Week 12, 2022

Tushar Agarwal shares that Hubble have grown from a soft launch with 5 fractional office listings in June 2023 to 1,000 offices across 250 buildings in London now listed on their platform.

Hit the link above to see how fractional (or part-time) offices are a growing undercurrent trend that could present opportunities or threats to flex space businesses.

"A key feature of a thriving coworking space should always be to empower its surrounding community, not just those who pay to become members. Yes, it’s essential to keep the needs of your membership at the forefront of your mind when building a coworking community, but I would argue that fostering strong and wide community bonds benefits your members more than you might initially think."

Yes! Ethan Phoenix Kentish shares how flex brands should be Creating Shared Value and highlights an example of how a partnership between PLATF9RM and a local creative school benefited both of their immediate and nearby communities.

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.

Stacey Banks, a flexspace broker from FlexiOffices, shared a post that caught my eye. Well both mine and my pup’s eye. Instead of focussing on how awesome, beautiful, flexible or well located some London locations are – they focussed on the fact that Fora, LABS, x+why, and Runway East were pup-friendly.

I love seeing flexible space marketed on more levels and differentiators. Nicely done Stacey.

Wesley Edmonds, Director of Workplace at OFS, shared a summary of some conversations she led with a few Coworking Leaders including Caroline Hecht (Preferred Office Network) and Mara Hauser (Workplace Studio and 25N) and connects the dots to explain how "flex is moving from trend to tangible impact".

Tony Bacigalupo asked coworking space operators if they run any public programs designed to foster community, that others could try in their own cities.

In the 17 LinkedIn comments, community leaders from across the globe share ideas they’ve tried and feedback on how they’re going or went. Anything you’d add?

The hidden cost of proximity, without connection and community, in a coworking space is very real.

Cat Johnson explores how you end up with a lack of energy, low engagement with your members, minimal (or nonexistent) collaboration, and the overall feeling of a transactional environment.

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.)

During a renovation, the folks at Ministry of Work found a time capsule that was buried as part of the millennium celebrations in 2000, that said it should not be opened before 2050.

So they did what any coworking space operator would do, put it back under the floor, under walk-on glass with built-in lighting. Obviously. But it does look look.

Jed Morley shares an interview with Ary Krivopisk, who became the CEO at The Yard in late 2022 – after a career that spanned Bank of New York, HSBC, FSA Group and WeWork.

Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, director of digital policy at the Norwegian Consumer Council shared a viral video highlighting how terrible the ensh*itification of everything has gotten.

The video is produced by NewsLab AS, the same agency behind Visit Oslo’s also-viral "Is it even a city?" tourism ad. The purpose? A report (along with 70 consumer groups & firms across Europe and the US) into how this is impacting consumers and society at large.

Thought: As our industry grows, how do we make sure we don’t make our product (or collective brand) worse while chasing results that always go up and to the right?

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. _

Paul Dutnall shares a fascinating pattern he’s observed over his years at Work.Life around how businesses use their spaces – and explores what the real "product" of coworking may actually be.

Initially the ‘ask’ is functional. (We need X with Y and Z would be great.) But what gets them to ‘stay’ is emotional. (We feel energized here, we form better ideas, we belong…)

In the first of a 2-part series, Marc Navarro shares notes from a conversation with Carlos Gonçalves from Avila Spaces about how they stated, what they learned, and how they landed up acquiring approx. 600 virtual office clients.

Spoiler: it was combining service, great addresses, being based in office buildings and offering a great app experience.

The Deskworks team put together a piece featuring many of TWIC subscribers’ recommendations around 10 technologies that help coworking spaces build great tech stacks.

Clark Rinehart taps IT infrastructure, Kayley DiCicco touches on access control, Taylor Mason nods at community support tools, Adrian Simpson waves at camera systems, Jaime Munoz connects on IoT devices and member engagement, William Edmundson slides into digital mail, Sam Shea books in a note about aggregators and Reed Thompson centralizes it all around space management software.

