Some thought it would be too extreme to name meeting rooms “Marcello” or “Zoran”.
With the launch of our Flex Rooms feature on our website, where you can easily book meeting rooms across Switzerland, we took the chance to talk to the FlexOffice employee responsible for giving our meeting rooms their intriguing and distinctive names. Discover the sources of our Flex Rooms charm with Stefan Zimmer, Head of Member Experience at FlexOffice.
Hi Stefan, you named all meeting rooms at FlexOffices across Switzerland. How does someone get such a rather obscure task?
When we started FlexOffice five years ago, our first location was the former Fraumünster post office in Zürich, where the famous post robbery in the 90s took place. I came up with the idea to name the meeting rooms after the post robbers. I really had to push the team for it, since some thought it would be too extreme to name meeting rooms “Marcello” or “Zoran”. But after our clients thought it was hilarious, the team always asked me to name the meeting rooms at other locations.
But not every FlexOffice location has been robbed? How did you come up with other unusual names?
In some locations it was easy to name the rooms, in others I started researching the history of the building and the surroundings. At Basel Barfüsserplatz, for example, I found out that in front of the building, a pig market was held hundreds of years ago. So I named the rooms after pig breeds. Others were more straightforward, with Messeturm the proximity to the “Art Basel” led me to take titles of famous artworks such as “Balloon Girl” or “Waahm!”.
Why the hassle?
Some of our locations are in characteristic buildings, others have iconic interior design or a meaningful history. The naming of the meeting rooms was a way for me to underline the character of a location. Our meeting rooms are always beautifully designed and very well equipped, I think they deserve a special name. And let’s be honest, it sticks a bit more than your usual boring “Rom”, “Paris”, and “Berlin”…
Is there anything to consider when naming Meeting rooms?
Actually – More than you would think. The names need to be recognisable, memorable, and not too difficult to pronounce. The last thing you want is to have our members not knowing where to meet because they didn’t understand the name. They also must be distinguishable in a meeting invite. And then you obviously need a theme and a certain number of names.
Where did you struggle the most?
At Bern Murifeld. We knew from the beginning that we would have the opportunity to grow within the building, so we needed something that would give a large resource of names in the future. We ended up using famous collectible post-stamps, since the building is at Weltpoststrasse in Bern. Which resulted in names like “Golden Monkey” or “Big Dragon”.
What are your favourite names?
I guess the robbers. It’s so iconic. Funny enough, the policeman that caught them was our neighbour in the house I grew up in as a kid.
But the newest one at Dino Oerlikon —characters from the first Jurassic Park movie —is also quite funny. But I like them all, I think I’m also the only one in the company that knows all 89 meeting room names by heart.
Discover all meeting rooms and their names. Click here.
