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Welcome to the deep dive. Yeah, you know if you stepped into an office recently

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things feel different, right?

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The whole landscape is fundamentally changed that dedicated desk with your name on

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it. It's kind of becoming a relic instead

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It sometimes feels like this. Well this chaotic game of musical chairs this huge

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global shift

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Towards hybrid work has created a massive logistical puzzle

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How do organizations even manage their physical space which cost a fortune when

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people just you know come and go flexibly

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So today we're diving into a specific type of enterprise software designed exactly

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for this to solve this modern headache

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Our sources focus on one platform called seat surfing and our mission

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It's really to give you the learner an easy way in we want to cut through the buzzwords

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Desksharing free seating cloud native this PWA that I really understand what this

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stuff does. How does it actually help employees?

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How does it help the company manage these flexible spaces? We want this to be a

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beginner friendly look

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But before we unpack all that we really want to thank our supporter. This deep dive

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is supported by safe server

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Safe server handles the hosting for software like this and they can support you in

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your digital transformation journey

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You can find out more at

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ww.safeserver.de

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Okay, let's get into it

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So when we look at the source material these phrases pop up everywhere desk sharing

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room reservation free seating for enterprises

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Oh, honestly for someone new to this it sounds less like office management and

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maybe more like I don't know

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Running a huge co-working space inside a company. What's the actual like core

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problem? This kind of software is trying to solve

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That's actually a great analogy. It is like an internal logistics system, but for

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resources that aren't fixed anymore

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Basically this software category exists to manage physical things desks rooms that

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aren't permanently assigned to one person

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The goal is pretty straightforward

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Let any employee in the company book a seat a desk or maybe a meeting room often,

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you know, right when they need it and

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The why behind it is critical think about it if a big company has say a thousand

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employees

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But they only need to be in the office maybe three days a week

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Well, the company might figure out they only really need maybe 600 desks by going

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hybrid

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They've deliberately created a situation where desks are scarcer than people. They

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can't afford an empty desk

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That's wasted money. But crucially they also have to make sure that the 600 people

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who do show up on Tuesday actually have somewhere

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Guaranteed to sit and work right? So it's this balancing act

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Maximize the use of expensive real estate but still keep that promise to employees

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that yes

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There will be a spot for you when you come in

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Exactly and seat surfing according to the sources is positioned as the tool to

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manage these

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Hybrid work features. Oh, it's about optimizing how space is used

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But also importantly cutting down on that wasted time employees spend just

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wandering around looking for an empty desk

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That makes total sense from the company's perspective managing costs and efficiency

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But you know often the catch with powerful enterprise software is the user

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experience

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For the actual employee just trying to book a desk for Friday. Is it gonna be clunky

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slow?

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Frustrating how simple is it meant to feel that's a huge focus for these modern

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platforms

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It has to be frictionless simple. The source material really emphasizes this find

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and reserve your perfect seat in seconds

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It's that simple. That's the promise if it takes an employee more than say a minute

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to figure it out or make a booking

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They've failed people will just give up. Yeah, they'll just revert to wandering the

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halls again. Yeah. Okay. I like that focus on speed

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We've all felt the pain of wrestling with some over engineered internal booking

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cool, but convenience isn't just speed, right? It's also about access

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Where can employees actually use this booking tool? Is it just another website?

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They have to remember

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That's vital for getting people to actually use it

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It needs to be where they already are where they do their work the sources

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highlight this clearly multiple access points

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You can use seat surfing on your phone obviously on your desktop

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But crucially also directly inside the collaboration tools people live in all day

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like Microsoft Teams or Atlassian confluence

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Okay, so it's embedded exactly that deep integration means you don't have to

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context switch

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You don't have to open another app just to book a desk for tomorrow

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And this really showcases, you know modern software design thinking the main

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interface for users the booking part

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It's specifically mentioned as being built as a progressive web application a PWA PWA

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Okay, we hear that acronym thrown around a lot for someone new to this

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What does that practically mean for me the user trying to book a desk?

