Bernie J Mitchell

Engaging People in coworking since 2010

coworking

The Best Coworking Space Management Software: Nexudus vs Cobot vs OfficeRnD

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Coworking is becoming increasingly popular, and for good reason. It offers all the social and productivity benefits of working from your own office, but without the stress, overheads and long contracts. 

Sign-me up! 

It’s been a couple of months since COVID entered our lives and changed them forever. And while many coworking spaces around the world have had to close their doors for a while, it’s become very clear that the community element that they foster is more important than ever. 

Technology to support coworking spaces in their management and growth is going to become more important than ever.

But where do you start? 

In this blog I’ve decided to dig deep into three of the best and most popular coworking space management softwares in the UK: Nexudus, Cobot and OfficeRnD. 

But while coworking is my game, I’m not so hot on the tech. But I know it’s a really important aspect of strengthening and growing your community. That’s why I’ve called in a few favours and roped in some industry experts in order to help you get a real understanding of what things you need to consider when looking at coworking software. 

The experts who so graciously let me pick their brains for this blog are: 

Shabad from coworktech by techsapiens

Fiona Ross from Pink Scottie Connect with Fiona on LinkedIn 

Hector Kolonas the workspace technologist behind included.co & Syncaroo

I’ll admit, when I first started writing this blog I thought it would simply be a case of comparing the different coworking software features. But through speaking to these experts, I’ve come to discover that the process of choosing a software for your coworking space is so much more nuanced and complex than this – more on that later. 

Plus, I’ve spoken to the three companies I’m comparing, who have been very kind and allowed me to pick their brains so we are accurately representing the software. I spoke to:

While I’ve done my best to remain unbiased, there might be opinions in this blog that represents the experts and the software companies themselves. But, the overall goal is to help you decide which software is best for you. 

And the answer to that, and the reasons for that, will be different for every single coworking space. So this blog will not give a definitive ‘best’ coworking software answer – because they are all great in their own way. But rather I’ll try and help you discover how to pick the best one for you.

Why should you switch your coworking space to software?

So, before we begin you might be thinking:

‘Bernie, I already have a bunch of spreadsheets and sign up sheets to manage my space, why would I need software”. 

And listen, I get it! 

Way back when, I used to run a coworking space and we had the exact same reservations. The last thing you need is for something else to be stealing your precious time away from your community and its members. You’ve already got enough pulling you in a million different directions. 

But, Sam from Cobot put it perfectly: 

“People worry software will make them lose time and an element of personalisation, but it really gives you more time to spend in the community”

Implementing the right software will help free up more of your time. 

It is a good idea to understand what you want to get from your software before you start looking.

Do you want to:

  • Save time?
  • Save money?
  • Grow your space?
  • Increase the analytics?

A good space management software will help you manage your time and automate the boring, routine processes that don’t need to take up the time of a human. This will allow you to do more of the things you actually enjoy, and that really matters when it comes to growing and strengthening your coworking community. 

What to consider BEFORE you implement coworking space management software…

I bet the first thing you’ll do if you are looking at coworking software is go and dig into all the different features. 

It makes sense. You want to know what the software can and can’t do. And it’s exactly where I thought most people would start. 

But thanks to the experts, I got a little more insight into what you might need to think of before you go drilling into software features.

  1. Understand what features your coworking space needs
  2. Understand what integrations you need for your coworking space

#1 Understand what features your coworking space needs…

One of the emerging themes from all of our experts was that BEFORE you start to look at software you need to know what features you need, you need to have a really good understanding of how your business runs, and what criteria you have. 

In the words of Hector: “Don’t let your software define your space”

If you go straight to the software you will get overwhelmed with all the options and get analysis paralysis. Start with what you need, then you can work out from there.

Hector suggest that you need to know these three things before you start looking for software:

  1. What is your business model (ie. private office, sublet, leases). 
  2. How do you want to handle payments?
  3. What do you want your member experience to be? Ie. hands off, they only get an email with an invoice or do you want an immersed experience with member portals etc.

It’s very likely that all three softwares will offer many more features that you will use. You need to decide what is a must have and what is a nice to have. 

But you only know what you know! 

Fiona suggests that coworking spaces should be open and flexible to different software options if they are using someone to implement it. She says:

“Don’t go in with a rigid idea of what you want. Let them get to know your coworking space, and what is important to you – they will then be able to help you select a coworking software around this”.

Monika from Nexudus echoes this sentiment: she suggests that if you are established, you probably have a list of what you need, and if you are not then you should take advice from the experts and try to not over-complicate things. 

Chil from OfficeRnD adds that making sure that the software you choose has enough (and the right) features for your needs is important, but it’s equally important to understand how the vendor can support you during the onboarding process. Coworking Softwares are very complex and unless you have the proper support in learning how to best take advantage of them, you’ll never reach the automation/productivity that the available myriad of features promise you.

So, basically I guess what they are all saying is figure out what you NEED before you start looking for software. Brainstorm with all the relevant parties in your coworking team so you get a comprehensive view of what is necessary to make the space more seamless – you might not be the only one with insider knowledge and a couple of perspectives always helps. 

OfficeRnD has also compiled this great resource to help you choose the best coworking software for your space, and takes you through everything you need to consider.

