🗞 The Video Summary
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🎉 Coworking celebrations.
📖 Who’s that on the cover of Forbes? #
Exciting to see Miro Miroslavov featured on the cover of Forbes Bulgaria as part of a story about how, under his leadership, OfficeRnD is committed to supporting flexible workspaces worldwide.
More coworking-supporting folks on front of big-name national magazines? Yes please.
👉 Read this.
✊ Coworking impact.
🇺🇦 How to directly support coworking leaders in Ukraine #
Helga Moreno shares 3 examples of how coworking spaces in Ukraine (FuturaHub, Startup Depot, and WORKIT) are still actively supporting local and refugee communities within a warzone.
The article also shares a curated list of local coworking spaces that accept online bookings and invites other coworking leaders from around the world to directly support these spaces by buying day passes or memberships via the provided links.
If you run a booking platform or would like to support these local coworking spaces through your favorite booking platform, please reply to this email or contact me.
👉 Read this.
💂♀️ Platform + local educational org partner up in London #
Booking platform Flow and non-profit Urban MBA have partnered up to support young people in developing their ideas and to start their own sustainable commercial and social businesses. The formal partnership means all alumni will receive £500 in credits to access 50+ coworking spaces, gyms, spas, and experiences in London.
Love this tie-up between coworking (and other) access and hyperlocal entrepreneurial support.
👉 Read this.
Coworking news & views.
🇪🇸 Lessons from building a local coworking community in Tarragona #
Laia Benaiges shares the backstory of La Magrana, a coworking community in Tarragona, Spain with Marc Navarro.
It’s a great read and features IKEA causing local furniture stores to close, a photographer referencing “those spaces in New York with people working”, the Coworking Spain Conference, a difficult beginning and the formation of Leca (a legal consultancy for coworking spaces in Spain).
👉 Read this.
💙 An ode to a coworking community #
Amy King shares a lovely post reflecting on, and thanking, her community for helping Good Coworking survive the pandemic.
The post also highlights that “the coworking industry is back and soaring as the newest and coolest way to get work done.”
It is, isn’t it!?
👉 Read this.
📉 How could recent bank failings could impact flex workspaces #
Jonathan Price digs into what the cascading collapse of banks (like Silvergate, SVB and Signature Bank) could mean for the flex workspace industry. How? By looking at what happened following the dotcom crash in 2001. In short, struggling spaces may have get hit by any downtown in occupancy but the market is much stronger than in 2001.
Given I finally ‘got’ coworking by starting coworking communities following a whole country closing ALL banks, I’ve got a few more notes on the opportunities and risks in these situations. Happy to chat about in this week’s recap discussion, or post them on my blog. If you’d like to read those, let me know by replying to the email version.
👉 Read this.
🖼️ Could this be the best illustration of workspace flexibility? #
Niklas Schöning shares the benefits of a ‘network model’ for hybrid companies (in Swedish), alongside what is now one of my favorite illustrations of what true workplace flexibility could look like for so many organizations in the near-future.
Opportunity for flex workspaces? There’s 4: hosting the office/HQ, the hubs, the 3rd spaces and the meetings.
👉 Read this.
🤭 Behind the scenes and decisions of the Common Desk acquisition #
Nick Clark and Peter Greenspan share more details around WeWork‘s acquisition of Common Desk (announced in w4/22).
An interesting look at how and why things unfolded the way they did, from the first Zoom call to the motivations for the strategic move from both sides.
👉 Read this.
👩💼 What makes a coworking space “for women”? #
Jen Luby shares a great post digging into some reasons why Dayhouse Coworking often gets described as “a coworking space for women” a lot, even though 40% of their members are male.
👉 Read this.
😳 “I’ve changed my mind about Coworking!” #
Sarah Athanas shares a story about how Simon Banks, a web developer in New Zealand, changed their mind about coworking.
In short? The community and solution they found at Mountain Club, was “more than just a workspace”.
👉 Read this.
🦋 Former NYC coworking HQ for sale… for $22.5M #
The Spaces takes a look into the former NY HQ for The Wing, which is being sold as a turn-key and fully furnished commercial space by Cushman & Wakefield. The former hospital, but pretty-darn-beautiful coworking hub, in the East Village is listed for a cool $22.5 million.
If another coworking space operator does buy it, can we host a TWIC NYC meetup there (for free)?
👉 Read this.
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💻 Coworking technology.
😲 Virtual Office platform also gets merged into “Global Marketplace” #
Following on from last week’s IWG + The Instant Group merger ‘thing‘, this week we see Davinci Virtual Office Solutions also being merged into the new entity that is being promoted as the “Global Marketplace for Flex Space”.
For folks keeping track, IWG was already a £2.1M (~$2.7M) investor in Davinci since 2016.
