🎉 Coworking celebrations.
This week we celebrate you. I am so grateful for all the work you do to support coworking communities, the business they enable and the humans they empower. Thank you!
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Coworking news & views.
🗺 Help coworking members avoid Google Business Profile suspensions.
Elizabeth Linder shares a 9-min read on how eligible business based within coworking spaces can avoid getting their Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) listings suspended.
The post even drops in a pro-tip for how members can add your space to their ‘located within’ section, helping customers find their way to the right offices, and getting you a little bit of exposure too.
🤔 What if we’re living through the resurrection of downtowns?
Christelle Rohaut fro Codi shares her thoughts about how, with a little bit of help from elected leaders and policy makers, downtowns could go from increasingly decimated to centers of community impact.
I’ve never been shy about my belief that coworking spaces drive huge hyperlocal economic impact, so if (pretty pretty please) this does start to happen, you can bet that coworking will be a part of how downtowns get rebuilt from within.
🏡 On the unexpected renaissance of rural society.
Charles Armstrong shares his second article on the pandemic’s catalyzing affect on rural society.
The kinds of rural pioneers, and the pivotal role of market towns take center stage in this post.
💊 Flex & fully-serviced bio labs coming to London.
Following the growing trend of “coworking for x” , I love this new project launching in White City, London in Q2 ’22.
BioHotel transforms underutilized retail space into valuable laboratory space. Within the first facility there will be a cluster of small labs, available for short-term rental by up to 50 biotech startups.
Participating business also get to share services and facilities, like access to equipment worth hundreds of thousands, for just a few pounds a day.
💰 13 RE investment trends to watch in a world of WFH-ing.
In this Forbes Business Council post, 13 council members share trends that investors should keep an eye on.
Whilst all the points are worth reading through, some that caught my eye are “Community-Focused Properties” by Landon Eckles, “Hospitable Work Environments” by Chase Garbarino, “Residential Units With Dedicated Workspaces” by Basem Hanna, “Desire For Flexible Access To Office Amenities” by Martha Holler, “Properties Able To Meet Every Possible Need” by Dr. Donte Vaughn, and “Technologically Advanced Workspaces” by Ryan Simonetti.
🤗 Do organizations need Chief Social Connectivity Officers?
Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries shares a post on INSEAD‘s blog that looks into how one CEO explored how their use of workspace needed to change.
They highlight how space design and connecting the right people at the same place at the right time would be critical to making offices and business thrive in the new world of work. Sound familiar?
Instead of ‘hiring’ Chief Social Connectivity Officers, could coworking spaces offer the beautifully designed spaces, and passionate support staff, that could make ‘work’ destinations where employees actually want to go to?
h/t Lenwood M. Ross for sharing.
🛑 Can we nip ‘pay-to-win awards’ in the bud?
James Dearsley shares his thoughts that paying to receiving awards is annoying (and detrimental to the value of those awards won and earned). Having been in startup-land and tech long enough, I’ve received my fair share of cold-emails asking me to pay to “win” awards too.
With the growth of coworking, and flex becoming mainstream, it’s a matter of time before these “award” schemes turn to our industry. But if we all agree not to play, or even call it out, could we nip it in the bud and instead focus on creating positive economic impact? Or… are we already too late?
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💻 Coworking technology.
🙅♀️ Remote work platform snubs desk booking.
Danielle Farage from the café team introduced v2 of their desk booking module, and in it, they completely dropped the desk picking part. They highlight some of the drawbacks of having to pick a specific desk (or few) when deciding to pop into a workspace, and instead letting users book ‘space’ and then figure out where to sit when they get there.
Great idea to removing friction preventing people from popping in, or just delaying any possible anxiety of picking where to actually sit until the team arrives?
✅ PMS adds vax checkins & help avoid €400 fines.
cobot announced a new addon for spaces in Germany for tracking 2G/3G statuses of members. These newly tightened restrictions mean only people who can prove they have been vaccinated or have recovered from Covid will be allowed entry. 2G is a reference to the German words for vaccinated and recovered (geimpft and genesen).
The Guardian reports that police are carrying out random spot checks on individuals and have the power to issue €400 fines.
📨 Workspace platform adds new feature, Mailroom management.
Marley Fabisiewicz shares spaceOS‘ announcement of their new Mailroom feature.
Processing mail, packages and other deliveries is a huge challenge for workspace operators. Interesting to see this being built into a management system, as oppose to others who offering integrations with a variety of specialized mailroom solutions. Video ft. Tomek Omelan
Trend to watch: Modular-vs-monolithic tech stacks.
Coworking data.
💂♀️ Mayor of London’s second (of 3) flex space surveys.
On behalf of The Mayor of London, Monday Works is carrying out a series of 3 surveys to find out what impact Covid19 is having on London’s flexible workspaces.
The findings will be put into a report which will be published in late 2022, and will carry recommendations for what sort of support flexible workspaces will need, as they continue to play a vital role in London’s economic recovery.
Coworking market moves.
Y Combinator leads $3M round in workspace booking app.
Remember Deskimo? I introduced them back in Week 29’s tech news.
Their on-demand booking platform, led by co-founder of Foodpanda Christian Mischler and ex-Rocket Internet MD Raphael Cohen, has raised a seed round led by Y Combinator.
They also soft launch this week, with 100 spaces across Singapore, Hong Kong, and Jakarta in Indonesia.
💵 Multinational brand raises $72M to expand.
Mindspace announced a new $72M funding round to fuel expansion. The company, founded in 2014, currently runs 32 locations in 17 cities in 7 counties.
Regarding the 1M+ sqft being managed, the firm says they’re almost all fully occupied with a variety of companies, about 41% being large enterprises and corporations and 38% being small and medium-sized companies.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Alex Ahom and Ashley Proctor talk about the upcoming Coworking Europe Event: How To Transform Diversity And Inclusion Into A Driver Of Growth that is going to be live-streamed on the 1st of December.
Liz Elam chats with Dr. Tammira Lucas who covers all the basis for being a Mother in the business world and how The Cube Cowork has made it simple for women to keep their family life and business life manageable.
📆 Coworking events.
Livestream of IDEA keynote from Coworking Europe.
Dec 1: The European Coworking Assembly and the Coworking IDEA Project invite your to watch the live stream of their Coworking Europe keynote on “How to transform diversity and inclusion into a driver of growth for your community, your membership, and your revenue”.
💼 Coworking jobs.
Find or post coworking jobs for free here.