it is a good thing because we work hard,

but we don’t have the lean startup, not even the iterating concept, like passing a year without a job

while working days and nights only on my project, validating it, giving the pitches, bringing it at

meetings and challenges…that isn’t in our mentality yet.

F: yes, there is also a different economic situation.

C: I know some startup guys, and they really took a sabbatical year from their job, they make pizza

on Saturdays just to have some money, but then for all their time they work on their idea. Then

maybe it won’t work, but this is the approach. The Italian societies I know, like SaveThePlant,

aren’t startups. I don’t know if they are still working on it, maybe they try, launch a product but then

actually they have to work anyway, so they do something else and the product remains there, is born

and then die there.

F: So you sustain that the problem of the startup in the Brescian context is that anyway they need to

work for the money?

C: Do you think it is different in other Italian TAGs?

F: I don’t think so, because the economic situation in Italy is like this everywhere, and in Brescia it

is better than in other cities.

C: Yes, but do not forget that it is true that you need the money, but it is true as well that at the

beginning of the startup movement there have been a great presentation by Massimo Sgrelli in

USA. He was telling how there the startup guys really sleep on a couch in 3 on a rota, with a very

low budget, and for a year they work only on that project. But we do not have this mentality. I don’t

know if it is a matter of system, culture, behaviour. I would like to know the startup scene in Berlin,

if it is more similar to ours or to the Silicon Valley one. Her in London is totally different, here there

is a lot of money going around for the startups, so there is no problem. Here they have big investors.

In other areas there is the problem that the startup are born but they don’t find investors, and so they

die.

F: But do you believe that the idea of creating a co-passion centre inspired by the startup culture

could also influence at a long term on the Italian investors, or could make them understand that the

startups aren’t projects made by children-like unemployed nerds?

C: I will use the words of Alberto Gandellini. He made an analysis from which it can be noticed that

the Italian entrepreneurs do not have the basic economic culture to understand what is a startup.

Even just the language becomes an obstacle, because they don’t read certain books because there

isn’t a translated edition in Italian, they aren’t able to read a book in English and so a huge piece of

culture of the lean movement other than many other documents about the startups don’t reach them,

so they do not have the cultural instruments to understand what is a startup or just what is

happening somewhere else. Try to think about Brescia: it is still a rich city, filthy rich, I would

expect that the investors should say “instead of throwing the money in already heard proposes, let’s

try to invest in a startup, let’s start at least to diversify the investments”. And it doesn’t happen,

because actuallythey don’t even have the idea of what is a startup. Yes, maybe one has some extra

money, want to seem “cool” with someone and put some money in a startup, but not because he/she

believes in it and thinks that before or after they will come back. It is something like a donation to

the movement of the startups. Think about AIB Brescia, when it participates to events regarding the

startups and calls to speak people who not even know what the web is, I am almost crying. So,

regarding the Italian investors my answer is no.

Regarding the stranger ones yes, because the fact that Davide is pushing about creating not even a

Brand, but a model, a movement in which TAG could become international, made it possible that

when he came in London he was telling me that the investors are really interested either on the

model and in general on Italian startups. There are foreign investors who are starting to come in

Italy and to listen to the pitches of the Italian startups. Maybe they don’t invest a million of pound,

but maybe the first seed of one hundred thousand yes.

Tag for me is the only pole in Italy which is able to attract investments of this kind, actually because

it is starting to become an international movement.

F: So in your opinion what valorise TAG also in front of the foreign investors compared to other co-

working centres is the fact that the model is different? Or just the way of presenting it?

C: I can’t answer because I believe it would be difficult to separate TAG from Davide Dattoli. They

are so strictly connected that you cannot to separate them, so which component makes the foreign

investors to come to Milan or Brescia to hear the pitches? Is it connected more to the startup model

of TAG or more to the enthusiasm which Davide succeeded in transmitting to them? I can’t answer.

F: What you are saying makes sense. When I heard a speech of Steve Blank at Google Campus, he

clearly told that he chooses the team on which to invest on, not the idea, because the people today

have a bigger value than the ideas. Their passion and their enthusiasm and their belief in bringing

their idea on is evaluated much more than the idea itself, even if the idea itself could be a winning

one.