#2 Understand what integrations you need for your coworking space

It’s easy to identify features of each and to see what they ARE capable of. But they need to be properly integrated in order for them to work properly within the coworking ecosystem. Shabad says: 

“Software is the part that sits in the middle of the customer and all the other elements”

It’s an essential element and if you don’t get it right then it might cause you problems later on. 

Not all integrations are created equal, and not all software will be able to accommodate the same integrations and this is something you might not figure out until later down the track on implementation. For example, with COVID, you might be looking to run more online community events – can the software integrate with zoom (or a similar platform) to allow you to run virtual events seamlessly?

You’ll need to think of all the different software that you might need or want to integrate with and ascertain whether your coworking software can integrate with it or not. 

Hector has created this amazing and interactive integrations map to help you understand how workspace software integrates with each other.

It’s important to remember that all three software options might be a good option. But you first need to work out what you need, and what you can live without. Equally important is ensuring that all the pieces of your coworking ecosystem fit together – does the software integrate with what you need it to, or is it going to cause you a headache further down the line.

There are so many features and integrations possible with software that if you aren’t sure what you are looking for you might not get the most out of it. If you are investing money in software (which you likely will be), you want to make sure you get the most out of your system – and choosing the right software is part of that process. 

If not you will end up spending money on something and not using it to its full potential – which might lead you to being unhappy with it and not getting as much out of it as you should. 

This is why I think it’s a really good idea to contact a consultant who can help you evaluate your coworking space and choose the right software for your coworking space. One that suits your needs and your space as a whole. 

You can contact any of the experts from this blog post for help with this:

Overview of Cobot vs Nexudus vs OfficeRnD

Okay, so I know I said features aren’t the most important thing, but they are still important. You just want to start looking at them once you know what you NEED.

It’s likely that all of these will have more than you need. But it’s still important to find out what they can (and potentially can’t) do so that you can see if they are right for you. I’ve listed the three softwares in alphabetical order, for fairness. 

1. Cobot 

The founders of Cobot used to run their own coworking space, and it was born out of a need to solve problems within the coworking space that they couldn’t find a solution for. 

Designed to automate the monotonous everyday tasks and replace the patchwork of apps that only half worked. Whether you’re operating a small shared office or a multi-location hub, Cobot is a flexible and easy to use solution for every space.

Cobot says they pride themselves on doing a few things exceptionally, then automating the rest. And anything that they aren’t the experts in, they build integrations for, to ensure you have comprehensive software that can do everything you need it to. 


Memberships & Billing

Invoice and take payments automatically

Integrate with 100+ payment providers

Inventory management

Bookings

Manage meeting rooms

Create events and sell tickets

Synchronize with GCalendar (2-ways)

Onboarding Members

Customisable signup form

Proposals, contracts, eSignature

Members, Contacts and Teams single database

CRM

Tour and visitors management

CRM boards – you can follow up leads

Email monitoring

Newsletters

Task management

Check-in and Access Control

Wifi and network check-in

Integration with access control systems, including mobile locks

Mobile and Tablet Apps

Available on iOS and Android

Scan and optically recognise (OCR) delivery labels

White Label Member’s Portal

Your own white label website

Members’ directory

Community board

Helpdesk

Customer and team’s dashboards

Space architecture

Multi-location support

Reports

+100 reports

Additional integrations and custom dashboards

Check out a full list of their features here.

Explore the integrations available for Cobot. 

How much does Cobot coworking software cost?

Cobot is made to grow with your business, and it has a pricing model that reflects this. It comes with a free month trial, complete with full customer support to see if it’s right for you. 

Prices vary depending on the number of users you have, starting at 49 Euros/month for up to 15 users all the way up to 789 Euros/month for up to 425 members.

Beyond 425 members you can get a price on application. 

Find out the price of Cobot for your space

Start your FREE trial

2. Nexudus 

Nexudus was created in 2012 after its founders saw there was a gap in the market for a comprehensive management tool. Describing themselves as “the most comprehensive management platform to run your coworking space”, Nexudus has stood the test of time and provides mission-critical tools and technology to power and scale up your workspace business.

Upon speaking with Nexudus, I learned that their flexible, functional and scalable software was great for businesses that aspire to grow or open additional locations. Though equally, spaces with as little as five members have made use of their technology, so it really can be applied to any coworking space.

Nexudus takes an “everything is included” approach. There are a LOT of features available, and their recent interface update makes it simpler to use and allows you to hide features you don’t need, while still offering comprehensive functionality.

Traditionally, Nexudus have been known for three things:

  • API integration
  • Booking systems
  • Providing a fully white-label service

We might not have been traditionally known for our community aspect, – says Monika- but Community is at the heart of what we do! Nexudus comes with a comprehensive Community Directory, Discussion boards and event ticketing. During COVID-19 they developed an integration with Zoom and created Nexudus Virtual Rooms, an always-on virtual room platform accessible through Members’ Portal via Jitsi. This innovative development facilitates virtual events within the platform, by ticketing events and then taking users directly through to a zoom link. 

Like all three, they are constantly updating and developing features based on what is essential at the time, so the below list may be subject to changes.

