What if your WiFi network could tell you exactly how, who, what and when members used your space, and help improve your bottom line?
Our upcoming new product capability coming soon to essensys Platform does just that!
This new dashboard turns high-resolution, high-fidelity occupancy data into insights to help drive your flex space business.
Intelligence Engine helps you make strategic decisions with confidence to drive occupancy and yield, while reducing operational costs.
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✊ Coworking impact.
🇨🇦 How a 3-person business found sustainable solutions #
The BDC shared the story of how Mark Eaton and the other 2 team members from Alberta-based The Corner Coworking made several changes across their four buildings to lessen their environmental footprint.
Nicely done! If they go further than just energy efficiency, what’s stopping you?
👉 Read this.
📰 Coworking news & views.
🤘 Where the giants trip, the indies thrive. #
Katharine Chestnut shares how independent coworking spaces have built-in advantages for individuals and business, especially when compared to national or global brands.
As the founder of a quirky indie coworking community called Alkaloid Networks, Katharine shares how indie spaces can cultivate unique work cultures, provide economical and sustainable solutions as well as highlighting a new era of workspace benefits.
👉 Read this.
🔮 Is the future of workspace all about brand-led hospitality? #
Sofia Stolberg from PilotoMail penned a fantastic piece in Forbes EQ about how some coworking and flex space brands (and people) are kicking butt with their branding, and how it could drive the hospitality-driven future of work.
Also featured in the piece are Arian Lewis (Kiln), Sibila Lantzy (Shift Workspaces), Liz Elam (GCUC), Jamie Hodari (Industrious), Brad Krauskopf (Hub Australia), and Caleb Parker (Brave Corp).
👉 Read this.
🤩 What are this US firm’s 4 biggest topics in CRE? #
The US team at Avison Young shared their take on "the hottest topics in commercial real estate". What are they?
Well at number 1, "Coworking’s asset-light resurgence" (by Michael Kloppenburg, Jillian Brown and Brock Tupper), followed by topics on Neurodiversity, the flight to debt-free landlords and commuting across the nation.
👉 Read this.
🥇 The top remote team employee benefit? Coworking! #
The team at Kiln share why more remote teams are turning to coworking a the perfect work-from-anywhere solution.
The benefits they highlight revolve around networking, ambience, professionalism, collaboration and fulfillment. Great to see how coworking (and this brand) is being positioned to serve the growing number of fully-remote businesses.
👉 Read this.
🤔 “If I was running asset management at a CRE firm…” #
Christoph Fahle from One Coworking shares what he’d do if he was running asset management at a top tier commercial real estate firm.
In short: flex/coworking as essential amenities, integrate these offerings across all buildings, establish own coworking brand, build scalable fit-out process, prioritize tenant experience, and recruit top talent from the industry to move faster.
In the comments I did mention that we’re already seeing a bunch of asset managers and landlords doing just this, some even acquiring or acquihiring existing experienced operators.
👉 Read this.
⛔️ Ever dreamed of turning new members away? #
Neither had Alanna Imbach. But last week’s internet outage put the Vibe Coworks team (Amber Sallay and Andreina Ramirez), space and WiFi to the test, seeing record numbers of locals pouring in to use their space – so much so that they had to unfortunately turn people away.
Great to see the coworking space spring into action and become a "nexus of community camaraderie". Nicely done, I hope those who got turned away pop back to visit when it’s not so hectic.
👉 Read this.
💶 Opportunities and challenges for European flex spaces #
Anna Andreen from essensys sat down with Gaël Montassier, Co-founder/Director of Strategy and Innovation at Startway Coworking & Innovation Centers, to discuss the future of flexible workspace in Europe.
They discussed opportunities (servicing enterprises, SMEs and individuals), challenges (educating enterprise tenants, negotiating with property owners and positioning the value prop), where flex sits in CRE’s future, near-future predictions (economic and geopolitical uncertainty and needing to adapt).
