ThisWeekIn Coworking

Week 48, 2021

This week we look at how landlords are being advised to add flex, a new academic study of coworking impacts in the UK, new US businesses up by 56%, Selfridges adding coworking, a new network of WNH spaces coming to Melbourne, and more.

🎉 Coworking celebrations.

😍 A few firsts for TWIC discussions.

Firstly, a bunch of readers have stepped in to co-host the weekly discussions of these newsletters.

They are (in no particular order) Gina Schreck, James Wahba, Jerome Chang, Mike LaRosa and Ashley Proctor

👉 Join the next discussion.

Secondly, can now also replay the TWIC #47, 2021 discussion here at 1x, 1.5x or a lil-bit-chipmunky 2x playback speed.

This Week is sponsored by…Upflex!

If you’re an owner or operator of a flexible workspace looking to attract more customers and bookings, join 650+ coworking brands with 5,500+ locations in listing your space with Upflex. Listing is completely free, with no membership fees, or setup costs. List your inventory by the hour, half-day, full-day, or by the month.

👉 Learn more here.

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📰 Coworking news & views.

🤔 How are landlords being advised to activate flex space?

Zoe Ellis-Moore shares 4 routes for landlords to explore turning commercial properties into flex space, in this blog post for the Flexible Space Association.

In summary landlords can create their own brands, join a franchise, leverage management agreements, or lease to existing (read: experienced) operators.

👉 Read this

🚗 Why Mark wants to go back to the office.

Author and speaker Mark Crowley, shares why he wants to get back to the office, even if that means a 2.5 hour 150-mile return-trip commute.

Whilst the points raised are valid, they can also be used to market the benefits of working from local, commute-free (or minimizing) coworking spaces.

In summary the points are that humans need face-to-face meetings, in-person collabs, “micro-moments” of community; that offices are the last physical community for so many; and that the work day catalyzes loads of necessary daily social interactions.

👉 Read this

🐣 Supporting parents doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

Amanda Munday shares an article in The Logic that recommends that Canadian firms offer perks to parents to combat the tech talent crunch.

Whilst the piece itself is paywalled, I do recommend checking out the amazing example that The Workaround is doing to support working caregivers.

👉 Read this

🎁 Excellent example of gifting coworking access.

The Candy Factory shared a fantastic bundle for Shop Small Saturday, which includes 10x day passes, 1x branded mug and 1 sticker with their logo.

👉 Read this

If you’d like more inspiration on how to make and promote “giftable workspace”, grab the free playbook by joining the #giftworkspace campaign.

🔦 Highlighting new twists on the coworking model.

Jeffrey Steele shares some great examples of new twists on coworking models in a Forbes piece. They include Spark Coworking, The Cube Coworking, and Techartista.

👉 Read this

💰 On independent workspaces growing revenues through IDEA.

The European Coworking Assembly shares why Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Accessibility are important for all independent coworking spaces.

They highlight why it is important to consider and embrace all the members of their surrounding communities and lead in making workspaces more accessible and diverse. This kind of leadership is important.

👉 Read this

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💻 Coworking technology.

😳 New logo map gives another glimpse into the state of proptech.

The team over at VTS shared a new proptech market map, which shows a list of logos (or solutions) across categories like data & analytics, marketplaces, space-as-a-service, tenant experience, smart buildings, and workflow or management.

There’s a lot of logos there, and a lot that are missing, that have been mentioned in previous newsletters. It does however highlight just how many choices you as workspace operators have when it comes to defining their optimum operational stack.

👉 Read this

🕸 Platform that coined ‘workspace-as-a-service’ automates workflows.

Syncaroo announced the availability of CloudVO workflow automations.

The integration allows flex space operators to automate the updating of location details on the platform, as well as rapidly improving booking flows and data reliability.

👉 Read this

🇮🇳 Aggregator expands into cities with up to 200% growth in supply.

Shubham Vashisht shares coverage of Stylework‘s rapid expansion of partner locations in Tier 2 and 3 cities.

The aggregator’s CEO, Sparsh Khandelwal, also notes that in these cities India is witnessing an approx. 150-200% growth of number of spaces.

This brings the platforms inventory network to 60 cities across the country and includes over 1,250 centers.

👉 Read this

🔓 New integration allows members to book & access lockers.

Nexudus have announced a new integration with Smartalock that enables customers to book and unlock lockers in their workspace. The new integration along with other recent additions, such as Unifi.id, are strengthening the security in coworking and flex workspaces to make each space safer for customers.

