🎉 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.
Get future weekly summaries in your inbox.
✊ Coworking impact.
Coworking news & views.
📉 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.
👩💼 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.
Share This Week's Summary
💻 Coworking technology.
🇪🇸 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.
🐒 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.
🎓 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.
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.
🗣️ 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.