NEXUDUS FEATURES


Memberships & Billing

Invoice and take payments automatically

Integrate with 100+ payment providers

Inventory management

Bookings

Manage meeting rooms

Create events and sell tickets

Synchronize with GCalendar (2-ways)

Onboarding Members

Customisable signup form

Proposals, contracts, eSignature

Members, Contacts and Teams single database

CRM

Tour and visitors management

CRM boards – you can follow up leads

Email monitoring

Newsletters

Task management

Check-in and Access Control

Wifi and network check-in

Integration with access control systems, including mobile locks

Mobile and Tablet Apps

Available on iOS and Android

Scan and optically recognise (OCR) delivery labels

White Label Member’s Portal

Your own white label website

Members’ directory

Community board

Helpdesk

Customer and team’s dashboards

Space architecture

Multi-location support

Reports

+100 reports

Additional integrations and custom dashboards

Learn more about the extensive features.

Nexudus also has a wide range of integration options, and is able to work alongside the other software that you love. 

How much does Nexudus coworking software cost?

The pricing at Nexudus varies based on the number of active users. 

It is free for up to 5 users, then prices start at £85/per month for 6 users and above. The service is then priced incrementally depending on the amount of users required, and goes up to £400/month for up to 500 users. 

For more than 500 users, you will need to contact Nexudus directly for pricing. 

Find out the price of Nexudus for your users here: 

Start your FREE trial

3. OfficeRnD 

OfficeRnD describes its product as “the ultimate management platform for coworking and flex spaces”. The platform enables workspaces to automate administrative processes, make data-driven decisions and deliver great experience to their customers.

 It was started to help flex spaces deliver an amazing experience to their customers, more power to their brand, and sustainable growth to their business.

OfficeRnD have been in your shoes. Experts with years of experience as workspace operators are among the OfficeRnD team. Product Director at OfficeRnD, Chil, says: “Not only does this help us shape our product to make it even better, but we can really understand your pain points”.


OfficeRnD is known for its strong billing and multi-location management capabilities. The company recently revamped their member-facing apps offering a variety of functionalities including push notifications, maintenance management, virtual office, video conferencing.


The team adds that the member apps along with reporting and integrations will continue to be a priority in their product roadmap.

 

Membership + Billing

A complete view of your members lifecycle

Easy manage and create contracts

 

Automate billing and payments 

Bookings

Book, pay and manage meeting rooms

Member-facing app 

(Find our more here)

Branded web portal

 

Branded mobile app

 

RnD rooms tablet app

White label member’s portal

Online members directory

 

Events management

Post timeline

In-app messages (+integration with slack)

Occupancy resources

Interactive floor plans

 

Occupancy dashboards

Analytics

Get a real snapshot of your revenue, billing and more

Multi-location management

Manage multiple locations seamlessly

Explore the full list of the OfficeRnD coworking software features here. 

OfficeRnD also has a wide range of integrations, so you can connect it to other software. 

How much does OfficeRnD coworking software cost?

OfficeRnD has a per member pricing option, which they recommended for newly opened or rapidly growing flexible workspaces. Prices start at £129/month, all the way to £221/month for up to 200 members. 

Beyond 200 members you can get a quote. 

They also offer a per location option which they recommend for established flexible workspaces with multiple locations

Find out the price of OfficeRnD for your users

Get your FREE 30-day trial 

Where can I find out more about coworking space management software?

As much as I hope this blog is helpful, I’m sure it’s not cemented your software idea. And that’s good. I encourage you to go and do as much research as possible to help you decide which one is best for you.

Don’t overthink it, you don’t want to get analysis paralysis, but do have a look through at what you need and then 

Hector suggests that you try and find some unbiased info (like this blog) and speak to people who don’t necessarily have skin in the game. Some examples of this are:

  • Ask questions in relevant Facebook groups 
  • Speak to people who don’t work for the software companies/that aren’t using a particular software (ie. someone who helps implement multiple softwares)

But in the end, don’t let the software stall your business. Get help, get something implemented but don’t let it hold things back. 

Remember: you can speak to one of the experts in this blog if you fancy speaking it through with someone who can help you understand a little more about what your space needs. 

How to pick the best coworking software for you…

Let’s make this clear.

All three of these coworking software options are great and they are popular – that’s why I’ve chosen these three to review. 

It’s likely that you can make any of them work for you. But the reason for implementing software is to make your life easier so you have more time to focus on your coworking community. So, you need to ensure that you get the right software for your coworking ecosystem. And that will vary case to case. 

If you were to say to me: ‘Bernie, what’s the best coworking software for me”. My answer would be pretty simple. 

Speak to the experts!

Going on features, they are all great. But without the experience of someone who knows exactly what you are looking for and what you want to achieve it’s really difficult to understand what software system will best sit within the infrastructure of your coworking space. 

So there you have it! As for which is the best, well that’s really up to you. 

Coworking or Co-working?

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What’s in a name? 

Is the old adage by Shakespeare true that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”?

Probably not. 

Words matter. They shape our perception of things, and in a day and age where Google can make or break a business or blog, the popularity of words and how they’re spelled, has never been more important. 

While there are thousands of words that I could write about, the one that is most important to me and my work is coworking, or as some people insist on spelling it, co-working.

Does Coworking have a hyphen?

We heard your requests to clarify the style of coworking, as in sharing a work space but not having the same employer. It’s one of the Stylebook’s new entries this year. pic.twitter.com/KBGJykA4DF

— APStylebook (@APStylebook) October 4, 2018

 

Definition: Coworking vs Co-working

According to Wikipedia, coworking is “an arrangement in which several workers from different companies share an office space, allowing cost savings and convenience through the use of common infrastructures, such as equipment, utilities, and receptionist and custodial services, and in some cases refreshments and parcel acceptance services.” The entire article uses coworking without a hyphen.

