Bernie J Mitchell

How do you help your coworking community members best? One of the most valuable things you can do for the people in your coworking space, Makerspace, Flexible Workspace, or Neighbourhood Workspace—however you are ‘self-identifying’ this week—is to connect with them.  You must be genuinely curious about other human beings, actively listening to them and asking […]

How do you practise the coworking value accessibility in your coworking space?  Many people think you have to redesign your coworking space, and it costs millions of pounds.  But Dom, from the Purple Goat Agency, who was on our London Coworking Assembly panel at the Workspace Design Show London panel last month, explained it like this.  When you do a few […]

So, what is the coworking value of collaboration?  The easiest way to think about it is collaboration over competition.  The other way to think about it is what we can do together that we cannot achieve alone.  In a coworking environment, collaboration saves time, money, and energy.  Do this by running a coworking space where […]

What do people outside our coworking community bubble understand by the word coworking?  Most regular human beings need to learn what a coworking space means; as an industry, we have a lot of audience education to do.  When I say coworking, I also mean shared workspace, neighbourhood space, community workspace and all those good terms. […]

How can you connect with people from your local community and invite them to your coworking space, shared workspace, or whatever you want to call it?  (That’s where you say neighbourhood space!) I visited the Urban MBA coworking space by Old Street in London this week.  Ali Kakande founded a project in lockdown called Carib Eats, which invites older […]

Have you got a collaborative habit?  That is a book by Twyla Tharp, who’s a world-renowned choreographer.  Twyla talks about all the projects she’s worked on, includingcollaborations with Billy Joel, Jerome Robbins, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, David Byrne, Richard Avedon, Milos Forman, Norma Kamali, and Frank Sinatra. They are successful, and they all […]

What is truly unique about your coworking space that you are scared to share? So, can you imagine how mind-numbingly dull it is to look through websites or coworking spaces when you want to find somewhere to work?  Because they all say things like:  -Free WiFi! (Which is like boasting you have a bathroom!) -Innovation! […]

How Can Your Choice of Words Set Your Coworking Space Apart? In a world of devastatingly bland business jargon, the way to disappear is to use the exact words as everyone else because you think they make you look like a grown-up business person. You’ve seen those websites that boast about “great customer service” or […]

What is community manager burnout?  It sounds dramatic. But it is accurate.  I’ve burnt out working in events, catering and community management.  Like burnout in the events and catering industry, there is much giving and giving mentally and physically without much training or guidance.  We are ‘enthusiastic and great with people’, so we are let […]

What is the relationship between coworking and hospitality?  Because I’ve heard this a lot lately, it was a constant topic of conversation at the Workspace Design Show London. But when you say coworking and hospitality, it doesn’t mean you’re suddenly running a restaurant, which is how people interpret it. I worked in hospitality and catering for […]

How do you create connections between people in your coworking space without being a bit creepy?  I say creepy because there’s a difference between customer acquisition and me joining your coworking space.  You’d be mad not to use technology to help you do things, but if you do it in a very processed, automated way, […]

How can your coworking space change the world? So today’s question is, who are you inviting to your coworking space? There’s a big difference between an invitation and an announcement. An announcement is when you say: “Hi, my coworking space is open!” And you send that with the intention of thinking, everybody’s welcome! But then […]

Why is getting together with others who run a coworking space so important?  It’s because you don’t have much time for everything, including running the space, keeping members happy, and maintaining software and stuff like that.  You only get a little time to talk about what you’re doing, where you’re going, what’s happening, and what […]

What do you mean by “growth and scale” when you talk about your business?  I brought this up today because I was talking to someone about their coworking space and what they want to do with it.  They said, “I want to grow and scale, of course!” After 15 minutes of conversation, I find out […]

I always like to wait until the wheels come off the car or the sick is chimping, and then someone has to come and pull me from the clutches of death at the last moment. That is a lousy way to run your life and business. I realised the negative effect that had on people […]