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Think of it like this a PWA behaves like a native app you'd install from an app

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store. It's fast. It feels integrated

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You can even install it sort of put an icon on your phone's home screen or your

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desktop

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But and this is the key part

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You don't actually go through the hassle of an app store download or some complex

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IT installation process

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Ah, okay

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So it's app-like but without the usual app headaches precisely it gives you that

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quick smooth access without the IT overhead or the

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Distribution friction you get with traditional apps that seems like a smart way to

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balance things keep it simple for the user

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Handle the complexity elsewhere now, let's switch perspectives for a minute a

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smooth user experience is great

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But it needs a solid administrative back-end right someone has to manage all this

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Who's dealing with the complexity behind that simple booking screen? Let's talk

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about the admin side, right?

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This is where the the real enterprise features come into play for the

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administrators

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Maybe the facilities managers the software has to cope with real physical often

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complicated office layout

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So admins can upload their existing floor plans

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Maybe they have them as CAD files already and then they can visually configure the

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space to find seating areas

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meeting rooms using drag-and-drop tools right on that map hang on drag-and-drop

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sounds nice and easy, but

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Uploading and then maintaining those floor plans. Yeah, doesn't that sound like a

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potential nightmare a huge admin task

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Is that where the real cost comes in just keeping that virtual map accurate every

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time someone moves a partition or adds a standing desk?

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That's definitely the challenge these platforms face keeping the virtual map synced

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with reality

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But making the interface visual drag-and-drop it aims to lower that barrier

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compared to say older systems

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Where you might be editing configuration files

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The idea is to take workplace management as the sources say to the next level

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By making that static floor plan into a live dynamic map of what's actually

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available right now. Okay, I can see the value there

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Yeah, but what about organizations just dipping their toes into hybrid work? Maybe

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smaller teams

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Do they have to commit to some big expensive corporate subscription right away?

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What's the entry point like good question?

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The sources actually highlight the platform's scalability here

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It's described as cloud native which is basically tech talk for saying it runs

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straight from the cloud usually in your web browser

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Critically, it says no installation required to get started and even better for

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those just testing it out. There's mention of a free plan

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Specifically for up to 10 users. Oh interesting a free tier

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Yeah

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It lets smaller teams or departments try it out prove the concept works for them

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before needing to scale up or commit financially

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That immediate start is pretty key for adoption these days now. This is where for

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me

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It gets really interesting from a strategic point of view

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Because we seem to have a product that caters to two quite different needs almost

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two different philosophies

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It's offered as this fully managed ready-to-go service

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But its core engine is also open source

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Our sources say seat surfing is both a fully hosted software as a service sauce and

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its back-end code is out there on github

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That's quite a split. It is and that duality is really about addressing different

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segments or needs within the enterprise market

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But companies that just wanted to work minimal fuss they go the sauce route

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They get as the sources list no installation required automatic updates

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The infrastructure is all managed and it specifically mentions the servers are in

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Germany, which for European companies worrying about data residency

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That's a big plus. That's the convenience path. Okay straightforward enough, but

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then there's this other path the open source angle

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Why would a large company one that needs reliability security? Yeah, why would they

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choose to self-host a core tool like this using open code?

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What's the draw there control and audit ability?

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That's the big draw of open source for many IT departments

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It caters to organizations that absolutely need to know exactly what the software

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is doing under the hood

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Maybe for compliance reasons or they might need deep customization that a standard

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sauce offering just can't provide

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That's why the technical details are important here

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So let's peek under the hood a bit the core server the back end that handles the

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API the API being this sort of

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Messenger between the app and the database exactly that communication layer. It's

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written in go now go wasn't chosen randomly

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It's known for being really efficient fast and great at handling lots of

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simultaneous request concurrency

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Choosing go suggests they built it for scale aiming to ensure it stays responsive

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Even if you have thousands of employees hitting it at 8 a.m. Trying to book a desk

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Okay, so go for speed and handling lots of users makes sense and we already touched

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on the front ends the user interfaces

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Those are typescript react. It's a pretty common solid choice for web apps today

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What about the legal side of that open source code if a company self hosts?