👉 Read this.
🎱 5 amenities coworking spaces need for the ‘metaverse’ #
Even though metaverse is only in its infancy, it is already impacting the coworking space industry by creating new hybrid physiverse/metaverse business models that allow coworking space providers to take advantage of this emerging trend.
This article explores five pieces of technology and amenities that future coworking spaces will need to plan for, in order to offer competitive metaverse services.
👉 Read this.
🇪🇸 Spanish flex work platform raises €1.1M #
Angel Serrano Ceballos shares (in Spanish) the news that zityhub have raised €1.1M to grow their team, marketing and technology.
With a number of EU-based booking platforms shrinking over the last few weeks, there’s a ripe opportunity for new booking interfaces in the demand-generation side. After all the EU says there’s over 189.7M employed workers across the continent.
👉 Read this.
🕵️♀️ Sneak peak of market research engine for planning coworking locations #
Craig Baute shares a sneak peak of DenSwap’s market research engine for property owners noting that “The old CRE metrics of office vacancy, lease rates, etc are less relevant than before. Office is now a consumer product and needs a B2C research methodology. It’s about building coworking spaces where customers are and having the right culture and layout that fits their needs. This new dashboard and tool is a big step forward.”
👉 Read this.
🤖 Platform adds AI-powered churn & engagement dashboard #
Nexudus’ suite of AI-powered tools continues to grow as they add a new “Churn & Engagement Dashboard” to their Admin Panel. Data and AI modelling are used to determine how likely a member is to renew or cancel their contract with a workspace, allowing operators to re-engage with specific members before they churn.
Given where we are as an industry, and the data that’s been collected to date, I think we’re going to start seeing some amazing new ways to turn data into actionable insights. We even dug into “data as the next superpower” in the panel I led last year.
👉 Read this.
Coworking data.
🇫🇷 Flex space demand up 23% in France #
Sarah Colwell shares that demand for flex workspace across France is up 23% in 2021.
A key takeaway from her summary is that the surge is coming from both an increase in tech startups and a growing number of large enterprises leveraging flex space in their workplace strategies.
👉 Read this.
🇧🇬 Snapshot of the 490k sqft of flex space in Sofia, Bulgaria #
Cushman & Wakefield Forton share a snapshot into the coworking sector in Sofia, Bulgaria.
They note that 2 out of 3 new tenants are seeking or interested in flex office solutions and that there is already 45,580 sqm (~490,619 sqft) of flex workspaces in the city, with another 2,500 sqm (~26,909 sqft) opening in April. Interestingly around 75% of available flex space is located outside the central regions of the cities.
Data from OfficeRnD also notes that 84% of flex space in the city (offered by customers of their management software) is private offices and of the total availability 12% are dedicated desks and 4% are hot desks.
👉 Read this.
🐒 Is CRE headed for a hard landing? #
“KBW’s estimations on office are a 30% or more drop in values with peak-to-trough declines that could top 20% to 30%. That is an average number. Some might do better, others the opposite. And the US is only 30% to 50% into the correction.”
If the numbers are right, and the valuations of office buildings drop further, is this a risk or opportunity for flex operators who rent their space?
👉 Read this.
🔼 Landlords drive supply of flex options in EMEA up 10% #
Billy Hodges shares that CBRE’s H1 2023 EMEA Flex Report is now live. They mention that the number of spaces is up 10% with more landlords looking to get involved with flex on their own or through management agreements.
👉 Read this.
👀 Analyzing Google search trends around coworking #
Researchers at CoworkingCafe analyzed Google search trends for some of the most relevant coworking-related keywords. This report provides an overview on almost two decades, as well as a deeper dive into the past 12 months’ data. Key takeaways include that ‘coworking’-related searches peaked mid-2021, over the last year peaks in search volume were seen in mid-July and that the highest ratio of related searches were made from Washington D.C.
As a huge Google trends geek myself, I’m going back to week 27–29 in 2022 to see what market moves or other news may have have been related to those peaks in search volume.
👉 Read this.
Coworking market moves.
🧾 M&A comes to the community-focussed side of coworking #
Matthew Davis shares that COhatch and Hygge Coworking are merging (I believe the former is acquiring the latter officially). The move brings Hygge’s 5 locations in Charlotte into a network including 30+ others, and the deal was initiated when Garrett Tichy reached out following a press release.
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 Merger to create 3.1M sqft flex office space provider. #
CityAM shares that The Office Group and Fora plan to merge in a bid to become “the premier flexible workspace company in the UK and Europe”.
Although the deal still needs to get regulatory approval, the merger would combine 72 locations into one portfolio. No financial terms have been announced but Olly Olsen will become exec chairman and Enrico Sanna will become CEO of merged entity. Charlie Green will become president and oversee real estate & Katrina Larkin will be chief environment, social and governance officer.