👉 Read this.
🧐 Sure, your space CAN run without PM. But will it last? #
Abigail Schilling from Space Savvy Studio shares a well-written note to space owners and operating teams who don’t think of their own time as a resource – and why a project management tools are critical for running a coworking space, sustainably.
👉 Read this.
🥊 Not everyone in coworking is collaborative #
Eddie Whittingham shares how when he started building the Ministry of Work, a competitor came by and belittled them.
Glad to hear that the space is now almost full and that the comments didn’t dissuade a company builder from launching a community-focussed space.
👉 Read this.
💭 Some insights from the FlexSA 2024 event #
Jack Kelly from Office Ready Tech summarized some key takeaways from the recent Flexible Space Association‘s annual conference.
👉 Read this.
📖 New terminology: T3P #
Jeff Warner from UltraSoftBIS seems to have coined the shorthand "T3P" when writing about third places (which traditionally includes places such as local coffee shops, libraries, parks, and community centers), and where coworking already, or can, fit into the concept for many remote workers.
It’s not a shorthand I’ve seen before. Even a quick search returns results about chemical compounds I wouldn’t even try to pronounce. What do you think, good addition to our collective terms?
👉 Read this.
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💻 Coworking technology.
💬 You can now chat with your sensor data. #
Izzy Cannell shares the intro video for VergeSense’s Workplace Assistant, their AI-powered chat bot that helps analyze and visualize team data, gets answers to nuanced questions and recommends actionable next steps.
There are going to be more and more AI-driven systems for workspace ops teams, that turn point-and-click interfaces into interactive ones using natural language inputs via text, audio and/or video. I’ll keep you in the loop.
👉 Read this.
📲 Curated space booking platform expands to Belgium #
Lemona share that they’ve now expanded to Belgium with the addition of TOPOS Parliament availability on their platform.
👉 Read this.
🤖 Yes, chat bots can (finally) book desk space #
Remember when I said that ‘how’ people will interact with physical spaces for the next generation will look nothing like it did for ours or previous generations? This video from Dan Bladen shows how Kadence‘s chat bot in Microsoft Teams can check who’s in a company’s specific office, and book a desk near a colleague, all without searching, clicking or toggling apps.
Expect more of this from platforms across the HR, team communication, workspace aggregator, and brokerage sectors. As they make booking flows faster and faster, we can confidently expect overall booking volume to grow too.
👉 Read this.
📈 Coworking data.
🇺🇸 US surpasses 5k coworking spaces, and other stats #
The Spacebring team share some key facts and figures about the US coworking industry.
Key stats include that the US has 20% share of global coworking spaces, 45% of global coworking users. The piece also highlights some local trends around community, corporate coworking, sustainability, distributed workforces, nichification, growth vs competition, the ‘burbs, and wellness.
👉 Read this.
🤝 Coworking market moves.
🇪🇪 Workland announces 6th local coworking space #
Workland Offices is opening their sixth coworking center in Tallinn in September.
👉 Read this.
🔬 Biotech coworking provider lands $14.5M in funding #
Sainul Abudheen K reports that NSG BioLabs have partnered with Enterprise Singapore and Merck to bolster the biotech landscape by providing funding, expertise and networks to startups.
The firm, that offers shared office and lab space in Singapore, also completed a $14.5M financing round led by private equity firm Celadon Partners, with participation from ClavystBio (part of Temasek).
👉 Read this.
🚗 Roam announces 9th location, featuring a drive-thru #
Atlanta-based Roam announced their 9th location will launch in Peachtree Corners in 2025. It will be their first free-standing workspace, with a new coffee concept (including a drive-thru).
👉 Read this.
🇨🇦 iQ dives deep into premium offerings at 302 Bay #
Daragh Stephen Gregg shares iQ Offices‘ plans for all 14 floors of the 302 Bay building in Toronto (including the rooftop), including the option for teams to grab full-floor workspaces that can be customized.