C:But also because from what I understood in the world of the startups often they make the peer

voting, so from an idea another one is born which you didn’t consider before, so maybe that one is

the one that then works, but it will work just if you have a team which is able to realize it.

But I don’t know which component made the TAG model works without Davide. Maybe proposed

by others it wouldn’t have worked.

F: Regarding the peer voting, you should know that the selection of the startups is based on peer

voting. Every startup already at TAG can vote the entrance of the new one. What do you think about

this system? Do you think that it could be useful to create more than a co-working space or not?

C: I don’t know. At the beginning it wasn’t like that, because they had to fill the space and make it

at least economical sustainable.

In my opinion it could be a system which creates sense of community but not necessarily, I mean,

someone could arrive with a great idea but it isn’t understood or it is badly presented because of the

emotion, so I don’t know to what extend it is necessary. For me it is more a system of marketing to

let the new people understand , I mean, when Davide at the beginning explained me what was TAG

I didn’t got it, the very first presentation brief illustrated the concept of the peer-voting, and it was a

concept which I don’t believe it has been brought forward because it also said that once a month

everyone should meet and work on a common project or idea or help one of the startup, something

which could create the community and moreover sharing knowledge. Because in the end this has

always been the objective of WEBdeBS, sharing knowledge which push the people to improve

themselves. WEBdeBS was born as a group of geeks and nerds and professionals passionated about

the web, but all at a medium level, and through the sharing knowledge it became surely at a high

level, even so high in some persons like Lucio of SaveTheMum, or Cisco who is now in Malaysia,

that many people now are working for other Countries, because they are really expert now.

I guess the same thing happens in TAG, because anyway the people speak while having a coffee,

maybe working on a project, so the qualitative level becomes higher, and it was the idea of “one a

month we all should meet”.

So, the peer-voting is something to explain to the new people the philosophy behind TAG.

Otherwise it should not necessary have to be a democratic choice. I don’t have an answer thus, I

have some doubts and there is no way to understand if the system is working other than testing

another system in another TAG and then seeing which one works better.

F: What do you know about the other TAGs?

C: Few. I know Milan, I know where are the others, I know someone who works at TAG Milan.

F: So in your opinion there isn’t that much echo between the different TAGs? Is there sharing

knowledge?

C: It would be logistical complex, I don’t think so. I never thought about it. Do you know if Davide

thought about making some rota in order to organize some speeches of professionals in other

TAGs? I know that Davide has always had the idea of making a TAG card which allowed the access

to every TAG.

It could be, maybe they should do over national events, annual events or conferences theme based

or Startup Weekends. Clearly it would be a sharing knowledge which could enrich everyone.

F: I believe that the innovation which Davide brought is that he proposed a very simple, scalable,

sustainable and low-cost model , and this is why he succeeded. So the winning factors,either the

passion of Davide and the propose, made it possible that the movement TAG was diffused like

mushrooms in just one year and a half. What do you think?

C: Well, I make you notice something. You said that the TAG model worked because it is simple,

scalable, it works. In my opinion it is clearly true, but I moreover believe that it worked because,

coming back to the startup logic, it grasped an unexpressed need. You know, usually they say “if

you can find an unexpressed need in the people, or it is not conscious, maybe they have some

desires but actually no one of the marketing notice them, and you make your step in and cover that

gap in the market, the people will be happy and will buy your product”, well, Davide while creating

this model found in Italy many people who wanted to run a startup. Think about bergamo, they were

people who were rich, they just had this passion about the startup movement, and they said “whay

don’t we do it as well?”, so both the investor which opens a TAG and the people who then enter,

they represent an unexpressed need which Davide grasped.

Then Davide, I don’t know if for luck or for will, I don’t think it would mind, followed the flux, he

found his fertile ground at the right time, within the recession it is the ideal moment when people

are thinking that they don’t have anything to loose, without a job, without anything. This is why the

TAGs were diffused like mushrooms, because otherwise it is not explicable how in such a small

time they were born so many when the first hadn’t the numbers of sustainability yet. This means

that there have been people who put the money, actually almost gambling, otherwise they would

have said “let’s see how the first TAG is going and then let’s take a decision”.

