Week 45, 2021

This week we share a new virtual community, say bye to GMB, explore the demand shift affecting office utilization, explore stipends, and big moves between CRE brokers and flex, and so much more.

🎉 Coworking celebrations.

🎂 Office Nomads turned 14!

Let’s all them a happy cake day on twitter!

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📰 Coworking updates.

💻 Virtual coworking is still increasingly popular.

Edwin J. Frondozo shares a post about launching a virtual coworking community and how it’s made them more productive than ever. At time of writing (6am Eastern, yea i know) there were 361 members of Cafe100x, and 58 of them were online.

With some coworking operators like IndieHall and Office Nomads sticking to being virtual-only, and others like Cohere and Station F maintaining or launching virtual communities along their IRL ones, this is definitely a trend to keep watching.

And don’t even let me get started on what the metaverse implications may be here. Not yet.

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📉 The underlying demand shift that’s decreasing office utilization.

John Preece shares a piece exploring the underlying demand shift, specifically examining the liberation of knowledge workers, which is leaving office space across the globe sparsely occupied.

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🧮 5 business benefits of coworking stipends.

Travis Howell dives into how coworking is an alternative to having to pick between working from home or a central office in a post for MIT Sloan Management Review.

They dive into 5 benefits of coworking stipends for businesses, in summary: greater employee autonomy, improving recruitment, improved image, productivity gains and cost reductions.

👉 Read this

🎓 Newcastle College launches coworking & entrep hub.

Newcastle College have launched Synergy Hub, a shared worskpace designed to encourage collaboration between education and industry, at its Rye Hill campus on the edge of Newcastle city centre.

In the UK, coworking + colleges is a growing trend, and I used to work from a coworking space within a college in London for a while myself. Not only do these hubs leverage available space, but create opportunities for both members and the student body, including keeping talent locally. 

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👩‍🍳 New commercial kitchen + coworking space in London.

This week saw the official launch of Mission Kitchen who offer commercial kitchens and coworking (space + community) to food businesses in Covent Garden.

Another glowing example of shared resources and community being baked together to serve a niche slice of the local business market, and yes… pun intended.

h/t Mission Ventures for sharing.

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📰 Media outlet looks into coworking becoming more inclusive.

Anmol Irfan looks into how different organizations are working towards making coworking more inclusive in this piece for Insider. It features comments and insights from Andie Washington from NINON, Ashley Proctor from the Coworking IDEA Project, Britt Riley from Haven Collection, and Joanna Abeyie from Blue Moon.

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💻 Coworking technology.

🗺 Bye bye Google My Business

Google announced that GMB would be renamed and listing management would be merged into their Maps and Search interfaces.

This post highlights what’s changing, and what’s not. Spoiler alert: management is moving, claimed listings won’t need to be migrated.

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📌 YC-backed remote work tool adds colleague map

The team at Café added a visual map to see where team mates and other colleagues are working from.

This creates a whole new way for the discovery of great working locations and communities within  remote and hybrid organizations.

👉 Read this

⚙️ Web Widgets for flex spaces get 4 new features in recent upgrade.

Robert Kropp shares 4 new features introduced into Syncaroo‘s auto-updating Website Widgets tool.

In summary they are: more control over what kinds of resources show in each widget, featuring soon-to-be-available units to close tenancy gaps, new views and powerful filters for website visitors to explore your offerings.

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🤖 Operator touts data-aggregation as coworking perk

This article showcases workspace operator Werqwise‘s platform that “aggregates Wi-Fi, bluetooth, Zoom, smart lighting, air quality, occupancy, and HVAC usage data, alongside movements of its advanced modular walling, to create a macro view of how businesses are trending”.

Note: This article reads as an advertorial for the brand mentioned, but it’s added to highlight the trend towards data-driven workspaces.

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📈 Coworking data.

📊 The recovery is here. But who will eventually win?

Ben Wright and Upsuite return with another quarter’s market insights.

In summary for N. America: new agreements, occupancy and revenues are up. Supply stabilized with new openings surpassing closures for the first time since 2020 and asking prices have stopped falling.

However not all markets are recovering at the same pace, with some submarkets (eg Midtown Atlanta, SoHo Manhattan, North Austin and Cherry Creek in Denver) already at or near capacity.

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🗓 The most popular office-day for remote workers is Thursday.

Booking platform NearU shares that 4x more customers are booking into local workspaces on Thursdays vs Mondays, making it the most popular day of the week to head to the office.