Dictionary.com defines coworking as “an arrangement by which freelancers or remote employees working for various companies share an office or other workspace (often used attributively): the monthly fee for a coworking space.” It defaults to coworking being spelled without the hyphen but does give co-working as an alternative spelling.

Both of these examples seem to be common regardless of where you search online, and that’s part of the problem. It’s almost impossible to find “official” sites that are willing to come outright and say that coworking should not be spelled with a hyphen. 

While we might be able to find an infinite number of sites and opinions online about which spelling is correct, here are my reasons as to why we need to drop the hyphen permanently and end this debate once and for all.

Grammar

In May 2018, the Associated Press Stylebook changed co-working to coworking, officially dropping the hyphen. The Associated Press Stylebook is a popular choice for writers and editors across the world. 

Many of its other changes have now become normal use both in the writing world and everyday use for non-writers as well. In 2010, it changed web site to website, and in 2011 they took the spaces out of cell phone and smart phone and also ditched the hyphen in e-mail.

The history of the English language is filled with ideas and inventions that made the grammatical evolution from two words, to hyphenated and finally becoming accepted as one word. 

Why is this? 

Many writers tend to feel that hyphens mess up the flow of words and writing, not to mention just looking bad. Could you imagine still spelling downstairs as down-stairs? Or wireless as wire-less? It makes no sense visually or grammatically. 

Language is already filled with confusing rules and terminology. There’s no reason to add to it by hyphenating a word that needs no hyphen. After all, people who work in coworking spaces aren’t co-workers.

Each person there is typically doing their own work and usually identify as freelancers. While coworking spaces provide many opportunities for networking and collaborating, using the term co-working implies that the people there are co-workers, and they aren’t. 

Although coworking spaces have been around for a while, it’s only been the past few years that they’ve really become popular worldwide. It’s important to have a word that isn’t confusing to newcomers and could give them the wrong idea about what to expect when joining a coworking space.

Having an official proper spelling of coworking isn’t just important because of the impression it can give people, it also has monetary implications as well. 

Anyone with a blog or business knows how important using the right words and hashtags can be when trying to attract new customers and clients online.

SEO and Hashtags

There are two key aspects when it comes to getting your name out online, regardless of how you choose to do it; SEO and hashtags.

Even if you think you aren’t familiar with SEO, you are. It affects every bit of research you do on the internet and plays a vital role in every single result that Google shows you. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to find a contractor to remodel your bathroom, looking for statistics on how many marriages end because of a home remodel, or you want to know how many teeth a narwhal has. SEO is what gets those results to you. 

As I stated earlier, words matter, and this is especially true when it comes to SEO.

For those of you not familiar with SEO, it stands for “search engine optimization,” and is probably the most important way for you to increase your site’s visibility online.

Search engines as popular as Google and as rare as DuckDuckGo all use apps to search sites all over the internet. They collect the information they find and put it into an index. Algorithms then analyse the pages to figure out what order websites should appear when finding results for a term/keyword search. 

There are 6 categories that makeup SEO results, the most important category is keywords.

The word (or words) that people use to search for the information they are looking for is the keyword. Knowing what keywords to include on your website is the key to getting your page posted on the first or second page of results on a search engine. Since most people rarely go past the third page of results, you want your keywords to be as spot on as possible.

That is why spelling coworking without the hyphen is so important. People rarely use any type of punctuation when searching for something online. It’s been proven that using coworking on your website will get you more visitors to your website simply because when they decided to search for information about coworking, they didn’t add the hyphen.

Another area in which the spelling of a word is important to “getting the word out” is hashtags. 

Hashtags are words or phrases with the hash sign in front of them. They are used online, especially social media sites like Twitter and Instagram, that make it easy to find posts on a specific topic. 

This is another area in which people rarely use punctuation. Try going to Twitter and searching for #co-working and then #coworking. Not using the hyphen will give you far more results.

Not having one set way of spelling coworking in the coworking community isn’t always confusing, but can affect business as well. If we all agreed on a uniform way to spell the word, it would allow us to have more business-driven to our websites and make it easier to inform the public about the benefits of coworking spaces and why they are so important. Not surprisingly, most of the pushback received from removing the hyphen from coworking doesn’t come from the community itself.

Community

The coworking community is a unique one. You have a group of people who tend to be loaners in their work, yet choose, for one reason or another, to join a space that allows them the choice to socialize with people of their own free will. 

This is one of the biggest examples given when people defend getting rid of the hyphen in coworking. The people at these places are not co-workers. Being a co-worker is something that is pretty much forced. When you work at a company, you don’t really get to decide who your co-workers are. In fact, working with colleagues who cause you stress is one of the major reasons people decide to start freelancing and eventually renting their own spot at a coworking place. 

Coworking allows you the option of working independently even when you’re surrounded by other people. While most decided it’s a good opportunity to network, it’s never something you’re forced into. You’re simply working in the same spot, not necessarily working together. 

Cat Johnson, one of the most famous names in the coworking scene, talked to some of the top coworking space owners to find out their opinions on the coworking vs. co-working debate, and the answers were pretty similar across the board; the hyphen needs to go.

