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Coworking news & views.
π² A quick summary of what went down at The Summit. #
Last week community leaders from established and emerging coworking alliances gathered online. This video highlights 5 of the 9 topics that were discussed during the Coworking Alliance Summit.
It was so inspiring to listen to, and learn from, all these amazing community leaders. Already excited for the next one!
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π€ A reminder to take the time to be human #
Alora Daunt reminds us just how amazing it can be for people to gather around a kitchen island in a coworking space. Take their advice “take the time to be human with your people”.
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π Resource: How NOT to do Google Business Profile posts #
Darren Shaw shares a 30 page guide on how to do Google Posts the right way, and why they’re so different from social media posts.
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π₯Ί Why landlords keep expanding into flex space. #
Ben Munn from JLL shares an article by Alexander Colpaert that explains why more and more landlords keep investing into or launching their own flex brands.
In short? Ever-increasing occupier and corporation demand.
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π Co-living… and coworking… by Disney?! #
Vulture shares the news that Disney is returning to the business of building whole neighborhoods.
Returning? Yeap. Today I learned that EPCOT actually stands for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”. They also built a whole town called Celebration in Florida. So yea.
The media conglomerate have announced that they’re building a “Storyliving by Disney community” in California.
So… if there’s going to be magical homes and amenities like a clubhouse, beachfront and a shopping district… surely they’ll need somewhere to work from. Right?
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π‘ The neon sign that sparked a whole debate. #
Thilo Utke from Cobot shared a photo on LinkedIn of a neon-sign in the Mindspace location they were working from. It sparked over 27 comments from across the coworking world, including some charming responses from some social media teams.
So what did the sign say? “too many humans”
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ποΈ Are spec offices suites still viable in a modern market? #
Dave Cairns and Kane Willmott took a deep dive into comparing Spec Suites (ie fully furnished offices built by a landlord) to a ‘full-stack’ office building.
They look at how landlords are (and should probably) partner with experienced operators and tech/solution implementers to offer so much more than just a space.
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π©πͺ A look at the growing trend of “countryside coworking” #
A local coop-owned German daily newspaper dug into the growing trend of rural coworking across the country. They mention examples like Vierseithof, Coconat, cobot’s Coworking Festival, Unicorn, Blok-O (by St. Oberholz) and LUG2.
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π Neurodiversity and its reality in coworking spaces #
Founder and director of Nook Wellness Pods, David OβCoimin, spoke about the reality of neurodiversity in coworking spaces. He also provided some tips and information on how to create a more welcoming environment in coworking spaces for the neurodivergent.
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𧲠Some firms are turning flex work into hiring magnets. #
Molly Johnson-Jones shared how companies like Spotify, Patagonia, Airbnb, Buffer, Flexa, FARFETCH and Hydrogen group turned their flexwork strategies into effective foundations for hiring.
Should this trend continue (and I believe it will), these companies will want to offer drop in and longer-term spaces to their employees, whilst centrally managing overheads, payments and servicing. This is why ‘corp coworking’ platforms are red hot right now.
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π΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώ A look back to 2005, and how an idea became a hub. #
A deep-dive conversation Helga Moreno had with Claire Carpenter about a big idea that became one of the world’s first coworking hubs, The Melting Pot.
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π On connectivity, connection and the future of the office #
Huckletree’s Gabriela Hersham shares their thoughts on what’s changed for office-workers, the longevity of remote work, and what it means for office or coworking space operators and their communities.
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π» Shares down 5.5%, even with first-even profitable month #
Reuters reports on a dip in WeWork’s shares last week following the co. forecast a current-quarter revenue of around $64M less than analysts’ expectations. The lower numbers were attributed to lower headcounts at tech firms following recent layoffs affecting certain locations.
The firm did state that Dec ’22 was their first-ever month with an adjusted EBITDA profitability, and it’s worth noting that the Q4 adjusted EBITDA was negative $26M, a mere 9% of the sum from the Q4 2021.
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π What can we learn from a group of award-winning restaurants? #
Danny Meyer from Union Square Hospitality Group shares insights with Whitney Burns at Hines about the synergy between hospitality and real estate in a typed up Q&A.
I think every flex space operator should take a read and remember that “people will eventually forget what you did and said, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel”.
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β Preparing for a surge in demand. #
The GCUC team share 6 things operators need to prepare for the coming surge in demand. The short list has some great reminders for operators to think about, especially with regards to not stretching too thin, or missing opportunities (and revenues).
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π’ Some landlords are circumventing flex operators. #
Melanie Jones shares a link from bizjournals (that’s paywalled unfortunately), but did pull out a insightful quote from RJ Zurak from CBRE that mentioned that landlords who’ve got idle space sitting on the market would be “getting into the game themselves”, by leaning toward spending their tenant improvement allowances to integrate spec suites.
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π» Coworking technology.
π Management platform and aggregator celebrate integration #
OfficeRnD & Liquidspace announced a new integration this week, celebrating that it’ll become easier for spaces powered by the management platform to list their resources on the booking aggregator.