Sell consistency, says Kate Tattersfield for Nexudus. In this article, she explores why reliable experiences, not amenities, are what truly differentiate coworking spaces and keeps members coming back.

Wil Irons shares a hot take on how office landlords can shift from spending $5-$20+ million on amenities, and how that can result on more profitable returns for their buildings.

One of the tips dropped is to bring in experience flex space operators, and although another is to turn unused space into spec suites, it’s a pretty interesting look at how the owner-side thinks and talks about amenities and Operating Expenses.

CorporatEdge founder Monaah M Shuklla has introduced a new term of "Offitels" to describe a workspace model that combines premium hospitality services with flexible office environments. Offitels differentiate themselves through concierge-level services, ergonomic and wellness-focused designs, customizable business solutions for various company sizes, and LEED-Platinum certified sustainable facilities.

While London has long been the global epicenter of the flexible or serviced workspace industry, it’s hard to ignore the massive growth – and creativity in branding/naming – that is coming out of India. Offitels might not roll off the tongue for some, but it joins a diverse and creative list of different terms and labels that have been applied to the concept of shared workspaces in recent years. We’ll wait and see as to how well this term takes off, but there is no denying that the variety of services CorporatEdge is offering under this brand perfectly aligns with trends we’ve been observing for quite some time.

Who do you look for? What questions do you ask? What information do you provide?

Coworks asked Alora Daunt of The Pearl Works, Karen Tait of The Residence, Matt Irvin of Cocial, and Sam Shea of FLOC (Future Leaders of Coworking) to share what works for them, what didn’t work the way they thought, and what they do now.

Plus Alora Daunt shared a downloadable guide!

Brooke Markevicius shares how long before there was Allobee (which was recently acquired by The Riveter) there was The Pod Works and how the company was "born in those four walls".

I love that the post also notes that folks should support their local independent coworking spaces.

A private foundation (NC IDEA) that is committed to supporting entrepreneurial ambition and economic empowerment in North Carolina, announced that the organization has awarded eighteen NC IDEA ECOSYSTEM grants to partners and eleven Rural Impact grants to companies across the state totaling $1.7 million in funding.

Congrats to all grant awardees including coworking/flex brands Blush Cowork, The Wright Village, Winston Starts, UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Hatch AVL Foundation.

You’re probably already a connector of your members, and their networks, to the best bits of your neighborhood. EqualSpace‘s Citi Medina shares how they’ve turned those smiley recommendations into an interactive platform that guides folks about where to eat, stay and play in and around Newark, New Jersey.

Cat Johnson shares a short, but important, tip for emerging flex space consultants or experts: join a space, and go every day.

As someone who worked from many coworking communities, launched my own, helped others launch theirs, and then worked alongside the teams running over 1000 other spaces, I completely agree. Nicely said Cat!

Cobot share tips from branding strategist Petra Bijvoet around why social media should start with clear identity, not just content ideas, along with a simple exercise to help clarify your positioning.

Burbity Workspaces shared a Reel that seems to have impressed a number of other operators and local business leaders.

Emilie Lashmar shares her takeaways from the panel at ARC Club‘s Tottenham launch event.

In short: communities aren’t programmed into existence, empty ground floors are an opportunity for those willing to make it work, flex isn’t a nice-to-have anymore and a few more great points.

Abigail Schilling shares how when coworking space operator react instead of prioritizing, things get messy and time gets wasted. In the piece 3 major time wasters are highlight (spoiler: they are ‘urgency’, ’24/7 availability’ and ‘low-ROI events’) and how to systematically eliminate them from your business.

Back in Week 27, 2025 we explored how Brian Distelburger believed a gym in NYC was the next unicorn factory.

This week we saw a report by Will Zimmerman for NYNext, into how the Flatiron location of Chelsea Piers Fitness has become an unlikely de facto office for some of the city’s most notable young tech entrepreneurs.

Trend: Gen Z and the future of workspaces.