“Because we aren’t “co-workers” who work for the same company. We work WITH fellow coworkers. Coworking = work WITH coworkers, not FOR co-workers.” —Jerome Chang, Blankspaces

“At the start, we were confused about which one to use because there’s no formal word for coworking without the hyphen. So it’s good to know now that what we’re using is a legitimate word already.” –Reena Labanan, Happy Hive Coworking

“As someone who has spent the better part of her life correcting people on the spelling of her own name, it’s my experience that those who actually take the time to learn a given name, also genuinely care about your personal brand, who you are, and what you stand for. 

I apply this directly to Coworking. I spend a good chunk of time (as we all do) explaining just what this movement is within startup ecosystems and the workspace industry; and those who don’t care about the proper spelling tend not to understand the communities we are building or the ventures we support. It’s a micro-aggression that I honestly didn’t have time to continue addressing. I’m too busy building ecosystems, fostering economic development, and supporting people in the non-stop world of the startup grind.” —Shervonne Cherry, Spark Baltimore

Preference

Some people say that spelling coworking with a hyphen or not is a preference, and that is partially true. The important part of that statement though is that the majority of people who actually work in the coworking space want to drop the hyphen. And since we’re the ones who are actually writing, educating and creating information to help inform people on the benefits of coworking spaces, wouldn’t we get to be the ones to decide on how to spell it, especially when a single search engine query can make or break our business? I think we should. 

How To Market A Coworking Space Right From Scratch

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In the last few weeks, I’ve had a deep few conversations with people who are ‘picking my brains’, on marketing their coworking space. 

It seems like a lot of people are about to start a coworking space from scratch in the coming months. 

Then I ended up emailing them these answers. So in real “They Ask You Answer” style here are the subsequently copied and pasted emails, edited of course. 

What do you think is the most prominent problem people have when it comes to getting their act together for their coworking space?

I don’t have time to market my coworking space.

The one I hear is time. 

How to find the time to market your coworking business?

You have to find the time. 

Stop doing something else and start marketing your coworking business. 

I’ve been listening out for it this week. And without me even instigating it in a conversation, people said they couldn’t find the time.

So what do you have time for in your day? 

I never have enough time, and I’ve read so many books about productivity and time management. I’m sure I’ve lost brain cells.

Of course, this is tough, because we all have enough time and to be able to find the time for that lucky combination of what we need to do and what we want to do is a never-ending balancing act.

Look, I know you are short on time, you probably have not got time to read this article, let alone read a book on time, so let us get into it.

But first, let me take a selfie.

ACT ONE – How do I know all of this?

Every weekday I am talking with coworking space owners and managers in London and Europe. I’ve been at this for nearly a decade chipping away and listening.

I’m also picking apart things with marketing groups I’m a paid member of, so I am always learning and finding out what works. 

Check out this post about the communities where I’m an active member.  

ACT TWO – No One Is Coming To Save You

No one is coming to save you. Not one book, blog post, podcast, or advert is going to turn your marketing around.

It is all compound effect and connection.

All you need is this: 

  1. A website with a blog – use WordPress. 
  2. An Email List – just get going with Mailchimp, you can change later.
  3. An Instagram account
  4. A Google My Business Page

You have to have a website – no excuses.

What You Need For A Coworking Space Website

Get a website. Take a look at my mate’s Jammy Digital website for the complete no bollox guide on how to work this one out.

How you can start a website

I use WP Engine here and people way smarter than I, swear by it. The hosting is bulletproof, the support is 100%, I pay $36 a month, including a couple of extras and sleep at night and don’t get charged hidden fees.

Also, at least once a year WP Engine GETS CHEAPER — Mas they scale they pass the saving onto customers!!

Read the post here about the WordPress plugins we use on my site.

Oh, and why does my site not look like me theme look here – that is the one everyone gets done with when setting up a WordPress blog.

To get going, you ONLY need a website, with a blog section, email list and contact page.

That’s it! Once you get that set up you can and all the other shit, not that you need much of it,

It is crucial to get a Homebase set up; people google places on the website; they don’t look at Facebook pages.

If you are Nas Daily, of course, you can use Facebook, but if you are reading this, you are probably a coworking space operator wondering how to get bums in seats.

So Why Do I Need A Website Again?

Oh, not this website thing again?

Websites are what people expect to find when looking up a business, especially one with a physical address.

Websites show up in search a million times better if you google your name all your social profiles will come up.

If you google the title of an article or ‘coworking space near me’ websites come up.

The more articles you put on your website over time, the more ‘authority’ you will have with google or said another way, the more Google trusts you and will direct people to your site to buy what you have.

SEO, which means Search Engine Optimisation – or how well you get found when people type words into google, bing, yahoo and other search engines.

FACT: the best thing you can do every week for SEO is to put an article on your website.

FFS All This Website Stuff Makes Me Want to Lie Down

You only need to get the website made, then after that, you can work on content, as in articles.

And to begin with, those articles will be around events.

It is enormous; everything you don’t know about is considerable.

But think of it like this, if you had to give a talk next week to five thousand people about your coworking business and how you could help them how much time would you spend on that talk?

You’d watch TED talks, make slides, get someone to design them for you get the whole space involved and pump it up.

You’d do practice talks, knowing they’d b crap and get you to the space you want to be.