F: As my theory is that TAG in Italy is an example of managing of both creativity and innovation,

so that it is an aggregation centre of creative and innovative startup, how do you see this theory? Do

you think that the managing of Davide was favourable to the increase of creativity and innovation?

C: For me you are charging it too much about willing, when it was action and almost

unconsciousness – in the startup positive meaning- instead. Regarding his managing well, he knew

how to make the counts and how to create a business plan, so nothing to regret about it, but I

believe that if he weren’t there but other people with the same competences and a different

approach, like mine, it wouldn’t have worked.

F: Yes, it is exactly where I am going with this. There are in Italy as well many competent people in

terms of finance and managing, but probably what made a difference with Davide was that he

succeeded to funnel his enthusiasm and his passion on the right direction.

C: Well I would say that like in every startup the things are working when fist you do something for

passion and the money is just a consequence. If you start trying to make money it won’t work. That

is the mechanism. There is a wonderful video of the TED talks of Simon Sinek about it. If you focus

on the money actually the product becomes almost a consequence, but if you focus on your passion,

afterwards others will join you to share it. Davide had a passion, he found people with the same

one, and they started to speak the same language: at that point the economical aspect stems. Of

course you have to know firstly to manage it, so credit to Davide, because it is not easy, and

secondly the money will arrive because there are people with the same passion and they are willing

to put their money in it. If he would have done the contrary it wouldn’t have worked, because he

wouldn’t have talked to the heart of the people.

Coming back to the Italy issue, I guess the lucky Davide is encountering, lucky because I don’t

know to what extend he did it on purpose, but the fact that he immediately projected TAG outside

the Country, so UK, New York, Cina, Kenya, it is making possible that he could not care about the

Italian bureaucratic mechanism and politics. He goes to the events, to the Startup Weekends,

Davide started to be closed to people like Riccardo Lione or Quintarelli, the big names of the Italian

cultural and entrepreneurial establishment, but at the same time people totally unknown who maybe

invest in TAG. The beautiful side is that he goes ad he hasn’t any kind of debt to no one, nobody

trained him, he doesn’t have political friend, he doesn’t have any party card. This caused that he

worksat the same level of everyone: if the things are going well for him, it is ok, otherwise he acts

as he wants anyway, he doesn’t have to be accountable to anyone. Now that TAG is becoming over

national Davide has great freedom, he does what he likes and where he wants. He has totally free

hands to change his course if he wants, he can adapt it. At the beginning he started with Brescia, he

wanted to open in New York, because it was supposed to be born a support to SavetheMum, we still

don’t know if he will ever open in New York, but in the meanwhile he is going to China, Kenya,

Brasil, London…he changes depending on what he finds. For example I didn’t expect London.

F: Well, here there is a lot of competition.

C: He says no. He says that there are many co-working spaces, but from the inside they are

different. The problem is that here you have to fight on the economic side. But I don’t know how it

would be possible to communicate the difference. Maybe focusing on the styling, on the mood

which he succeeded to give to TAG? If he manages to keep that style which TAG has in the

furniture, in the environment, in the atmosphere which it can be felt entering in TAG, maybe.

And also often here they are just co-working spaces. Yes they organize events, but they are more

frontal, they aren’t a real sharing knowledge. And they aren’t of that high level. I have been to

different MeetUps and I can count 2 persons who really surprised me or who said something I

didn’t know already.

5. Email from Elisa Remondina, Head of Campus of TAG Brescia, received on 16/05/13.

Dear Francesca,

I hope that until this evening you could have some more answers to your survey. For what concerns

us and the documents you asked I have to tell you that the only press review we have is online on

our blogs: tag, brescia, milano, bergamo, padova, pisa. I attach the document of the first brief of

TAG (Tag presentation); unfortunately we don’t have basically anything written about the opening:

the TAG model is totally new even regarding the approach that was chosen to communicate our

message: no official press release, the journalist came at the opening without receiving any press

pack, and the articles which speaks about us (as you can see from the press review) are one different

to the other because it was chosen to involve every time the journalist in hand pushing him/her to

give birth to an article where he/her would describe TAG with his/her eyes. This is innovation, too.

