 I left frosty Berlin about two weeks ago, to visit sunny South Africa and the iCommons office in Johannesburg. My mission? To save iCommons from the piles of un-filed papers, disorganized cupboards and coffee-stained mugs 'I basically came to visit so that I could get them organized!
I thought it might be of interest for you to give you a view of the office from behind the scenes. What do you think of when you imagine a globally operating non-profit organization with partners from all over the world? Thirty employees, and a nice, spacious office? Yes, that's what I would think too. But let me reveal the truth about what the iCommons office in Rosebank, Johannesburg, really looks like.
These are my first impressions from when I stepped out of the airport shuttle. I am delivered at an expensive five star hotel with doormen and a red carpet. Yes, the Grace Hotel. O.K. This is confusing me. But the friendly receptionist explains that the hotel also offers office space for rent and guides me to another entrance hall. This hall looks as posh as the hotel entrance: thick carpets, subdued colors and white columns. Wow! I'm really impressed at this point. So I head on to the elevators and go up to the first floor. But when I enter the hallway I realize that things are not as extravagant any longer.
So, what do you see when you turn around? A glass door with white letters reading 'iCommons'! Yeah! I found it.
Now I'm excited to see what the office looks like. Is it posh like the hotel entrance? NO WAY! You are at iCommons - a young and idealistic non-profit with nearly no money. So you enter what they call their office.
The first thing that comes to mind is one word: 'greeeen!' And I mean green - grass green.
I wouldn't call it office. I would say it's more like a closet, a GREEN closet with a single window, with for four people working away in an open plan space. The closet contains four dark desks (two on each side of the facing walls) and the whole ensemble is completed with a bright orange couch with orange pillows, and a brown, orange and green carpet in the middle of the room.
 My question now is similar to the chicken and egg question: which green came first? The green paint on the walls or the green in the iCommons flower. I think the green on the wall was there first, but some one must have stared at these walls for too long! And if there isn't enough green in this room, they even have green files which match the color on the wall! It is amazing.
And the very next thought I have is: green might have some meaning for this company. It brings to mind words like 'hope', 'balance', 'growth', 'life' and 'symbiosis' ... And so you find the most amazing people working in this green closet.
There is Heather, the Queen Mum of the green closet; Daniela is the Princess of Websites, always beautiful, elegant, competent and calm; Kerryn is the currently busy mom but will return to the bunch in March and Rebecca - the one and only Duchess of Words. And now there's Wendy, who will make sure that filing disasters like the one I saw when I arrived, will never happen again.
These ladies sit back-to-back in front of their computers, facing the green walls - typing away on their laptops like crazy. Once in a while they turn around to talk to each other, and to make jokes (they laugh a lot). Not to mention they try out the newest tech gadgets on their computers (do you know what kind of silly pictures you can take using Mac's Photo Booth? hilarious...) And because it is a world ruled by women in this office, you will also find never-ending resources of chocolate and biscuits.
I still can't believe that these few people in the green closet manage to run a global community network and yearly incredible summits. That they help to make the world aware of the wonderful commoners out there and their amazing work.
What will the future bring to the green closet? I don't know. But the green closet will definitely bring us another great summit in Dubrovnik in June!
Photographs:
Green walls, orange couch and a glimpse of carpet - you are always welcome to visit the iCommons office, by Eva Lutterbuese, CC BY 2.5
The office sweet stash, by Eva Lutterbuese, CC BY 2.5
tags: other
|
send
printer-friendly version
invite to vote