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🤝 Coworking market moves.

🙈 NYC-based operator brings in broker to help fill first DC space.

Jon Banister shares that Bond Collective have retained flex space brokers Vanessa Carrion and Matt Pacinelli from Stream Realty to help fill their first DC coworking space.

According to the post, Shlomo Silber mentioned that the 500 seat location was sitting at just 15% capacity, after the pandemic delayed the opening from April 2020 till earlier this year.

Trend: CRE Brokers + flex options.
h/t Michael Abrams for sharing.

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🕵️‍♀️ Colliers doubles down on filling flex space with new offering.

Will Burchfield shares info about the new Colliers SmartFlex application, that gives their brokers ‘a comprehensive database of flex space options across 90 global markets’. The article also mentions that the app gives the firm’s brokers a faster way to facilitate requests.

For those wondering, this app sits broker-side, whilst their Mobility App (first mentioned in week 30 of 2020) is client-facing.

Trend: CRE Brokers + flex options.

👉 Read this

📲 Cushman gives a peak behind it’s bet on WeWork.

TheRealDeal shared Cushman & Wakefield‘s reasoning behind their recent $150 investment into (or partnership with) WeWork.

In short, it seems to be a technology play, with the former looking to bring the latter’s tenant experience technology to non-WeWork locations and buildings that Cushman counts as clients. It’ll be very interesting to see how what Brett White calls an ‘exclusive strategic partnership” will play out for both firms.

Trend: CRE Brokers + flex options.

👉 Read this

🇬🇧 Consolidation of flex spaces continues with $524M acquisition.

John Spencer shared that Sirius Real Estate are acquiring BizSpace.

The acquisition price is reported at £380M (~$524M) or which around £135M (~$186M) would be funded through a public share offering. A big acquisition as consolidation activity heats up in the European flex workspace sector.

Trend: Flex space consolidation.

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🗽 43,000 sqft space coming to Jersey City to beat the commute.

Hope King at Axios reports that Industrious are opening a 43,000 sqft workspace in Jersey City, which is a stone’s throw away from Manhattan. Jamie Hodari mentions that this, their first location this side of the Hudson river I believe, is to cater to those who’d prefer not to deal with getting blocked in the tunnels to Manhattan.

Trend: Suburban expansions.

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📹 Coworking videos.

👨‍👩‍👧 How and why one family made remote-working work.

Rowana Hennigan shares her remote working family story, and dives into why they had to leave Dublin and went ‘adventuring’ as a family unit instead.

If you’re serving remote workers, have you thought about how you could support those who aren’t traveling alone?

👉 Watch this

🤔 What Commercial Real Estate may look like going forward.

Sam Gamble from CloudWorks put together an insightful video running over how commercial real estate is changing for landlords, led by changing tenant and employee needs and demands.

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📯 A platform recruited a town crier to reach a potential customer.

Harry Wilson shares a video of how the FlowSpace (a UK workspace booking platform) reached a potential customer through a very traditional medium… a town crier.

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🎙 Coworking conversations.

Jamie Russo dives into the new rules of engagement for coworking spaces.

🎧 Listen to this

Frank Cottle and Jason McCann (from Vari) discuss creating a culture of learning & innovation for the future of work.

🎧 Listen to this

Jack Macejka and Laura J. Patel discuss how proptech is shaping the future of the office.

🎧 Listen to this

📆 Coworking events.

🤝 Coworking + Sponsors

Nov 19. Coworking Convo dives into working with sponsors to strengthen coworking brands.

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📙 ‘Around the world in 250 coworking spaces’ book launch.

Nov 25. Join the Coworkies team for their official coffee table book launch.

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💼 Coworking jobs.

Find or post coworking jobs for free here.

About This.

ThisWeekInCoworking.com is a weekly newsletter summarizing the coworking celebrations, stories, market moves, tech updates, and discussions you may have missed.

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💫 Who's hiring?

🇺🇸 Bottle Rocket Search are helping hire a General Manager in Denver, Colorado.

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🇦🇺 Hub Australia are hiring a Workspace Experience Manager in Perth, Australia.

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🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Clockwise are hiring a Community Coordinator in Glasgow, Scotland.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Southlake, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Atlanta, Georgia.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Dallas, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Sugar Land, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in The Woodlands, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Forth Worth, Texas.

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🇺🇸 Lucid Private Offices are hiring a Community Coordinator in Alpharetta, Georgia.

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