🎉 Coworking celebrations.
🎂 Kernville Cowork turned 5! #
Congrats Justin Powers and the Kernville community on the half-decade milestone.
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Coworking news & views.
🐥 How suburban coworking supports working caregivers #
Great to see content from Workbar highlighting 3 ways in which their suburban hubs empower caregivers who are grappling with the chaos that is childcare.
From flexible and supportive environments, to collab opportunities, and the reduced commuting and stress – there’s a tonne of benefits – and more spaces should highlight these in their messaging.
Free pro-tip for spaces servicing working parents? Look into hiring babysitters during school holidays.
🚨 New taxonomy: Work clubs #
In this post Dave Cairns looks at why they believe "work clubs" will become the most common workspaces besides the home. It’s an interesting look at how (and why) more relaxed and social third spaces may be growing in popularity.
I don’t believe these kinds of spaces are necessarily alternatives or competitors to great coworking spaces, but the term and positioning may be a great new opportunity for those who own it and make the space + experience worth a premium or possibly corporate membership.
🎯 Where to market virtual mailboxes #
Virtual mail offerings are driving huge revenues for many operators, and have consistently done so even through the pandemic. But how do potential spaces find you? Rose Rivera from PilotoMail digs into 5 ways coworking spaces can market virtual mailboxes.
Examples are shared for social media, content marketing, email campaigns, referrals and SEO.
⛔️ No more GBP listings for virtual office customers #
Google updated its Google Business Profile (GBP) listings policy to provide more clarity to its terms for coworking space owners and virtual offices. Google wants what we all want – HAPPY CUSTOMERS!
ICYMI: In 2021 Google updated their policy on signage/access requirements to add a business listing based within a coworking space. From what I can see they’ve now clarified this on their guidelines document and included a clause blocking virtual office customers from creating map listings. From a quick search this has always been their policy, it’s just going to be enforced more moving forward.
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💻 Coworking technology.
🐘 Addressing the elephant in the room when it comes to AI #
In this Syncaroo post I take a moment to re-introduce what tech exactly makes up the AI frenzy that’s changing industries overnight, how I’m seeing it impact flex and coworking space businesses and some questions you and your team should address before diving deeper into AI tools and features.
In summary: I break down ML, LLMs, NLPs, ChatGPT, look at AI use-cases for generative, summarization, procurement, efficiency and operations and share 4 sets of (what I believe are) critical questions to make your implementations more successful and secure.
📲 Booking platform expands part-time office product to all #
Tushar Agarwal shares that Hubble’s Part-Time Offices produce is shifting from pilot mode to general availability. This means that any of their customers can now book 500+ part time offices. Interesting to see/hear some of the numbers from the 3-month pilot: 1 company with 50 employees saving £160k per year and almost 1k businesses applying for access.
Whilst some platforms diving into fractional offices are doing so directly via subleases and landlord partnerships, Hubble seem to be predominantly expanding their existing partnerships with coworking and flex space providers on their offering.
🤖 CRE firm introduces their own GPT AI engine #
JLL share that they’ve unveiled the ‘first GPT model’ for commercial real estate. The tool isn’t built for end-users or the public, but actually designed to help their employees provide better support and options faster.
Now I’m not sure it is actually the first GPT model in CRE (or even flex), but it does highlight a few cool things. Data that was buried away for decades will now be turned into powerful tools, connected with live and other enriched data it could be the next big shift in CRE tech. Also, watch this space – I’m damn sure we’ll be seeing even more engines and tools from all the data-driven brokerages, advisories, brands and platforms.
Coworking data.
🇬🇧 Average UK private desk rate up 15% #
Workthere shared their UK H1 2023 flex office snapshot. In it they share that the average monthly cost per private desk hit £602 (~$767), up 15% from H1 2022. The average duration of agreements is also 12.3 months.
Interestingly they attribute the increase in desk rates in both growing demand, and a lack of ‘good quality’ supply.
Coworking market moves.
🗽 A few more NYC residential buildings that now also offer coworking #
NYPost takes a look at the undercurrent trend of residential buildings adding coworking space into their product mix.
The story shares how some residential buildings in New York have added workspaces to support remote working residents. Examples from across New York City include Astoria West offering 3k+ sqft of workspace, One Wall Street’s 6.5k sqft One Works, Hudson Yard’s 44th floor The Set, free cocktails and snacks at Anagram Columbus Circle’s built-in workspace.
🐪 Texas-based brand continues expansion into Phoenix #
John Egan shares that Lucid Private Offices (pka WorkSuites) have continue to expand out Texas with their newest location opening on Camelback Road in Phoenix, Arizona. The 26,910 sqft leased space will be based in a building owned and developed by Hines and Invesco Real Estate, and is expected to open in March 2024.
🐝 Brand launches in Manchester, UK #
Marc Brough teases that the 8th Cubo hub will be launching in Manchester.
🎙 Coworking conversations.
Jose Antonio Morales chats with Nikki Parks from Campfire Coworks and Jazmin Gorski from Bonfire about creating community-driven coworking buzz from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, on the Visionaries series of the Coworking Values Podcast.
Frank Cottle chats with Cat Johnson all about brand communities, addressing isolation, content marketing and tech’s impact on the industry on the Future of Work podcast.
John Arenas discusses the tipping point in demand for flex (from both end-users and landlords) with Giovanni Palavicini and Jamie Russo on the Flex Uncensored podcast.
📆 Coworking events.
🗓 Event ideas & strategies #
August 25: Coworking was never just about desks and wifi. It’s about community and basking in togetherness. What better way to do that than events? But how many times have you gone through the painstaking effort of planning, buying all of the things, and then..nothing? Maybe a trickle of people show, but definitely not the masses like you had envisioned. How do you go approach event planning and execution in a way that keeps your members engaged and wanting more? Let’s chat about it.
