Tag: ice cream

The search for great gelato

Posted on by philipdodson

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Ever since my trip to Feuteventura a few weeks back, for the Copass Camp, I have been on the search for great gelato in London.

Every day for 10 days I was in FV, Stefano (no prizes guessing where he’s from) and I would visit the fab gelato place and enjoy wonderful, authentic Italian ice cream.

Since returning to London, I have tried to find pukka, genuine, Italian gelato, and there really is a huge difference between this and any other ice cream. It is difficult to put it into words, and if you have ever had the real stuff, then you know what I am saying.

However, today the search came to an end in Borough Market, and I found the wonderful 3BIS gelato shop. I checked with the lady behind the counter as to the authenticity, and once she spoke with an Italian accent, I knew I was in the right place. She let me try some of the Bacio (chocolate and hazelnut) and that was it, I knew I found the place.

So with a regular cone with bacio and panettone, I was a very happy man.

Until today, all the places that had talked a good talk, had not delivered the real thing.

The thing is, I have shared this story on social media, via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, I am blogging about it, and I will tell others.

In business, deliver what you say, then the right customers will tell others, and comeback for more.

Simple isn’t it. Who needs a ‘guru’ or ‘expert’ to explain that? Give the right people what they really want.

Coworking and chats at the ice cream parlour

Posted on by philipdodson

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As many know, I am currently coworking at the Copass Camp in Fuerteventura, and Stefano, co-founder of Copass, introduced us all to his favourite Italian ice cream shop here in Corralejo.

I’m big fan of ice cream and therefore it hasn’t take too much arm twisting to join Stefano on his daily pilgrimage to the mecca of gelato that is El Gusto.

Some others join us on the daily visit and yesterday, we were sat there with a group of us and chatting. We got talking about the idea of a coworking space in an ice cream shop, and I mentioned a Dutch coworking operation called Seats2Meet that had many different places, including a yoghurt shop, but not an ice cream parlour.

Naturally with coworking being the common connection via Copass, we carried on the discussion with Stefano telling a very amusing story when he was in Thailand at coworking space, and the local police turned up to arrest the owner.

They couldn’t understand how he was only showing two employees for his coworking business, while there many other people working there. The police thought that the rest were illegal workers and that the owner was trying to avoid paying taxes.

After a whole day of questioning, they finally grasped the concept that these people paid to work at the space, as individuals from their own companies and not as illegal slave workers for the coworking operator.

Obviously, this is an extreme situation, however, when you work in an industry and are surrounded by like minded people, then you make the mistake of thinking everyone is aware of what you do and understand it.

Last year I attended a government think tank to speak about coworking, and a representative of a freelancers group told us that in a survey of their members only 3% of them had used a coworking space.

With predictions that as many as 50% or more of the working population in the developed world will become freelance/self-employed within the next 5-7 years, the scope from growth of coworking is huge.

But for me the chats at the ice cream parlour with poeple with a shared common cause is what is all about. Small is the new big and niche communities where genuine connections can be made. This is less likely to happen in giant coworking ‘factories’.