During this year and a half of activities, other than the opening of 8 TAGs (other than the ones

quoted before we will soon inaugurate Turin and Genoa, while Bologna has a delay we are working

on), we looked offshore: strong contacts in China, South Africa and Brasil, we organized different

globally important events and we were partners of many events (you can find the list on the blog).

Every TAG has then his peculiarity: the talents we welcome are varied all over the Country, at it is

deducible from the inhabitants who are well in evidence on the pages of the local blogs of each city.

What we ask to the new TAGs is esplicated in the attachment TAG franchising presentation.

I don’t know what else to give you, our principal method of promotion is our video, which you can

find on the blog as well.

I hope it helped,

Elisa

6. Marco Stizioli, Talent Garden- When working together shorts the distances (an opens the

mind), Battaglie Sociali, December 2012- January 2013

In Brescia 2 there is the future. No, I am not talking about those enormous skyscrapers, indeed so

tall, of course grandiose, but so cold. In fact if we look just a bit down, in via Cipro 66, we could

see the tomorrow taking shape. Here is the location of Talent Garden.

Davide Dattoli, the founder, describes it like this: “Talent Garden, Tag for the friends, is a

community of workers of the web with the same life philosophy, who meet each other to share the

same working space, despite having different activities and jobs”. Elisa Remondina, Head of

Campus, adds: “A life philosophy which don’t see the work like an obligation anymore, but like a

pleasure. Where you can enjoy and create relationships without renounce professionalism”.

Tag is what is defined coworking.

D: “Tag is more than coworking. At Tag it is not only the space to be shared, but also the ideas and

the lives of every of us, linked by the passion for the digital world. Talent Garden is an imaginary

garden where the best talents of the web grow together. To the definition coworking we prefer

passion working space”. E: “A space to work in with passion and creativity. Our model is working

with success; it is expanding in other cities like Bergamo, Turin, Milan and Padua.” D: “A sort of

franchising of ideas”.

Which workers does Tag host?

D: “Tag is for workers of the digital world, from communication agencies to photographers, to we

graphic designers and to e-commerce advisors”. E: “In fact we have different spaces for different

needs: from the desks for the young professionals of the web, who need just a pc to work and it is

liked to be stimulated from the project of the close desks, to the offices for the startups which need a

space more aside, without giving up the sociality offered by Tag.”

Today it is mainly spoken about startups, but, to be precise, what are them?

D: “A startup is a small project, often in a digital environment, which was born from an idea which

wants to change the world and to create different business models. Groupon (the website of bulk

purchase to gain access to daily discount vouchers, author’s note) was born as a startup and now it

invoices millions of dollars, inspiring the development of smaller realities and even more

convenient like bresciaonshop.it”

How do the startups find resources to grow?

D: “The money comes from industrial partners which buy them for profit-making business. Or from

the venture capitalist, financing investors who believe in the future of the project”.

Can we say that today the dreams, more than yesterday, need money. The creative should have

economic competence as well, so.

D: “You are right. Today the designers of the web cannot live isolated in their digital world

anymore. One of the objectives of Tag is also to connect the creative with the companies, to create

new synergies.” E: “Tag is not only a place of work, but also of events and training. We want to

make the Internet world closer to the traditional one, to educate the enterprises to this tool, whit

which they can communicate in a more spontaneous way with the clients.”

The world is changing. Faster than ever.

E: “And we adapt to it. Even the furniture of Tag is fluid: the desks and the eco-compatible carton

furniture are easy to be moved in order to modify the space due to our necessities. Our photographic

studio can be turned into a meeting room where we hold training courses for companies.”

Despite Tag is projected to technology and future, the human dynamic is its own key value.

E: “We would like to detach ourselves from the inflexible-making rhythms of the typical offices,

grey and sad, where the minutes to the lunch beak are counted to be able to run away from the desk.

