SoundCloud’s Diana Kimball shares the working essentials that help her transform any space into an office.
One of the best things about my work is that I can do it from anywhere. That's good, because the nature of my job means that I'm always on the go. I travel frequently to SoundCloud's offices in New York, San Francisco and London. Even within our new global headquarters in Berlin, I move around a lot.
I find that the more I switch up my environment, the more serendipitous conversations I end up having. I've discovered that the best place to run into people, by far, is the communal kitchen in the heart of our Berlin HQ.
Tools of my trade
Since I'm always on the go, it's important to keep my workspace compact and portable. My MacBook Pro is the one tool I couldn't do without.
Diana Kimball leads something of a nomadic lifestyle, moving between SoundClound offices
I carry it everywhere in a compact-yet-roomy InCase messenger bag – very Mary Poppins. Urbanears headphones pipe the sounds of my favourite SoundCloud artists straight into my ears – here, I'm listening to a bit of Ben Johnson.
To stay hydrated, I carry around a water bottle from Tesla Motors – the electric car company. Elon Musk, Tesla's founder, is an entrepreneur I look up to for his intense ambition and dedication to investing in the future.
Cooking up ideas
I don't go anywhere without a notebook and pen, and I'm always happier when I have my ampersand stamp nearby. Finally, there's my origami paper – it is the perfect portable pastime.
Sitting in the kitchen, I get to help build SoundCloud's future while keeping its roots firmly in view. We've covered one of the walls in five years' worth of photographs which tell the story of SoundCloud's evolution from a group of people working together in a café to a slightly larger group of people working in an office with a café of our own, with 12 hours of audio uploaded to SoundCloud every minute.
Diana Kimball is a content manager at SoundCloud soundcloud.com. She is based in Berlin but hops between SoundCloud’s international offices. Follow her on Twitter at @dianakimball.