Then you give the talk about even if only five hundred of those people were the right match for your space, it would be worth it.

Out of those Five Hundred, if only 50 joined, you’d be jumping for joy.

Why would you invest more in giving this talk than making your website?

Potentially everyone on the planet with an internet connection can see your website if you are a London coworking business and need fifty people you have 8 million people who might pop by.

You keep the entrance to your space clean as it is the first thing people see, how much time and effort does that get in comparison to your site?

I Don’t Have The Budget For A Website.

I’m going to tread gently here, but you do have the budget, you can find it.

I’ve been in and around websites for over a decade now; I worked one my first on in 2006.

I have sat by so many business owners who:

Buy £250 Paul Smith Lamps every desk in their workspace but won’t buy a website.

Go out for gourmet burgers every week instead of paying for a website.

Read everything about content marketing but don’t pay for a website.

Snort a ton of drugs but won’t pay for a website.

Spend time and money chasing awards but won’t pay for a website

Take their whole team out to watch Coldplay live and for dinner but won’t pay for a website.

Throw money at everything else in their business to get it to work but not their website.

I’m the same, I get excited about new website theme or project and go guns blazing into whatever version of engagingpeople.wpengine.com we are on, and then I get bored, stuck, distracted and it all goes to shit.

The times over the last decade when I’ve been posting articles, podcasts and email newsletters every week I get more people asking me ‘can I hire you?’ #Justsaying

If you opened a coworking space in London more than five years ago and you’d written a five hundred word article about events, freelancing, future of work, your local area and coworking anything your SEO would be bulletproof now.

Please don’t be one of those businesses that pay a company for SEO but never puts any fresh content on your site. 

The Main Reason You Don’t Have The Budget For Website.

You don’t have the budget because you don’t understand how it works and can’t see where the money goes.

It feels like a significant mystery expense and is too much to learn about.

It’s like a coworking space, all those bloody people working in coffee shops would be so much better off if they’d come to you.

What is wrong with them?

To them, a coworking space looks like on office, or it looks like a coffee shop with a substantial monthly price tag.

They spend £10 a day in a coffee shop every weekday, which is only a little less than a desk in your space.

Really what is wrong with them?

You read a lot of marketing stuff, and someone said websites are dead.

Think of it like not taking a holiday because Elon Musk will be making trips to Mars soon.

At some point in the next fifty years the role of the website as we know it will change, but for at least the next five years you’d be wise to invest in your website.

That is why I made a point of only dealing with web site strategy, email marketing and content production.

Other Social Gimmicks

I’m always learning about all the other social media, adverts and other’ thing of the moment’ marketing strategy. But I’ve gone in-depth on making a website work to grow a coworking business.

How To Use Instagram For Your Coworking Business

Only Instagram?

I’m going with this because I love Instagram, but there are other more robust reasons too.

  1. There is always someone running an Instagram workshop – my go-to is Brighton UK based Miss Instaboss for no-bullshit one to one stuff. 
  2. And if you give her money and it’s shit, I’ll refund what you spent. That’s how confident I am in her work.
  3. Real daily photos are the number one way in the world to convey how you see your space and what you’d show others.
  4. When you post, others will too.
  5. I post nearly every day from the Mainyard Studios in Bow Road London because I love taking photos and I love people who are in Mainyard with me.
  6. I pay for my studio like everyone else, ok it is THE SMALLEST studio in the building, and I don’t get a kickback for posting on Instagram.

This type of feeling is there for everyone in places like:

ARC Club Hackney

Space4

Good Space

Workers League

Impact Brixton

Creative Works

Platform 9

These folks post on Instagram, and they don’t make me want to stick a fork in my eye. 

If I am going to give you between £250 to £400 a desk, an honest Instagram feed is where I’ll look.

What I won’t look for there are crappy offers and adverts. I’ll want to see what matters to you. 

People in coworking seem to blow thousands of pounds on videos that are so slick they look suspicious and then can’t afford to do anything else.

What I have been on Instagram over nine years now, and I’m there because I love photos and the connection I have with around 100 people. 

  1. You’ll get better and better.
  2. Post a few times every day, and you discover things in you that you never knew were there.
  3. FFS Don’t post quotes or hustle shite
  4. I know you think HUSTLE is cool, but it is bland, boring and you are hiding the real you.
  5. People don’t read a Simon Sinek or Helen Keller quote and get all pumped up and book a trial day – they think Fu<k me, another quote.
  6. The only way to stand out is being you, and you can be you every day for fifteen minutes,
  7. Unfair Advantage book by deals with Hustle topic 
  8. Talking about Hustle is harmless in the same way as referring to women as ‘birds’ is harmless; of course, it’s not.
  9. Down load this free iPhone app from Creative Live – it’s a free daily lesson on photography. Click here.
  10. Follow the #coworkinglondon – especially if you are an independent!

Our Best WordPress Plugins – Why We Love Them.

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This post will help you understand how WordPress tools fit together on your coworking space website.

If you are ever talking to a web person or chatting and someone says ‘oh yeah, WordPress is sooooo simple, you should use that!’ 

Run, away – they are a liar! 

It is so simple!

What a phase!

Phrases that has given me so much pain over twenty years I’ve been freelancing or running my own business. 

