🗞 The Video Summary
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🎉 Coworking celebrations.
🇬🇧 Org secures £1M to help people set up coworking spaces.
Gareth Jones shares that CoworkLocal have secured £1m from the Community Renewal Fund to help people set up coworking spaces in their communities.
They note that the majority of that cash is going direct to locally-owned venues like sports clubs, community centres, pubs and empty shops.
👉 Read this.
✊ Coworking impact.
🌍 Global coworking platforms cooperate to support communities within Ukraine
Since day 1 of the war in Ukraine, local coworking spaces have mobilized to support and protect their communities and those fleeing bloodshed in other regions.
The #withinUkraine campaign brings together coworking booking platforms from around the world to raise contributions and funds directly for those operating teams and their communities.
This expands on the list of direct-purchase links used to support these spaces I shared last week, by making it super-easy for more people to contribute via Upflex, PopDesk, an NFT from Flow and hopefully more platforms soon.
👉 Read this.
😶 There are 5 other major conflicts happening right now
Agnes Coutou reminds us that there are 5 other conflicts and humanitarian crises happening across the globe right now.
From Ethiopia to Afghanistan, from Yemen to the DRC, and in Somalia, I hope we’ll see coworking communities in and around these regions mobilizing to support those in need.
👉 Read this.
Coworking news & views.
👩💻 Coworking could rewrite the future for women forced out of the workforce.
Alanna Imbach from Vibe Coworks shares that systemic inequity has forced women out of the workforce in droves, but that coworking can help bring them back.
The piece starts by asking what can be done about the fact that women in our communities are beyond the breaking point. They then start that the answer may lie, in part, in the key role that coworking spaces play in bringing together a critical density of minds, talent, resources, flexibility, and peer support needed to sustain all of us in daring to do differently.
👉 Read this.
🧐 How NFTs could benefit coworking businesses.
There’s been almost $25 billion in NFT sales in 2021 alone. This post dives into 5 ways coworking spaces could leverage NFTs to their advantage.
Ideas explored are membership tokens, loyalty rewards, raising funding and new marketing strategies, and a (different kind of) hybrid business model.
(Pssst, Flow just released 10000 NFTs to raise $1M for coworking spaces in Ukraine, learn more under this week’s Impact category.)
👉 Read this.
📦 A look into a rapidly growing co-warehousing brand
Maxwell Bonnie shares how Atlanta-based Saltbox is growing to help e-commerce businesses get more flexibility through a national logistics network, affordable office space, on-demand loading/shipping labor, and other amenities and support.
ICYMI: Saltbox announced that they’d raised a further $128M on March 8th.
👉 Read this.
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💻 Coworking technology.
🆕 New booking platform for employees launches with $15M
anywell have come out of stealth with $15M in funding and bookable spaces in New York and Isreal. The platform helps employers let their teams find and work from inspiring spaces in their local communities.
Their CEO, Gadi Royz shared that “after two years of working from home, employees want the freedom to work from anywhere”. Alongside having employers pick up the bill, the platform also guarantees on-site business amenities (think printers, tech kits, meal plans).
The funding is spread across two rounds ($5M and then $10M) and will be used to expand to major cities worldwide. In case you were wondering how the 200 or so cafes and coworking operators already working with them get paid, ‘hosts’ are paid by the hour.
👉 Read this.
🧐 Think there’s too many booking platforms? This is why.
In a recent tweet, Haley Bohon asked “When do we get an Airbnb for office space?”.
In short, and as I mentioned in a recent podcast on this topic, the majority of next 5 million people who are looking to find & book flexible workspace (often for the first time ever) have never ever ever heard of any of the booking platforms you or I may know of.
👉 Read this.
📱 Flex operator introduces new mobile app
Industrious have just introduced their own member mobile app on iOS and Android. With it, members can reserve desks and meeting rooms and engage with upcoming events.
I do wonder a few things, a) did they not have a mobile/member app till now and b) was any of the tech they acquired used in this release?
👉 Read this.
Coworking data.
🧐 The average day of 1000 Americans (in 2015)
As a data geek, this simulated view of the average day in the life of Americans blew my frigging mind. In it, you can watch what the percentage of the 1000 people tracked are sleeping, working, traveling, doing household care, and other activities at each time of the day.
Now the data is from 2015, but it makes me wonder how much this has changed so far, and what it may look like in 2025.
👉 Read this.
🚀 The rise of the 3rd place
Steve King summarizes an academic study on the future of work. It includes a graph that highlights that in November 2021, 11.8% of reported worked hours were from a third-place as compared to 31.2% WFH and 57% from the office.
👉 Read this.
Coworking market moves.
🇬🇧 DeskLodge announces new Bristol location
Tom Ball shares that DeskLodge have leased the whole base of the Beacon Tower in the heart of Bristol.
The 18,000 sqft space will include seven work zones, social space and a 5,000 sqft roof garden.
👉 Read this.
🇪🇸 New location in Barcelona 90% full, 2+ months before opening.
Ben Nachoom shares that OneCoWork are opening a new location on Portal Del Ángel in central Barcelona.
The post is a bit light on details, but does share that the location is already 90% filled with 2.5 months till opening. This could highlight the demand for flex in Barcelona.
👉 Read this.
🇭🇰 New partnership brings 17k sqft space to Hong Kong
Kingsley Yu shares that real estate firm Chinachem Group and coworking space operator the Hive Hong Kong have launched a new 17,000sqft space through a partnership.
Some interesting insights from the story are that the group is funding the entire project investment, renovation work, as well as operating expenses of the space, and the operator (who run 21 locations across 7 countries in the Asia Pacific) will manage the day-to-day operations of the business and provide members with access to their other locations.
👉 Read this.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Liz Elam and Patrice Cameau from CAMPspace talk about the importance of business vertical integration, finding the blessings in everything, and taking a moment to pull yourself out of the weeds.
Jamie Russo chats with Brian Watson, ex-Proximity and now at Alt Space, about his thesis on how to make small-town coworking work by using automation to build the first sustainable rural coworking brand.
Bernie Mitchell and Kate Usher chat about how menopause has been the butt of jokes for so long with little understanding of what menopause is, and how this stereotype is hurting the opportunities women all over the world.
📆 Coworking events.
✅ 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.