At Tag, instead, we spend the lunch break all together, with the food cooked thanks to our small

kitchen. We also have a table football and the videogames, to relax and enjoy ourselves. In a world

always more uncertain, where the economic models are continuously changing it is important to

spend the working day in a familiar environment”. D: “With our eco compatible furniture, the use

of the separate collection of rubbish, and the abandon of certain restricted formalities, we would

like to launch a message to the world: a lifestyle more peaceful is possible”.

At Tag the fragrance is homely.

CONSTITUTION OF TAG

� RESPECT THE OTHERS’ EARS

The coworkers chose coworking to feel themselves not alone anymore, but too much noise

is source of useless distractions.

� RESPECT THE OTHERS’ SPACE

Don’t forget the light opened in the kitchen and leave the shared spaces like we found them

at the beginning of the day.

� PARTICIPATION

If a desk-neighbour gets closer to us for a suggestion, don’t be shy and give him a moment

of your time. And if you really need some privacy, a pair of headphones (even not turned on)

will send a clear message.

� MAKE THE COFFEE (OCCASIONALLY SOME MUFFINS, TOO)

Sharing a good hot coffee contributes to create a welcoming and positive environment. And if you

really would like, sometimes bring some biscuits or fruit to offer to everyone.

7. Valentina Croci, The Coworking, a systematic sharing of the place of work, is exploded in

Italy as well. The crisis is an accessory, but also the diffusion of atypical, flexible and tramp

professions. Interni – Panorama, 04/04/13

If until a few years ago the idea of sharing one’s own working space with a stranger was perceived

like a professional downgrading, today it appears like a resource. The economic crisis legitimized

its practice and turned it into a source of income and even in a new resource for one’s own job.

From the simpler sharing of the environment there were born web organized structures, moreover

due to create startups in a creative setting. Indeed those are the professions which more benefit from

coworking, because within the sharing of the spaces are shared professional competence and ideas.

The projects are not a few, especially the temporary ones, which were born in these locations, which

take advantage of collaborations between professionals in close settings and of small investment

costs. It is impressive observing the economies which start from those environments, without no

fixed costs or investments. The coworking could turn into temporary creative enterprises.

The model comes from the USA, but in Italy takes place just in 2008. The first was Cowo, founded

in Milan by Laura Coppola and Massimo Carraro, who put together demand and offer of working

desks thanks to a web platform. Today could be counted over sixty spaces in thirty-five Italian cities

and next openings in Europe. They can be hired desks for long term but also for one day (Cowo

Flash). From the “residents” Cowo are born project of temporary stores and fablab. Are accessory

the working practice in the creative setting, like auto production or digital professions, light and

unstructured by definition.

We are in front of a change of mentality which turn a need in a value. But moreover a paradigm, the

one of the open source, on which its flexibility and sharing knowledge are based. Hub Milan is a

space in Paolo Sarpi, focused on creativity applied to social and sustainable economy, which gives

more than the working places: services and the access to its international networks of five thousand

realities who are working in that sector. Hub Milan works with Lama, an agency of development

and accountancy for business and management strategy and innovation into the economic and social

politics. A step forward seems to have done Tag (Talent Garden) in the spaces of the ex Smau in

Milan, one of the biggest coworking spaces of Europe. Three thousand of square meters dedicated

to startups ( thanks to the fellowship with the netrowk Startup Business), incubators, accelerator of

enterprises for a new working ecosystem in Italy. Open all day long with two hundred places,

twenty bed places and a fablab for the makers, it prepares even workshops of training in

communication. A sort of campus for the talents of the digital economy.

8. Andrea Di Stefano, Fair and Sustainable Wealth: First Istat and Cnel Report which shows 7

millions of Italians in difficulties, Radio Onda D’Urto, 11/03/13

They are over 6 million and a half the people in economic difficulties. Two million and a half more

in just one year, between 2010 and 2011. To notice it Istat into the Bes Report, or the Istat - Cnel

Fair Sustainable Wealth, which shows an increase of the level of “high deprivation” of over 4

percentage points: from less than 7% of the Italian population to over the 11%.