👉 Read this.
🗽 Work & retreat co opens first Manhattan location. #
Barnfox, who previously opened ‘connected community hubs’ in the Hudson Valley and the Catskills have announced their first Manhattan location and the introduction of its “Residencies Program” to help companies decentralize their workforce.
The network of “design-focused, community-driven work and retreat spaces” that bridge cities and getaway destinations has grown rapidly from 1 to four locations and launched Residencies in response to a 100+ member waitlist.
👉 Read this.
🇦🇺 Landlord + brokerage partner up to bring flex into $300M office tower #
Goldfields and JLL are partnering up to launch a new offering within a brand-new $300 million South Yarra office tower. The tower will be home to The Loft, spanning 3,243 sqm (~ 3,243 sqft) over three floors. The first floor is set to open in May.
Tashi Dorjee, JLL’s head of flex space, Australia and New Zealand, noted that demand for pre-built offices, lease flexibility and collaborative spaces is increasing in the post-pandemic workplace environment.
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 Developer appoints flex operator to run incubator & innovation space #
Morgan Pierstorff shares that 22 Bishopsgate have appointed NewFlex (an operator running 50 ‘space-as-a-service’ locations across the UK) to run the 14k sqft innovation space and incubator on the entire 7th floor of the 62-story sustainable building.
50 memberships in the space, which will be called The Exchange (or XCHG), will be reserved for small businesses with high growth potential, following an agreement with the City of London.
👉 Read this.
🎓 WMS and coworking academy partner up #
Marc Navarro shares that Flexwork Academy and Cobot have partnered up to support the coworking professionals who participate in the intensive masterclass (in Spanish).
Missed this undercurrent trend? Last week we saw OfficeRnD make a similar move to support new spaces.
👉 Read this.
🇮🇳 State gov partners up with coworking operator to support startups #
91springboard shares a partnership to support early-stage startups in Maharashtra, alongside the state government, through a virtual incubation program. Some of the support given would be access to coworking space, mentoring, legal/financial advice and more.
👉 Read this.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Jamie Russo and Giovanni Palavicini chat with Wayne Berger (CEO, The Americas at IWG) about his 8 years with the firm, and what the public flex space company is seeing and planning for next on the Coworking Everything podcast.
William Edmundson, Jerome Chang, Ashley Proctor, Shervonne Cherry, Nick LiVigne, Iris Kavanagh, Katharine Chestnut, Caroline Hecht, Bernie Mitchell, Rubin Beckner and other TWIC readers discussed last week’s biggest stories.
Iain Miln chats with Matt Giffune on the Fully Occupier podcast about the rise of flex workspaces, and how tech is improving the experience for both operators of both the spaces and the buildings
Johanna Voll joins Bernie Mitchell on the Coworking Values Podcast to dig into the latest Global Coworking Survey and why YOU should take the survey today.
Jose Antonio Morales chats with Daniar Amanaliev about building a future city for digital nomads in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on the first episode of the Visionaries series on the Coworking Values Podcast.
On the Everything Coworking podcast this week Jamie Russo dives into why coworking businesses need to focus on solving a problem customers are aware of, and why their solution need to be grounded in something customers would already be aware of.
Lucy Pugh discusses the importance of authenticity in hospitality, keeping your mind in a good place for business, and the voice of your space with Liz Elam on the GCUC Coworking podcast.
Liz Elam and Cat Johnson talk about coworking’s return to “co,” the power of community to support and create well-being, the bonkers lineup for GCUC Chicago in April and more on the Coworking Out Loud podcast.
📆 Coworking events.
👋 Discuss this newsletter. #
Mar 18: Join other readers on Clubhouse to discuss this week’s newsletter and the trends the links represent.
👉 Read this.
✅ Convo: Nailing your coworking tours #
Mar 25: How can you absolutely nail your tours and get visitors to convert to paying clients? Let’s chat about it.
👉 Read this.
🇺🇸 GCUC North America dates announced. #
May 17-19: GCUC North America returns to Seattle.
👉 Read this.
🇪🇺 Coworking Europe ’22 dates announced #
Nov 10-11: Coworking Europe, in person, in Amsterdam.
👉 Read this.
🗣️ Denver coworking owner meetup #
March 20: Denver Coworks meetup to discuss 10 small insights that give a bigger picture.
👉 Read this.
🏨 Convo: Hospitality as a service #
March 31: Service normally refers to an intangible product that is offered to members. Hospitality is an interaction and refers to the way you treat your members. How can hospitality and service be bridged to better serve our communities? Let’s chat about it.
👉 Read this.