At a crossroads: The future of member perks at coworking spaces.
I’m taking ‘building in public’ to a whole new level, openly digging into a decision I’m exploring regarding what happens next at included.co and member perks across 100s of coworking spaces.
🎉 Coworking celebrations.
👋 The Guild to close on Feb 28th #
Tom Lewis shares some backstory and insights into the founding of The Guild, and how it’s closing at the end of Feb. Why is this in celebrations? For 12 years this group introduced, enabled and provided a superb local coworking solution and community. Thank you!
🎂 CoworkCascais turned 10! #
Congrats to the cofounders and the coworking community you’ve fostered and supported.
Get future weekly summaries in your inbox.
✊ Coworking impact.
🙌 The transformative power of coworking #
Iris Kavanagh shares a beautifully written version of the "Who puts the ‘Co’ in Coworking" talk shared at the last Coworking Convo.
It’s not often you hear/see coworking and ‘nervous system balance’ in the same piece.
🆓 The Summit makes two big changes for 2024 event #
Ashley Proctor shares how the annual Coworking Alliance Summit is making two pretty big changes this year.
Firstly, the 2024 Summit is not only for coworking alliance members – anyone is welcome to purchase a ticket and participate. And secondly, thanks to generous support of 2024 Summit Sponsors and Partners – tickets are complimentary for members of ANY/ALL coworking alliances.
P.S. The theme for this year is Collective Ownership, not only on a space and alliance level, but also of the narrative of coworking as a movement.
Coworking news & views.
🚀 What we can learn from a local bar’s content that went viral #
A local bar in West Chester, PA went viral this week with this fantastic bit of owner-created content on Instagram.
It’s a fantastic reminder about how you and your teams can create content that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but still build relationships, trust and starts conversations.
👋 A heads-up to transactional spaces #
Cat Johnson notes that spaces who focus purely on transactions may need to take note of the writing on the wall. Most notably, that since the future of brand is community, the future of coworking is human.
🤺 10 controversial ‘truths’ about coworking #
Dave Cairns shares an interesting list of 10 (and then 5 more) of his brutal trusts about coworking for CRE leaders.
Whilst I’d looooove to debate a few of these, there’s a bunch I do agree with, including that most brokers don’t get coworking (or how to make money from it), events as high-margin revenue streams, and landlords having a bitter taste from IWG/WeWork.
But I definitely don’t agree that the rate of coworking growth is sluggish (coworking isn’t a North American industry, the slower growth in the US isn’t being reflected in some other flex-forward markets), and whilst coworking may not reach 30% of office inventory – I strongly believe that flex and amenitized ‘products’ will find their way into far more than 30%.
🚲 When industry leaders tested if Porto could be a 15-min city #
Christian Schmitz shares some thoughts from 2023’s Coworking Europe conference where he and Matthias Zeitler hosted a 30-person bike tour of Porto’s most inspiring coworking spaces. The concept, which the duo had previous success with at the 2022 conference in Amsterdam, is an interesting one.
There’s something fun about visiting local spaces after a conference, but taking to the street in a group, on bikes does also allow participants to feel if it is indeed a 15-minute city. Nice idea!
🇬🇧 Local hub operator adds Library of Things into mix #
Patch in Twickenham have partnered with social enterprise Library of Things to help members and their surrounding community borrow things for their homes, projects and adventures.
I do love this, and as Paloma Strelitz notes, this partnership does champion DIY, sustainability and the sharing economy on the UK’s high streets.
📯 A look at the USPS’ rocky road to digitization #
Sofia Stolberg shares an opinion piece in Forbes, looking at how the paper-based compliance process that’s being replaced at the USPS, was in some ways more efficient than the new data-entry-heavy digital implementation.
Share This Week's Summary
💻 Coworking technology.
🗳️ What tech/ops topics would you like to see discussed? #
The LinkedIn poll on what tech or ops panels you’d like to see at this years’ industry conferences ends this Thursday. Let organizers know what you’d like to hear about, and I’ll do my best to help get them (and some new faces) onto stages near you.
If the poll is closed by the time you see this, please do drop a comment on the thread.
🤦♂️ The utter ridiculousness of modern work #
Joan Westenberg shares a fantastic summary of how infuriatingly ridiculous the tech stacks at some modern teams is. From a single message, tasks get done through 6 different systems and 17 databases, each costing the firm a bunch dollars per user per month – and burning any actual useful work time.
Sound familiar? In coworking businesses it can often times be worse. It’s why so many of us are working on automating how tech and tools speak to each other, so humans can get back to doing what they actually joined to do.
😯 “Is your coworking space stuck in 1999?” #
Caleb Parker shares how in an age where customers can book villas, order food, check into flights and grab a ride in seconds – most coworking spaces still require a whole mutle-email back-and-forth process just to book a desk, or meeting room.
I wont even get you started on the processes to acquire any of the other longer-term flex space products, Caleb. But you’re certainly right, the tech to fix this DOES exists, it IS affordable and it’s being battletested daily.
Coworking data.
🤩 In 2019, 14% of large co employees use coworking spaces #
On page 16 of this 2019 report, Gensler reported that 14% of employees at 100+ people companies noted that coworking was a part of their average workweek. Most reported that they used a coworking space for less than 1 day per week.
I would love to compare this to updated 2024 numbers on this. Will someone at Gensler hit us up with an updated version of this data?
👍 Staff and space set flex options apart from other office products #
Bobby Sodeiri shares a snapshot of results from a survey of 200 end users of flex spaces.