By the Report, the Italian youths between 15 and 29 years old which neither study nor work,

between 2009 and 2011, grew from the 9.5% to the 22.7%. This is what notices the Bes Report,

underlining the hard effects of the crisis on the new generations. Of them the 8% is graduated. Who

is working, instead, often is doing it illegally: over an Italian on ten, indeed, like 2 million and a

half of people, are working illegally.

As we said, all of this were deducted from the Bes Report, or Fair and Sustainable Wealth. It is

based on the analysis of twelve fields, from health to work, from environment to social relationships

and 134 “thermometers” which are due to check the state of health of the Country with indicators

which go over the ones of the PNL. An issue which in the last years registered an intense debate at

an International level and which now sees Italy as well joining this first job of the Cnel, authority

where participate representatives of trade associations, trade- union and third sector organizations,

in collaboration with Istat.

9. Lorenzo Ficara, The event on coworking and digital start-ups: Creathead e Talent Garden,

the online creativity meets the Digital Campus, Assodigitale.it, 08/03/2013

Creathead, the online community dedicated to people, agencies and enterprises which are focused

on creativity, meets Talent Garden, the biggest European campus made by a community of digital

startups.

A strong and determined partnership, oriented to create a synergy which would intersect the two

realities. The online community of Creathead, made by 25.000 subscribers between creatives,

agencies and enterprises which work in the world of communication and creativity, will find in the

5 italian locations (Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Padua and Turin) dedicated to startup, freelancers,

agencies, VC, incubators, accelerators, enterprises and media of Talent Garden, a strong base to

launch and promote its initiatives.

Talent Garden is a place open 24 hours per day which today could host more than 450 people all

over the Country, between desks, private rooms, event spaces, fablad for the makers, bed seats,

relax area, and represents one of the biggest coworking spaces in Europe.

Thanks to the partnership with Creathead from today could project itself at an international level

into the web and creativity world.

Creathead is the portal which sees at first the creativity in its own small features: is a platform

dedicated to all the makers and the users who could take advantage of every activity, information

and occasion which, every day, it makes available on its pages.

Talent Garden is a garden, where live, meet, grow and flourish different spices. In this ecosystem of

success every plant, represented from the startup of the digital which live inside it, can crow and

flourish according to its own rhythm, remaining an important element of the created landscape.

The objective of the partnership is the creation of occasions of physical meetings between creatives

through the organization of training and informational events, which could be useful to both the

communities, other than an opportunity of developing projects and creative clusters.

The first event which inaugurates the partnership between Creathead and Talent Garden will take

place on the 21st of May at 6 pm at Talent Garden Milan. “Create-Talents”, this is the name of the

event, will have as an issue the digital photography and will see the participation of important

guests in this field.

10. Morena Leonardi, Uomo &Manager, March 2013

Davide Dattoli co-founder of Talent Garden

1. How is this new kind of work growing in our Country? Are we behind the others?

Unfortunately Italy, because of the rooted behaviour not to use the English language, suffers

from a natural delay comparing with the other Countries regarding the diffusion of new

tendencies or novelties in most of the settings.

Here as well we cannot say we had rapid times of reaction…Probably in Italy we put even

more efforts to accept a revolution into the job world, which in other Countries is already

successful, so the fact we didn’t open spaces of this kind in the same time with them, maybe,

wasn’t an irreparable problem. Indeed, it let to the pioneers of the coworking to correct the

mistakes to offer to the market a model of an Italian- style coworking. In our case, for

example, being focused on the target of the digital setting and starting from the Province and

not from a big city helped us to understand what the freelancers are expecting by a

coworking space. In our Country, indeed, what was missing was a pole which could

aggregate, from the Province, the freelancers; something which could let them remain

independent, but at the same time could make them feel a part of a network, of a system

which could endorse and promote them in a natural and almost spontaneous way. Thanks to

the awareness of the professional advantages, which sharing spontaneously brings, also in

Italy this attitude , which we can’t describe as novelty, but from a certain point it is, is

succeeding more and more than in traditional settings.