Any automated marketing tool from Mailchimp to MailPoet, to Salesforce to SendFox and FreeAgent to Freshbooks needs you to set it up and learn how to use it. 

These few tools are what we use on the websites we make.

While my gang does not make websites for clients, but we run websites for projects and know how to design the flow and how to guide people around. 

You know to point them in the right direction towards your call to action – the jargon for this the “wireframe”. 

And when you do your web design and build a company and you know what you want and why they’ll love you and be able to help you even more. 

Here is our tool kit 

Elementor

What does Elementor do? 

Elementor sits on your site and enables you to move things around to look like the way you want it to look. 

That may sound like something you think you can do anyway, but unless you can code you can’t.

It is as close as you can get to arranging pages on your website like you would images and words in a PowerPoint or Keynote slide deck.

It also connects to hundreds of other design tools, email apps and heaven knows what else. 

So you can have that email sign up box where you want it, there are still rules to follow and things you can’t do – but £u

Get started with Elementor here.

WishList Membership Plugin

What is WishList?

This simple plugin makes your WordPress Website into a membership site. 

We use it on London Coworking Assembly so we can take payments, run subscriptions and arrange people into different workgroups and membership levels. 

For example, you could have Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum level memberships. 

It plugs into everything from all the email providers, payment providers and Zapier. 

I like it because it has been around a long time. It powers well over 100,000 websites and Tracy, the co-founder, still cares and answers emails personally even after a decade of running the company!

MailPoet

Ok, you probably guessed this is for email newsletters. 

I love it, I mean if you could marry an email service I’d marry this one. 

BUT it only works on WordPress so if you move to Drupal or Webflow or something happens to your website you could get stuck.

Why is MailPoet so good?

  1.  It is at least 1000% easier to work out than MailChimp and other popular platforms.
  2. Setting up welcome and sales funnel emails is more like writing a good blog post rather than performing open-heart surgery. 
  3. You can drag and drop content from your website like blog posts, podcast and other pages into your email. 
  4. Because it is on your website, it means you have another good reason to go to your website, rather than your website gathering dust in a long-forgotten corner of the internet.

Castos – for Podcasts

What is Castos?

It is a podcast player that plugs into your website, so you can publish a podcast like writing a blog post. 

Castos also hosts your podcast so you can publish to Spotify, Apple, Google and all the others. 

But there is more; it is a podcast plugin designed from the ground up to work with WordPress and specifically the Genesis Framework – I’ll stop there because it is already too geeky. 

It is one of the original podcast plugins and is my favourite. 

Craig, the founder, has been listening hard to the podcast and WordPress community for years is always gently evolving Castos while maintaining a rock-solid product. 

Start using Castos with a free 14-day trial.

CoShedule

What is CoShedule?

It is a social media management tool and then some. 

You need to know we use a mixture of Social Bee and CoShedule for all the Engaging People social media projects. 

The main reason you will want to use Coshedule is that it plugs directly into WordPress and shows up at the end of a blog post. 

If you run multiple WordPress Sites, you can plug them all into CoShedule and then do everything from the CoShedule calendar and dashboard. 

Your head still hurts, and it is a lot to deal with, but in over a decade of playing with websites, social media and calendars, this is the best calendar I’ve found. 

Play.ht

What is Play.ht? Play it? Oh, I get it! 

It turns your blogs posts into audio using an artificial intelligence (AI) text to speech thing. 

How is this useful?

For me, your faithful narrator Bernie, this is great. 

I find it hard to read text and listening wins hands down every time – 

read more about that in this post. 

The best kick is that you can send your blog posts to an audio feed to make a podcast. 

And as people are listening to a post, it increases time on site, so Google and other search engines will think you are the place to be.

WP Engine 

What is WP Engine? 

It is a rock, robust website hosting. 

Everyone has a web host, and if you are getting an excellent deal for hosting your coworking space website for £5.99 a month with a free email address, you better sort your shit out and move right now. 

Before WP Engine I was with StudioPress, by CopyBlogger for years who then sold to WP Engine. 

Both places have given me fantastic service and uninterrupted service. 

The customer service is via a 24-hour, super responsive human chat, not some crappy bot. 

I pay extra for a WordPress Plugin automatic updater which saves me time and keeps everything synced up. It’s like having apps auto-updated on your phone.  

Best of all, WP Engine even gets cheaper – not more expensive!

Get started on WP Engine today here.

App Sumo

If there is one app, you can’t live without what would it be?

App Sumo.

AppSumo is a deal platform for freelancers and small businesses. 

I mention it here because there are always lifetime deals on WordPress plugins and tools. 

For example, I got MailPoet, WishList and Play.HT on AppSumo.

These three tools alone have saved me thousands of pounds and introduced me to a whole new range of possibilities and people. 

Warning, you have to think about what you are buying! 

I’ve been an AppSumo member for five years, and in the early days, I brought a lot of stuff because it was cheap, looked fun and gave me an excellent idea for a new business. 

These days anything I buy on AppSumo has to save me time or add serious value or profit to my workflow. 

If you do buy something, you don’t need you have 60 days to return it, no questions asked.

How To Market Your Coworking Space: The Simple Way.

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I bet you think marketing is hard, I do. 

For over a decade I’ve been trying to figure out marketing, both mine and other peoples.

Everyone seems to be doing better than me, is ahead of the curve, on the ball and whatever else. 