This follows news from back in week 21 of 2021 of an integration that makes OfficeRnD easily “syncable” with a growing number of other platforms and services via Syncaroo.
It can no longer be denied that aggregator and inventory databases need to be kept in sync.
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π₯ The stack landlords could use to add flex revenues into their buildings #
Miro Miroslavov from OfficeRnD and Paul Stanton from Proptech Bankers put together a (longer) read on how asset managers can leverage flexibility & tech to drive more revenue into their buildings.
Mentioned are lulafit, OfficeRnD, Valve, Syncaroo, LiquidSpace, PilotoMail, HqO, VTS Rise, Equiem, Brivo, Kisi, Sharry, SwiftConnect, essensys, IronWiFI, isofy and others. A useful list for both indie operators and landlords exploring/implementing flex if you ask me.
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πΈ 17 property firms create Β£116M proptech fund. #
Daryl Lipman shares that Knight Frank and 16 other property firms including Fifth Wall, BNP Paribas and DAMAC Properties are investing in a new Β£116M (~$157M) European-focussed property technology fund. The fund will have a London HQ and be led by Roelof Opperman and Miguel Nigorra Esteban and focus on post-seed startups (ie raising Series A and beyond).
Interesting note that the European proptech market represents 20% of all global proptech activity in 2021, including β¬3.8B of VC investments across some 200 deals.
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π Flex space pass surpasses 250 locations. #
The Hubble team shared that they’ve hit the 250 locations milestone. That’s how many locations (in the UK and Ireland) are available for team members to book through their Hubble Pass offering.
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βοΈ The office vs a hosted experience #
In a recent interview with The Urban Developer, Brad Krauskopf noted the following about the growing trend of ‘hosted offices’ as flex space is adopted by more corporations:
“A hosted experience is considered, deliberate mix of customer service, tech and amenity to make the office space a destination that people want to come to”.
I completely agree that if technology, hospitality and offerings can be packaged in a sustainable way by more operators, they can turn the expected undersupply of flex space into a hugely profitable opportunity.
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π Can you demonstrate how safe you are as a data steward? #
Envoy seems to have proven that their software security was not at fault in the Atlassian employees’ data leak (that it was actualy an Atlassian employee credentials’ that got cracked, i.e.).
As a space operator, or as a Prop Tech software vendor, what is your “Data Collective” (or “Data Space” as we will soon say more and more in the EU) strategy, with members of local communities and spaces?
Do your legal and KYC and recovery plans in case of data leak vaguely stop at GDPR’s lowest requirements (at best), or are you going further? We have a new GDPR-like and aligned Swiss law going into force September this year (nLPD). With the latest EU Parliament stance on doubling down against a “Privacy Shield 2.0”, thus reinforcing the risk on using US SaaS relying on US cloud services (e.g. using Google Analytics in Europe is already considered illegal, if you need an easy and strong example), I find this conversation so nonexistent it baffles me.
Note from Hector: I agree that this topic should be expanded on, in this week’s discussion as a first, but also with every platform and service as often as possible.
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Coworking data.
π¦ Just how many packages do coworking spaces process? #
The PackageX team share a data-driven look at the how the meteoric rise in both shipments and hybrid work are impacting how coworking spaces manage their mailrooms. The data comes from the 1.6M packages processed by their platform across 40 countries, where about 1M of those were delivered to coworking mailrooms.
It’s a fascinating data set for any space running or considering running a mail offering for full time and virtual members. Here’s some numbers that caught my attention: the average member received 41 packages in 2021, on average around 30% of packages are picked up on the same day they’re received
The average notification-to-pickup time for packages in coworking mailrooms grew from ~45 hours in Jan to ~136 hours (5.5 days) in September before dropping to ~63 hours by December.
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π Workers are choosing home over office, but lack connection. #
Pew Research Center recently expanded on the results of their recent survey. Whilst most media focussed on the fact that 61% of respondents who are working remotely said they chose not to work from the office in Jan ’22 (in comparison to 64% who said they had no choice due to office closures in Oct ’20).
However I think two other numbers paint a different picture.
First, 61% of workers who do head into the office attribute the decision to feeling more productive. And secondly whilst working from home has made it easier for 64% of workers who’ve switched to remote to balance work and personal life, a whopping 60% noted that WFH had made them feel less connected to coworkers.
That’s the whole benefit of near-home coworking hubs, in two stats. Run with it.
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π‘ 45% of coworking spaces are in the burbs. #
Roughly 45% of the coworking spaces across the country are now in the suburbs, “with 37 areas across that offer at least 10 coworking locations”, according to research by Coworking CafΓ©/Yardi, based on their data.
LA tops the list with 361 suburban locations, with Washington DC following in second with 160 coworking spaces.
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π Companies bump up spending on flex space and AI. #
Matthew Parsons at Skift reports that according to corp card and expense firm Ramp companies are spending more on coworking and less on business travel.
