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Uniting a Startup Ecosystem with Talkspirit: The French Tech Grande Provence Story
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How do you unite a startup ecosystem spread across the Vaucluse and northern Bouches-du-Rhône, while improving communication and collaboration among its members? To meet these challenges, French Tech Grande Provence turned to Talkspirit, a collaborative platform 100 % Made in France.
Part of the French national French Tech label, French Tech Grande Provence is an association founded in 2013 that supports startups and innovative companies in its territory, from early-stage development through to international growth.
French Tech by the numbers:
- 121 entities
- 13 capital cities
- 45 communities in France and 63 international communities across 100+ cities worldwide
- 1,350 digital companies
In this interview, Laure Baudouin, Administration and Communications Manager at French Tech Grande Provence, looks back on the Talkspirit rollout and the value the tool has brought to all stakeholders.
A Need: Better Communication and Collaboration at a Distance
"Before Covid, we worked entirely in person. When we needed to discuss a project with a team member, we'd just talk face to face. That's why we weren't using a dedicated collaborative tool as such.
When the first lockdown hit in March 2020, we quickly realised this approach no longer worked for a remote team. Without a dedicated tool, we struggled to communicate and collaborate effectively, which created information silos within the association", explains Laure Baudouin.
Read also: [Expert voice] Remote work after Covid, with the CPME
That's why French Tech Grande Provence decided to implement an all-in-one platform. With three objectives: streamline internal and external communications, centralise information and facilitate remote work.
Ergonomics and Made in France: Key Criteria for French Tech
"When I started researching, I came across an article from Blog du Modérateur introducing Talkspirit. I immediately saw it was a French platform, which was an important criterion for us."
Beyond the Made in France advantage, "I find the solution very easy to get to grips with, even for people not used to collaborative tools. The bonus is its ergonomic interface", which makes the working experience more enjoyable.
"We also align completely with the company’s vision, its values and its ethics. That’s why we chose to deploy Talkspirit within the association”, says the Administration and Communications Manager.
A Rollout Supported by Regular Platform Activity
“We deployed Talkspirit in spring 2020. At first, we used it within our team of around ten people. Since the tool worked well, we opened access to the association’s members — the startups we support. Then we invited project and event partners, such as the University of Avignon, the Mission Locale, incubators, and so on.” The platform now has around a hundred users, the majority of whom are guests (users who are not part of the organisation).
To drive adoption of Talkspirit, Laure Baudouin and her team regularly animate the platform by sharing different types of content likely to interest members.
Read also: How to drive adoption of your new collaborative tools?
"On Mondays, I publish a portrait interview of an entrepreneur member. Every Wednesday, I share events or good news on the news feed. On Thursdays, our startup manager shares tips and advice for startups. I also post a track from my playlist to break up the professional tone. And on Fridays, I publish a post dedicated to a call for applications.
In our Start Tech incubator, which brings together around ten startups, the startup manager also shares tutorials to help users get to grips with the tool", adds Laure Baudouin.
A Platform for Sharing Information, Working Together and Staying Connected
"On a daily basis, Talkspirit lets us share information internally and with all association members. Thanks to the Twitter integration, all tweets mentioning us surface directly on the news feed, giving our updates more visibility.
Read also: Streamlining information flow with Talkspirit: the Gîtes de France experience
All documents and information related to the projects we manage are stored on the Talkspirit drive, making them easy to access.
To simplify collaboration between the various stakeholders, we created around twenty project groups, including:
- a 'Board' and 'Board of Directors' group, reserved for Board members to discuss strategic matters
- a 'Members' group bringing together all our members. They can ask the startup manager questions directly and get quick responses. They can also share information with the communications manager
- a 'Europe' group, for discussing European projects with external partners
- a group for exchanging on our projects with the Mission Locale
- three groups dedicated to the working groups of the Consultative Committee
- a group for our 'Startups at School' programme, which brings together school communities and young innovative companies on educational projects
- an 'Operations Team' group for sharing information internally
We hold all our team meetings via video conference on Talkspirit, which lets everyone join without being physically in the office. And when we need to quickly discuss a specific project, we tend to use audio conferencing."
Finally, Talkspirit helps the team stay connected and nurture informal exchanges at a distance. For example, Laure Baudouin mentions "regularly sharing music on the team chat" to introduce colleagues to new artists.
Flexibility, Smoother Communication and Fewer Internal Emails
For French Tech Grande Provence, Talkspirit delivers three key benefits:
"First, communication flows much more smoothly. When someone has information to share, they don't need to interrupt colleagues the way they would in the office. They just send a chat message or post on Talkspirit. This lets us communicate both in real time and asynchronously, depending on everyone's availability.
Since deploying Talkspirit, I've also seen a significant drop in internal emails. Today I barely receive any, which saves me time each day and makes me more responsive when colleagues reach out.
Read also: Eliminating internal emails with Talkspirit: the story of IM du Biterrois
But the greatest advantage is the flexibility the platform offers. Talkspirit has truly made remote working easier, even though it wasn't the norm before », says Laure Baudouin. The team no longer needs to come into the office every day, giving everyone more freedom to manage professional and personal commitments.
« We're looking forward to Talkspirit developing the project management module, and the solution will offer an absolutely powerful platform on several fronts",
Talkspirit's Take on French Tech Grande Provence
Streamlining communication and teamwork is a key challenge when a team regularly works remotely and manages communities spread across a territory.
Thanks to Talkspirit, French Tech Grande Provence now has a dedicated space for connecting with the startups it supports, enabling more efficient and collaborative project management.
Groups play a key role in this project management, facilitating information sharing among association members and uniting the community around shared themes.
Talkspirit has also become an essential team tool, keeping everyone informed about project progress and maintaining regular contact with colleagues, whether remote or in the office.
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Want to learn more about Talkspirit? Contact us or book a demo with our team — we'll be happy to walk you through the platform in detail.
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Author: Emmanuelle Abensur