_When asked what makes them pick flex spaces over other office types, the top reasons were friendly staff (50%), clean/modern environments (36%), multiple space types (36%), a sense of community (33%) and trusted brands (29%). Surprisingly cost effectiveness only got 19%. _
🇦🇺 A look at flex rates across Australia #
Rubberdesk share that the national median desk rate in Q4 2023 stayed steady at $660, but concealed the fact that rates in Sydney dropped 3% to $943 and both Melbourne and North Sydney hit new highs of $728 and $625. While Brisbane and Perth remained unchanged at $700 and $600 per desk, Canberra saw a 2% bump to $510 per desk. Adelaide also dipped, with average monthly rates going from $650 to $600. Also smaller offices (<15 desks) saw price increases, while larger (20+) offices declined.
💰 An Agency filled over 73k sqft of flex office space in 2023 #
Isaac Tonkin shares that their commercial real estate agency secured 101,759sqft of office space for their customers. Interestingly, they share that a lot of that (except 28,484 in traditional leases) was with flex space brands like Industrious, Fora, Us&Co and flex-leaning landlords like Landmark and Bruntwood.
I’d love to see if there was any sqft-age filled at indie or independent brand, and how that compares to the figures shared.
Coworking market moves.
🏨 Group of live slash work hubs opens 21st location #
Roman Kulik shares that The Social Hub’s newest location in San Sebastián has opened.
ICYMI: The Social Hub offers student accomodation, short- and long-term hotel rooms, restaurants and coworking space in 21 (and counting) hubs across Europe.
🇬🇧 Local ‘work club’ announces second location in Richmond #
Saul Zulman shares that the second Drop-In location will be in Richmond, following the success of their first club in Clapton.
🦅 Expansive opens new location in Denver Tech Center #
This location, a former Regus location, is the 10th competitor space the firm has upgraded and begun operating.
🇮🇳 Indian operator raises $7M for global expansion #
DevX, raised a combination of debt and equity capital to expand within India, abroad and into tech solutions.
🇬🇧 Wizu Workspace launches 10th location. #
The space, at Portland House in Newcastle, is their 10th location.
🇯🇵 Online brokerage launches in Japan, their hottest flex market #
Office Hub launched in Japan, to service to what they’re calling "the hottest flex market they’ve even seen".
✂️ Workbox opened their newest location in Chicago #
"The Loop is Chicago’s heartbeat, and Workbox plans to play an integral role in sustaining and bolstering The Loop”, said Workbox Co-Founder and CEO, John Wallace.
🏴 The Social Hub launches 19th European hub in Glasgow #
The firm founded by Charlie MacGregor will be opening their first UK site in Glasgow in April, and is currently looking for new sites in UK cities like London (zones 1 & 2), Manchester, and Edinburgh.
🍺 COhatch leans even more heavily into F&B with acquisition #
The partnership between COhatch and North High Brewing formed in 2020 (that started with a food and beverage partnership in Dublin, Ohio) must have gone deliciously. Not only had North High expanded alongside COhatch’s growth, but the coworking firm has now acquired the remaining 3 brewpubs.
I do wonder if we’ll see other multi-location brans expand into establishing or acquiring complimentary F&B options.
🇦🇺 New JV takes aim at Australia’s CBD markets #
Singapore-based and CapitaLand-backed The Work Project and Dexus property group have entered into a 50/50 joint venture to form a new premium flex coworking operator that will run around 150.7k sqft of flex space across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth CBDs.
🚀 infinitSpace launches 2nd Netherlands location under ‘beyond’ brand #
infinitSpace, white-label flexible workspace provider, has launched its second Netherlands location under the ‘beyond’ brand in Amsterdam’s new Republica mixed-use development. The flex space spans around 21.5k sqft across 3 of the Republica’s 6 buildings.
🇯🇵 SoftBank set to acquire whole of WeWork Japan #
allwork reports that SoftBank is set to takeover WeWork’s Japan business, merging the business into a newly formed and further funded new subsidiary.
🙊 Oh yea, did you hear about Adam? #
Probably the most sent in news story this week. But incase you missed it Adam Neumann (well his legal team) went to the press because WeWork wouldn’t engage or entertain a buy-out offer they’ve been trying to make since December 2023.
Interestingly this report by Verge does share that Adam had previously offered $1B in funding in Oct 2022 and was turned down.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Caleb Parker chats with Cat Johnson about Brave Corp, thought leadership, brand building, content creation and being misfits on the Coworking Out Loud podcast.
Eyal Lasker chats with Liz Elam about new booking interfaces, ecommerce-ifying coworking websites and the power of dynamic pricing on the GCUC podcast.
Dr. Christina Hansen chats with Jamie Russo about creating a shared office space designed for mental health practitioners on the Everything Coworking podcast
📆 Coworking events.
🤝 Convo: Increase Networking in Your Coworking Space #
Feb 23: How do you encourage members to network and connect? Let’s chat about it!
👩💻 The 2024 Summit #
Mar 6: The 4th annual Coworking Alliance Summit returns, bringing together cooperative coworking leaders from around the world.
🤗 Activating coworking spaces as centers for social reconnection #
Mar 13: Loneliness has reached epidemic levels, and it’s affecting how we work and live. Worse, millions of us are still trying to figure out a sustainable approach to remote and hybrid work. Fortunately, coworking spaces are already in the business of belonging. Learn how you can join our effort, so together we can raise awareness of the role your space plays in helping people find connection outside their homes.
🇧🇬 Coworking Europe 2024 location announced #
Nov 13-14: Coworking Europe 2024 will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria.
