🎉 Coworking celebrations.
🎂 Hubble turned 8!
That means that Tushar Agarwal and team have been connecting startups, teams and individuals to coworking spaces in and around the UK for over 2,923 days. Thanks for supporting flex spaces in the UK team Hubble!
🎂 Liberty Lake Coworking turned 2 & Cobot turned 11.
This Week is sponsored by…Upflex!
Upflex would like to wish you all a very happy, safe and prosperous 2022. If you’re an owner or operator of a flexible workspace looking to attract more customers and bookings this year, join 650+ coworking brands with 5,500+ locations in listing your space with Upflex.
Get future weekly summaries in your inbox.
Coworking news & views.
💰 How real estate savings are being invested into remote work.
Katie Johnston put together an interesting piece in the Boston Globe looking into how various large employers were reinvesting the money they saved on ‘going remote’ (or hybrid) to help their employees thrive in the new world of work.
Some brands redirecting their savings are Vista who’s saving $9M p/year, Franklin who saved $5.2M on a recent downsizing, and Aquent who are saving $600k p/month and have not only paid to equip 720 employee’s home offices but also bought coworking passes for those who need them.
Other perks included Peloton memberships, online courses, promotions, increases in 401(k) matches, and paying for phone and WiFi costs.
A quote that caught my eye is that “when employees work remotely half the time, companies save nearly $11,000 per employee a year, after accounting for the added expenses of remote technology and home-office equipment according to Global Workplace Analytics”. So… so long as your coworking space costs less than $11k per member per year, a membership is a win-win perk for employers right?
🌍 Brief history and evolution of innovation hubs across Africa.
Jumanne Rajabu Mtambalike from Sahara Ventures shares an overview of the history and evolution of ‘innovation hubs’ in Africa, looking at how coworking spaces, incubators and accelerators have had to approach business models, marketing and sustainability from a whole new set of angles.
🤝 How a non-profit will support downtown Topeka through coworking.
Austin Barnes wrote a feature about Omni Circle Group (a growing entrepreneur support organization) and their plans to open a 15k sqft coworking facility in downtown Topeka, Kansas.
Stephen McIntosh and Michael Odupitan share a bit the non-profit’s backstory and why they’re building a coworking community to support the hyperlocal economy.
🤔 What is the difference between desk hoteling & hot desking?
Miro Miroslavov from OfficeRnD recently shared an article for office managers on the benefit of ‘office neighborhoods’ as more of the working world continues it’s shift towards hybrid workplace strategies. In summary, these neighborhood-ing is the organizing of office space and amenities around activities, projects or functions.
As the piece dives into how neighborhoods work in practice, it also clarifies the difference between desk hoteling (reservation-based unassigned seating) and hot desking (reservation-less unassigned seating). Are you using this terminology with corporate clients?
✅ 12th monthly coworking IDEA challenge issued.
Ashley Proctor and the Coworking IDEA team have shared the 12th IDEA challenge, inviting space operators and industry professionals to engage more with the global project to promote inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility across the world through coworking.
Share This Week's Summary
💻 Coworking technology.
🧐 WTF are DAOs, and could they be the future of work?
Ben Schecter from RabbitHole shares a superb (long-ish) read into what Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (aka DAOs) are, and how they enable a whole new world of work where creators, participants and contributors do activities to earn revenue without being traditionally employed or ‘exploited’ (for lack of a different word) by gig-economy platforms over time.
Keep an eye on this space, I know (for a fact) that a lot of very intelligent and community-driven people are exploring how these kinds of organizations will impact the coworking industry. If you’d like to learn more about these, let me know and I’ll see if I can create a new section in the newsletter to share stories from this side of the internet.
🗺 Benchmarking co. teases coworking directory
Ben Tannenbaum shares that CoworkIntel have built a directory of coworking spaces in various cities.
It seems to be early days for the directory still, but will interesting to see how they evolve this offering, or partner up with platforms to help the listed spaces.
Coworking data.
🌡 Temp check on the current consensus on the future of offices.
RE:vision shared a diagram from the Emerging Trends in Real Estate Report 22 that highlights how much respondents agreed/disagreed with some statements around the future of offices.
Notably, regarding the statement around wether coworking or flex space would take up a greater part of occupiers’ portfolios: 9% strongly agree, 48% agree, 24% neither/nor, 17% disagree and only 2% strongly disagree.
Coworking market moves.
✏️ Brokerage acquires occupancy planning & CAD services co.
CBRE announced the acquisition of Buildingi, a tech and services company that help companies manage their occupancy data and provide Computer Aided Design (CAD) services.
🚃 UK Commuter coworking club shares first year results.
Freddie Fforde from Patch shares their first year results from their first commuter-focussed coworking community.
From zero money, team, site and customers to 1000 signups, 1 building and a team of 5, I’m excited to see how this company grows as they target high streets (or ‘main streets’ for US readers) across the UK.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Jamie Russo chats with Jim Heid about building small, how many small biz dollars recirculate, and survey results about how many $ are spent locally each week by members of Craftwork Coworking.
Chase Garbarino from HqO and Monika Solak from Nexudus chat about the strategies and directives behind the flexible, more engaging workplaces of the future.
📆 Coworking events.
🌎 The Coworking Alliance Summit
Feb 16: After an insightful first summit in April 2020, CAS returns to hold space for space operators leading, or looking to start, coworking alliances locally or across the globe.
💼 Coworking jobs.
Find or post coworking jobs for free here.