2. Who is the freelancer who usually choose the coworking?

There is not a standard model which could describe a person who choose to work in a

coworking space. Actually is not the profession which determines the choice, but the mind

opening to a new kind of job, which guides the people to choose and set up their days in a

different way. Other than freelancers, young entrepreneurs, startup members, the companies

choose more and more to take advantage on the potentials of their employees, offering them

the possibility to spend some days per week out of the office, immersed in working spaces

where it is possible to work and learn at the same time. The experience of the coworking is

seen as a moment of exchange and professional enrichment, this is a tendency of which we

are spectators also in a static world like Education, which is following the benefits of the

coworking spaces for the new professions.

3. What do mainly affect the choice of coworking: low costs or the possibility to have constant

relationships with different realities, or even similar to one’s own?

Who choose to work in a shared coworking space don’t do it to save money (the costs of a

space are low, but if the choice would be caused by the prices we wouldn’t have seen the

revolution which is happening). The reasons which drive to this choice are the will to share,

experiment, learn and give oneself a chance, but after all the awareness that the job world

has changed and that, if it is wanted to keep oneself in step with the time, it is not possible to

loose the possibility of taking part of this movement!

11. Giovanna Zenti, In Tag the experience of Mr. Motorshow, Giornale di Brescia, 20/12/12

With an increase of capital Alfredo Cazzola enters with the 20% in Talent Garden Brescia

During the 2012 opened other 3 locations in the North of Italy. The president Ferrari: <<Now we

are looking offshore>>

BRESCIA It couldn’t grow with more luxuriant foliage and a stronger trunk. Talent Garden, the co-

working space settled in BresciaDue, had his first birthday. And, it would be to say, to took roots

well. For Christmas, under the tree into the Garden of talents, a great reward arrived. A present

which has a name and a surname: Alfredo Cazzola, the inventor of the MotorShow and of the Smau,

strong entrepreneur who created an empire of organizing trade shows (sold to a French

multinational in 2007) and who in the sport world guided fist the Virtus Basketball of Bologna and

then the Bologna Football Club. Cazzola enters now in Talent Garden Brescia, with an increase of

reserved capital which gives him the 20% of the shares and a place in the governing body.

<<An experienced entrepreneur>> - says Gianfausto Ferrari, president of Tag -. I am happy about

his entrance because he brings an asset of experience and entrepreneurship at an international

level>>. Experience now available to young talents who chose to create themselves a job. Cazzola

will be a mentor for them and an important investor for Tag, with a curriculum to use (once more) at

a national level as well. Where Talent Garden has already took roots.

During the 2012 Tag Brescia hired 50 desks, with a percentage of occupation of the 80%. Moreover

were opened locations in Bergamo and Padua, where <<live>> more than 65 potential

entrepreneurs, experts who go from graphics to web design. Though 2012 was the year of Tag

Milan as well, opened a couple of weeks ago, with the official inauguration foreseen for the middle

of January. A space of 3 thousand square meters in the Loreto zone (into the ex Smau offices), the

<<biggest passion working space of Europe>> - underlines Ferrari -, with 250 working desks, 25

meeting rooms, 4 events rooms, 50 parking spaces and a project for almost 30 sleeping places>>.

To support it a society held by Tag, Alfredo Cazzola, Startup Business and Frontiers of Interaction.

To date objectives reached, with a balance of the first year of Talent Garden Brescia ready to be

closed in break-even. A good goal in these times for an early stage enterprise. And this is just the

beginning, because the road of 2013 is already marked. Seven are the foreseen openings, with the

already tested form of innovative franchising, even in the management: Turin, Verona, Cagliari,

Catania, Bologna, Rome and Pisa.

<<We are looking around>> - goes on Ferrari - <<and we are being studied with attention in other

Countries as well>>. They are working to seed offshore and the attention is focused on Stockholm,

Budapest and New York. The model of Talent Garden is liked, it is an answer << to a world which

is asking us to be active and not passive, where many youths aren’t looking for a job but try to

create it>>.

Try, try, try. Treasure one’s own mistakes. Do not be afraid to fail. Do not have regrets. They are the

rules of the 2.0 surviving manual. Indeed, they are the entrepreneurial rules of the new millennium.