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What kind of license are they working with it's under the GPL 3.0 license now for

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anyone not dip in licensing

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The key thing about GPL 3.0 is that it's poppy left. It means the code is free to

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use study modify

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But if you do modify it and distribute your version you generally have to share

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your modifications under the same GPL 3.0 license

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So it promotes sharing improvements back to the community, right?

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It's crucial for IT teams wanting the freedom to adapt the software to their unique

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internal needs without getting locked into a vendor's proprietary

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System and for the tech teams actually doing the self hosting the documentation

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apparently makes it straightforward using Docker compose

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Docker compose essentially bundles everything needed the go application the

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required database

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Which is PostgreSQL here for storing the data persistently it packages it all up so

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you can run it relatively easily

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Exposing it on a standard network port which is mentioned as 8080

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That level of detail in the setup docs using something like Docker compose suggests

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They really want to make self-hosting accessible easy deployment is clearly a goal

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But that ease of deployment leads directly to a pretty big security point that

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comes up in the material doesn't it?

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It absolutely does while the goal is easy setup the documentation for the self-hosted

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version apparently specifies default admin login details

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The username is admin at seats surfing dot local and the default password is

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Well, it's one two three four five six seven eight. Oh

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Yeah, that's not great. That's like leaving the key under the mat. It's a major red

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flag that needs immediate action

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It makes the initial install incredibly simple

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Yes, but it's a massive security vulnerability if an IT team deploys it and forgets

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to change that password immediately that highlights a classic tension

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Doesn't it making things super easy to get started versus maintaining serious

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enterprise security precisely if you go down the self-hosted open source route

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Rule number one step zero even has got to be change that default admin password

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before you do anything else before even think about uploading

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A floor plan that's a really critical warning for any organization considering

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deploying infrastructure from open source

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Don't skip the basic security steps. Okay, so let's pull back a bit. We've covered

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a lot

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What does this all really mean for the learner someone just trying to get their

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head around this whole modern office management tech landscape?

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I think the core takeaway is that a platform like seat surfing aims to be this

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comprehensive

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Scalable fix for the hybrid work puzzle

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It does this by trying to balance two things that often seem at odds on one hand

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Making it incredibly simple and easy for the employee booking a desk, you know with

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things like PWAs teams integration

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Very user focused and on the other hand providing powerful enterprise level

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controls for the admins

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Plus offering flexibility and how it's deployed either easy saws or controllable

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self-hosted open source powered by that go back end

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It feels like this is about more than just booking desks though

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It signals a bigger shift and how we think about physical infrastructure. I think

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so too this move to desk sharing

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It's almost a textbook case of digital transformation leading into the physical

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world

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It forces the office environment itself to behave more like a digital resource

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It needs to be instantly flexible searchable bookable on demand

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It really shows how modern software approaches high-performance backends user

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friendly

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Front-ends can tackle these really tangible real-world problems created by changes

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in how we work and that leads us to maybe a final

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Provocative thought for you the listener to consider we can now instantly reserve

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desks and rooms with an app

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Given how flexible work is becoming what other things in the office that are

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currently static or manually managed

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Think about specialized equipment maybe company cars even parking spots or complex

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tools in a lab

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How long before those also require instant app based booking systems?

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It feels like the future office might be entirely managed booked and allocated

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almost minute by minute

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That's definitely something to think about the fully on-demand office. Thank you

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for walking us through that deep dive and one final

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Thank you to our supporter safe server. They manage the hosting for this kind of

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software and provide support for your digital transformation

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You can find more information at

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www.safeserver.de

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Thanks for joining us and we'll catch you next time on the deep dive