The Water Cooler by NearU

In this long (long, long) awaited series finale of the Water Cooler podcast, our host, Holly, returns with an eye-opening conversation featuring co-Founders of The Future Kind Collective, Natalie Pearce and Alicia Grimes.Describing themselves as ‘purpose-driven consultants’, The Future Kind help businesses of all sizes enhance and hone their company culture, according to three basic elements - purpose, vision, and mission (or the culture cube as they like to call it).In this episode our guests chat more about TFK, as well as the importance of good culture, mental wellbeing at work, and why they prefer Apple to Microsoft (sorry Bill).

“I wish I had a filter sometimes.”That about sums up this episode of our podcast, The Water Cooler, which features some of our favourite guests (who you might recognise from episode 7 all about #techforgood), Nicola Telford of Views For Change, and Charlie Rosier of Babbu. It’s always a great time when these two ladies come on together - and today’s topic is a real corker.

For today’s pod, I was joined by NearU’s very own co-founder, James Solomides, and Partnerships lead over at what3words, Paddy Arbuthnott. We talked about all things what3words, the future of work and technology, and I even managed to slip a fun quiz in there too. We always love collaborating with what3words - in fact we even tend to make a habit of it. If you didn’t already catch it, we interviewed their Head of Operations, Tom Boal, over on our blog a few months ago all about our recent partnership. You can find it here: https://nearu.io/article/tech-talks-how-what-3-words-are-putting-flexible-workspaces-on-the-map 

In this episode, Holly, our host, was joined by two very special guests, both creating innovative technology platforms dedicated to making positive change. Charlie Rosier, co-founder of early years learning EdTech platform, Babbu, and Nicola Telford, CEO of Views for Change, an AdTech company turning clicks into charitable donations, spoke to us all about what tech for good means to them, how they see it fitting into the future, as well as their shared love of podcasting. It was so interesting to hear how their shared experiences albeit from different areas of the tech world. This kind of conversation is the exact reason why we started the podcast here at NearU in the first place - to bring people together from different backgrounds, age ranges and experience levels to collaborate, just as you would do in one of NearU's workspaces.

In this episode, our host, Holly, was joined by Mollie Brennan (from the UN Food Systems Secretariat) and Luke Wheeler (from Carbon Intelligence) chatting about all things COP26 and what the future looks like in terms of climate change. This marks their second appearance on the podcast (you can catch their first episode on sustainability and having a responsibility to hope here); it's clear that in just a few months their outlook on climate action has shifted from being fairly optimistic to now being tainted with slightly more cynicism. But even so, we still had plenty of fun while recording, and somehow managed to get onto the topic of flying taxis and hovering vehicles (thanks to Back to the Future)!

In this episode of 'The Water Cooler', Holly, our host, is joined by two hustlers - Chris Timothy, CEO of FlexibleHub, and Maddie Booth, Founder of Scrubbee - to talk about the dangers of hustle culture, overworking, and what they do to switch off.  As always, this podcast is about bringing people together from different industries, job levels, and perspectives, to recreate the kind of conversations you might expect to hear at a workspace NearU.NearU, or the AirBNB for workspaces as we like to think of it, has launched an app that connects employees to flexible desk space and meeting rooms, putting flexible working at your fingertips. Traditional office working is a thing of the past and working-from-home has a high impact on our mental health - NearU's pay-as-you-go booking platform lets you choose to work-near-home when you want, eliminating the need for a commute, expensive office rental contracts, and giving you the freedom to do what works for you. Download our app from the App Store or Google Play, or check out our website at www.nearu.io.

In this episode, host, Holly, was joined by two globe-trotting guests - Marta Pajón, Head of Food Quality and Diversity at Innocent Drinks, and Kimberly Beijersbergen, a Content Marketer for video-conferencing tool Whereby. Both Marta and Kimberly share a love of new cultures, having made big moves in their lifetime - Marta from her home town of Vigo in Spain to London 15 years ago, and Kimberly from Amsterdam to Japan to Norway and more. Using their experiences of living abroad as a jumping off point, we talked about the culture shocks they've experienced, how their own identities have been impacted, and how their travels were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, host, Holly, chats to two "femtrepreneurs" - Emma Sayle, Director of Killing Kittens Group, and Heather Mitchell, Founder of early-stage food-tech startup, Nommm - about gender imbalances in their industries, how it feels to be a diversity box tick, and why they dislike the 'female entrepreneur' label.This podcast was produced by NearU, the app putting flexible working at your fingertips. You can download it now from the App Store or Google Play.The music was by Lukrembo.

In this episode, NearU brings together our 'decision-maker' Mollie Brennan, who works on the UN Food Systems Secretariat, and 'entry-level' Carbon Data Analyst, Luke Wheeler. Our two guests, and podcast host Holly, had some great chats spanning from climate change related topics to personal vendettas against a certain swimming pool (all in jest of course).  As always, these episodes are about recreating the kind of collaboration you'll find on a day-to-day basis in any of NearU's workspaces. So, if you found yourself wanting more while you wait for another instalment, why not engineer one of your own water cooler chats by booking into a space NearU? You can do so by downloading our app, available on App Store and Google Play.

Narau is excited to present The Water Cooler, a podcast all about bringing people at all career stages together to chat about everything work, life, and in-between.  In this first episode our host, Holly, explains the inspiration behind the podcast, as well as hinting at what's to come in the next few episodes.A little about Narau (or the AirBNB for workspaces as we like to think of it). Narau is an app that connects employees to flexible desk space and meeting rooms, putting flexible working at your fingertips. Traditional office working is a thing of the past and working-from-home has a high impact on our mental health - Narau's pay-as-you-go booking platform lets you choose to work-near-home when you want, eliminating the need for a commute, freeing you from expensive office rental contracts, and giving you the freedom to do what works for you.