👉 Read this.
🇬🇧 Local council wins £370k to kickstart flex space #
Keith Grimley shares that the Gravesham Borough Council have won £370,000 of Getting Building Fund to stimulate investment into a 8.5k sqft local digital and creative flex space destination.
Oh yea. The council is currently looking for experienced operators to run the space. Go go go!
👉 Read this.
🗽 Another VC pops open a shared workspace #
Nicholas Chirls from Notation Capital shared a whatever-we’re-calling-a-tweet-now inviting local founders in Brooklyn to come over and cowork or hang out in their office in Williamsburg (Brooklyn).
Always interesting to see how different startup investors are playing with the idea of opening up shared space (and how they’re doing it in a way that doesn’t create a whole new set of headaches).
👉 Read this.
👩💻 Are data centers the next big CRE play? #
Tishman Speyer are moving into the data center market with a 75k sqm campus planned in Frankfurt, Germany.
I’ve actually been following an undercurrent trend of who’s moving into the data centers business, knowing that these buildings take up loads of space and how big factors like latency, physical access and network proximity will become for AI and AI-powered platforms. Expect more data centers, closer to growing AI hubs. There’s a play here for coworking and flex space… calling it.
👉 Read this.
🍁 Growing operators adds 4th location in Spokane #
Burbity Workspaces announced their 4th location will be opening in Downtown Spokane (in Washington) on June 3rd.
👉 Read this.
🇺🇸 Greensboro coworking operator acquired #
THRIVE | Coworking share that they’ve acquired transform GSO (an indie operator, previously known as HQ Greensboro, with 2 locations in the city) and that it will still be led by co-founders Ken Causey and Andy Zimmerman.
👉 Read this.
🇩🇪 SleevesUp! expands to Heidelberg #
SleevesUp! shared (link in German) that they’re expanding to Heidelberg.
👉 Read this.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Jeannine van der Linden chats with Suzanne Murdock on the Powering Productivity podcast about de Kamer, Open Coworking, the European Coworking Assembly and conscious choices & inclusivity within the workplace.
Brett Heeman, discusses the story behind Cowork Collective in Monett, Missouri with Nick McMillen on the inaugural episode of Deskie‘s Coworking Clarity podcast.
Chauntelle Lewis chats with Tony Bacigalupo about her inspiring journey from conceptualising sustainable garden workshops to creating community-centric dining experiences on this Belongfulness Project episode of the Coworking Values Podcast.
Tashi Dorjee from JLL shares how THEY define the difference between "coworking" and "flex" for operators, brokers and end-customers – and why they sometimes overlap.
Liz Elam chats with Cat Johnson on the GCUC Podcast about the inspiration behind her "The Daily Co" book, morning rituals, and deep insights on community and coworking.
📆 Coworking events.
💬 FlexWorld 2024 #
FlexWorld returns for their 2024 series. Speakers have now been announced and outside of the awesome OfficeRnD team, you’ll hear from Alexandra Livesey (Clockwise), Jonny Rosenblatt (Spacemade), Jamie Russo (Everything Coworking), Anna Levine (Industrious), Kenny Kane (Firmspace), and Tríona O’ Neill (Serendipity Labs).
👉 Read this.
🛑 Back to the Basics: Interrupting Unconscious Bias #
The idea that we can be unbiased, or bias-free, is a nice idea but it’s not reality. What we CAN do is become more aware of our biases and then work to interrupt them. This workshop (click ‘join the conversation’ on the Coworking IDEA challenge page) will help you get started on, or perhaps refresh your commitment to, interrupting your unconscious bias.
👉 Read this.
🌸 What’s new at Spacebring #
Join Spacebring for a live webinar where we’ll showcase innovative solutions released in the first half of 2024, designed to streamline your coworking space operations and enhance your customer experience.
👉 Read this.
