My family and I are currently travelling in Bali and Australia for a few months. It's our last chance for a grand gesture before our son starts school back in London in September. For the last 5 weeks I've been stationed at the lovely Hubud co-working space in Ubud, Bali. If you've ever wanted to work in a hammock while monkeys are sitting in the trees above you, this is the place to go! Not to mention the amazing group of highly focussed international entrepreneurs, digital nomads and online experts who have made Bali their home and are collaborating their way to a better future!
Last week, while my wife was busy doing yoga, I held one of our Trello Workshops at Hubud. What a great experience! There were around 15 to 20 of us squeezed into the air-conditioned meeting room, ready to discuss how to get organised with Trello for 1 hour. With German efficiency and a dash of the good old Pomodoro Technique we got through 11 topics, touched on 4 others and even had a chance to discuss organising an entire workflow in Trello. Okay, so we did run over for 3o minutes or so but all in all it far exceeded my expectations.
What really struck me above all was how engaged everybody is here. If I had to explain it I would say it's a mixture of the Bali environment and the focus that people have while here. Hubud is one of the few workspaces in Bali and I think the only one in Ubud. That scarcity really focusses the attention and means that everybody is concentrated into a single community. It seems to lead to lots of collaboration and a strong, cohesive group spirit that I didn't always experience to the same degree over in London.
During the workshop there were tons of questions, even during the breaks and afterwards. Everybody seemed genuinely interested in hearing what I had to say and how they could then use it to improve their own working lives, businesses and team management. It was a real buzz presenting and a truly pleasurable experience, thank you all!
A few people got in touch afterwards. Estela of Inspiral Studio wanted to pick my brain in a week or so once she has her Trello setup sorted out. Amber of climboutofthecubicle.com might appear on Bernie's podcast and Jordan and I got into a longer conversation about how best to launch a new business idea. Amber, by the way, doesn't use Trello and manages her life using a paper planner and Google calendar. Which of course is completely fine. I'm secretly a little jealous as I'm a closet fan of paper planners and notebooks but have never managed to use them consistently :)
My own take-aways from the Hubud Trello workshop:
- Workshops are a great way to meet people when you arrive at a new place. Next time I'll schedule it much earlier, right at the beginning of my stay.
- There is a keen interest in how to use Trello to organise an entire workflow. Answers to practical questions are important and we could have continued all day long but I'll add a more structured Trello workflow segment next time.
- Our Trello blog is a useful reference point to answer questions that I ran out of time on.
- I need to take more and better pictures!
- I need to find a better way to connect with people who attend, via Facebook, Twitter, etc. and to find out more about who they are, what they do and what their interests are. Sadly this part was a bit rushed as we only had 1 hour and I wasn't at Hubud consistently enough to make stronger connections.
Thanks for organising Vitto, thanks for coming everybody and see you all next time! Next stops: Sydney and Brisbane in Australia!