👉 Read this

📈 Coworking data.

📈 Corporate workers are quitting, to go at it alone, with numbers.

Josh Mitchell & Kathryn Dill share in the WSJ how “the pandemic has unleashed a historic burst in entrepreneurship & self-employment”.

The no. of unincorporated self-employed workers in the United States has risen by 500k since the begin of the pandemic, reaching a total of 9.44M, the highest since the financial crisis in 2008 (excl. summer of 2021). This reflects a 6% increase in self-employed and a 3% drop in total employed in the US compared to pre-pandemic numbers.

4.54M new business registrations were made between Jan and Oct this year, up 56% from the same period in 2019. 2/3 of those are for businesses who do not expect to hire more employees.

Article paywalled, but you can listen to a summary via the inline player.

👉 Read this

✅ What five things do people want from coworking spaces?

The Tally Market team put together a list of the top 5 facilities and amenities their users seek when booking coworking space.

They include natural light, whiteboards, mylks, good coffee and phone booths.

👉 Read this

👎 Report gives long-term remote working a big thumbs down.

Matthew Parsons summarizes a new report by KPMG gives the dim verdict that, in the long-run, remote work could be damaging to employees and employers.

The consulting firm also highlight that team-building, network and cross-pollination of ideas that come with IRL interactions would be negatively impacted.

I’d also recommend taking a look at the report itself which sheds a light into a lot of the decisions and challenges facing global mobility professionals at firms across 23 industries.

h/t Andrew Bermudez for sharing.

👉 Read this

🤝 Coworking market moves.

🛍 Selfridges bags a coworking offering.

James Scerri shares that Fora workspaces will be opening a coworking location within Selfridges flagship location in Oxford Street in Q3 2022.

👉 Read this

💸 Crowdfund to make finding & leasing office space online easier.

Meghana Subramanian shares that the extraSlice are crowdfunding $500k (at a $19M pre-money valuation) for their platform to make “finding office space as easy as shopping on Amazon”. At time of curation they’ve just passed 50% of that goal.

👉 Read this

🛫 Airport work pod network expands to JFK T8.

Jabbrrbox announced that pods in JFK Airport Terminal 8 is now live and part of their network of reservable technology-enabled private workspaces in public places.

👉 Read this

🇦🇺 A network of ‘close to home’ flex spaces across Melbourne.

Hub Australia announced a partnership with Vicinity (one of Australia’s largest retail providers) to deliver a network of spaces, starting with their first in Box Hill that’s set to open in late 2022.

👉 Read this

📹 Coworking videos.

🔍 Group of academics study coworking in 3 UK cities outside London.

A group of academics are studying the development of coworking spaces in Manchester, Bristol and Brighton; how the pandemic impacted them and the benefits to the cities and people who use them.

Whilst they do use a hyphen, I do love that they refer to these communities as ‘the future of collaborative working environments’.

h/t Liz Elam for sharing.

👉 Watch this

🎙 Coworking conversations.

Jeannine van der Linden and Ashley Proctor hosted a panel at the Coworking Europe conference on the nurturing diversity & inclusion into a driver for growth of community, membership and revenue.

🎧 Listen to this

Jeremy Bernard, Mark Gilbreath, Bobby Goodman, Laurent Grill and Clinton Robinson discuss whether Flex is the Future of Office during day 2 of the recent Blueprint 2021 conference.

🎧 Listen to this

Gina Schreck, James Wahba, Jerome Chang and Ashley Proctor co-hosted the TWIC #47, 2021 discussion.

🎧 Listen to this

Bernie Mitchell chats with Miroslav Miroslavov about flex workspaces, technology and OfficeRnD‘s startup story.

🎧 Listen to this

Jamie Russo and Michael Abrams discuss how coworking spaces should explore their real estate structures and negotiate creative partnerships.

🎧 Listen to this

📆 Coworking events.

🥽 The metaverse and real estate.

7 Dec, 6 & 27 Jan: Michael Marciano and Elliot Gold are hosting a 3-part event series on Web3, the metaverse and how it may impact real estate.

These are paid events, with priority tickets granting VR access.

👉 RSVP to this

💼 Coworking jobs.

Find or post coworking jobs for free here.

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About This.

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

Newsletters are curated by Hector Kolonas and made available for free via email or this website.

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