The report that covers $10B of aggregate spending across 13,000 businesses in Q4 of 2022, showed a 5.7% jump in office spending (making it the 5th fastest growing bucket of spend). Interestingly spending with WeWork increased 90.7% in 2022.
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π° How much does it cost to run a coworking space? #
The Skiffβs membership income over the last 7 years was Β£1,151,793.02 β you might be wondering where it all goes. Jonathan Markwell shares charts and numbers, whose primary source of income for the last 15 years has been working on software businesses.
Surprisingly the highest cost for software businesses is usually people; but thatβs not the case for coworking spaces like The Skiff. How does this compare to your expenditures?
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π Two thirds of coworking spaces reported membership growth. #
The results of the Coworking Trends Survey have been released by Deskmag.
A few notable numbers: 79% of spaces described their current situation as good or satisfactory, and in Europe that number is up 2x from the previous year. ‘Fear of the coronavirus’ topped the global list of major economic constraints (by far).
On profitability, there were more spaces making losses than profits in 2021 with small chains (2-4 locations) faring better than single-location or larger chains. The average occupancy was around 60% across the map, but Europe had more capacity blocked by pandemic regulations than North America (9% and 2% respectively).
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Coworking market moves.
π The Riveter is reborn with two co-CEOs. #
GeekWire shares the news that Amy Sterner Nelson and Heather Carter will co-lead The Riveter, as it returns to the coworking business.
Some details incase you missed them: Amy recently helped launch SaksWorks after being the founder of Riveter. Heather was a VP at Riveter, but left in 2021 to launch Coterie Works to open coworking locations in hotels. Riveter will acquire Coterie as the base of their new approach to building a network of “Riveter Spaces” in high-end hotels.
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π A Valentine’s timed rebrand #
Craig Haggerty announced the new rebrand (and logo, website and look) for Business Cube on Valentine’s day.
A quick question for the BC team, how long did it take (or is it taking) to update the brand assets for 11 locations across all online and offline spots? Anyone know? I’m honestly curious. Please let me know.
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π§Ύ CRE operator adds 18k sqft of flex in Atlanta, GA #
CP Group have shared that they’re expanding their worCPlaces flex offering via 18k sqft in One and Two Ravinia in Atlanta.
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π€ As some spaces dread zig away from picking tech, others zag #
Workbox are running an accelerator to equip, build and fund the next generation of “Future of Work” solutions. This early-stage support program for firms who could impact every coworking and flex space is a great strategic move from a firm growing rapidly and needing the best tech they can get their hands and devices onto.
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π Another owner-led space switchover, this time in North Texas #
The trend of operators being brought in to rebrand and operator spaces run previously by other brands continues. This week John Arenas shares how Serendipity Labs are being brought in by Gaedeke Group (after a competitive process) to operate a former Venture X space.
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π Coworking conversations.
Jamie Russo discusses a bunch of interesting questions from the Everything Coworking Facebook group, including join ventures for running a cafe, managing family memberships and social media accounts to follow on the group’s eponymous podcast.
π§ Listen to this.
Bernie Mitchell chats with Sonia Thompson about how inclusivity impacts marketing, how it is the future of marketing, and how cultural intelligence/awareness contributes to the impact of a brand.
π§ Listen to this.
Jenny Schaepper-Uster chats with Nico Vogt (in German) about cofounding Flesk after a decade in coworking on the Mach-dis-Ding podcast.
π§ Listen to this.
Tara Everett, Founding President of Canoe Coworking and Founder of Speak Your Truth, talks to Tash Koster-Thomas about how with inclusion and diversity, we are changing peopleβs mindsets and how they go about their daily lives.
π§ Listen to this.
Jamie Russo dives into just how much focus a coworking space should put into being unique or different.
π§ Listen to this.
Jillian Brown shares with Giovanni Palavicini and Jamie Russon how coworking and community helped her through a personal trauma, and how she now gives back to others on the Flex Uncensored podcast.
π§ Listen to this.
π Coworking events.
π Discuss this newsletter. #
Feb 25: Join other TWIC readers in discussing this weekβs newsletter, the stories shared and the trends they may represent.
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π€ Convo: Marketing tools & automations #
Feb 24: Automating your workflow can increase efficiency, productivity, and help get those mundane tasks off of your plate. What are the best tools and automations that work for coworking space operators?
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π³ London Coworking Assembly March Breakfast #
Mar 8: Flow are supporting the March London Coworking Assembly @ Town Square Old Street. Join in to discuss: Connecting with your local community; The affordable workspace program (W.T.F. is that?); Are any of the βdesk booking appsβ good for getting local people to your space?; How to attract employees from companies to your space; What helps your local community AND grows your business? and The March Coworking I.D.E.A. Project hosted by Kate Usher
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πΊ Convo: Get your website right. #
Feb 25: The next Coworking Convo dives into getting your coworking website right.
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π DEI β Beyond the Buzzwords #
Feb 27 & 28: Diversity, equity and inclusion, also known as DEI, are needed to create an empathetic, accepting and progressive working environment in our society. But how do we go beyond the buzzwords?
π Read this.