They’re more immediate on Instagram, terrific on twitter, fancy on Facebook and more linked up on LinkedIn than me. 

Oh, and they have an email list with a million more people than me.

I was dying, I looked at what worked and what did not, I also looked at what I LOVED and what made me want to put my face in a food blender. 

I simplified everything, I took a machete to my operation and ended up with the good bits.

Then I started to teach this to people in the European Coworking industry, and that was a whole new way of engaging people. 

Everything you read here I’ve done myself, done for other people and been taught it directly by most of the people mentioned in this post. 

1. Build a sales funnel

The very first thing you need to do is build a sales funnel. 

You’d know this as collecting emails to build an email list.

You can make a landing page with an email list in most email marketing platforms like MailPoet, Mailchimp, Convert Kit. 

If the only thing you do is make an email list, you will be doing great.

Companies that had an email list before the COVID-19 hit and had a direct connection and permission with their customers, members and prospects had a better chance of surviving.

Recently I’ve been on webinars with friends like Event Managers blog and StoryBrand where they have 5000+ people attending.

Why?

Because they have an email list colossal email list, they have built up over the years.

I’ve kept close contact with the London Coworking Assembly and my own community because I can email then and invite them to things. 

I’ve been able to listen, offer help and ask questions – because I have contact. 

To further back up my case, all those Uber cool books about being lean and bootstrapping recommend making a landing page with an email list to test an idea. 

They don’t recommend blowing 10k on a website to impress your mates of by running Facebook adverts. 

A study done by Mackenzie worked out that for every $1 spent on email marketing, you get $40 back over time. 

2. For your email list, you need a lead magnet 

WTF is this? – Chill! This can be a simple checklist.

For a coworking space, this could be – “10 things to look for when choosing a coworking space”, “10 best places to get a coffee and sandwich near our coworking space”. 

This absolutely should not be a 100-page ebook on business success or being a freelancer. 

While an email address is an emotional equivalent of handing over, £20 people will only use something simple. – this kinda confused me. What do you mean here?

Don’t become yet another ebook sitting on someone’s computer desktop. 

3. Email people.

Email people stuff that is hyper-relevant to them and useful.

This is where the whole story thing starts.

Don’t email last-minute event salvage invites. 

Spend a few minutes asking people what is important to them, what they need help with and email that. 

A great book to help you in business and finding out what people need is the “mum test“ by Rob Fitzpatrick.

People will tell you what they think you want to hear, which is different from what they’d pay money for or read. 

You know when it sounds like someone is reading your thoughts? 

I bet it is because they’ve read The Mum Test!

Email is solid gold over Instagram hearts, Facebook likes and RT’s. In the past, I’ve been part of a lot of projects where we’ve spent time and money to build up followers and likes only to have the platform change the rules or people go somewhere else. 

4. Pick ONE social media platform and commit deeply.

Being everywhere is easy when you are Coke or EasyJet, but most people reading this are in the micro or small business arena. 

You are looking for connections and few solid leads, not 1000’s of sales a day.

First, just post and see what works, but you won’t know what works unless you post. 

Then make a plan of where you want to lead people, this will be what you talk about in real life. 

Standing in the kitchen at your coworking space, what do you talk about?

If you are warm and friendly in the kitchen with a high connection, don’t go online and suddenly become a wanky 10X your super Entrepreneur life guru. 

It’s not you, and the last thing we need online is another 10x business success guru. 

For a coworking space, I’d urge you to double down on Linkedin and not be an asshole.

Linkedin is where business people with the budget are. 

10’000 like on your Facebook page is worth very little compared to 1000 people following your important daily updates on Linkedin. 

If you think you might be spamming – you are. 

The next platform I’d recommend is Instagram, it is fun, fast and visual.

Look at what all the big coworking spaces are doing and don’t do that, be yourself and REMEMBER you are looking to create honest connections with people. 

5. Put something on your website at least once a week.

Every time you update your website, search engines notice and rank you higher, then you get more traffic and then you which then get more leads, and then you understand you more sales.

I know it’s all about the community, but you won’t have any fucking community unless people are giving you money. 

Choose the methods that work best for you. And when I say works best for you, I mean that you LOVE, thrive, get energy from and can see yourself doing forever. 

I love writing, and I love podcasting, but podcasting comes out a little ahead.

I’ve recorded and produced well over six hundred episodes across projects and clients in the last decade. 

I’ve done the same amount of blogs, but the podcasts were way more natural and energizing for me. 

Do a video, podcast or blog and then post it once a week.

My mate Marcus Sheridan has tested posting frequency and lead generation over the last ten years. 

His research confirms that three articles a week are the ideal amount for building authority and website traffic in your space.

This is a big commitment but works if you go all in. I’ve met UK based clients of Marcus’s who have added 100’000’s of pounds of annual revenue with a sustained and focused posting strategy. 

Also posting regularly on your website is the best and most simple SEO work you can do. 

6. Stop talking about community

Yes, people want to be part of something. I have this vast human need to be part of something.

When you talk all day about community people get confused about the rules, the meaning, are they cool enough? 

Then when they get there they want to see where it is, immediately, you are selling the invisible, it is like selling ‘spirituality’. 

Say ‘we have a great community spirit here’ but don’t rant about the community you will end up going around in circles and wasting time.

The same goes for programs. Let membership of the community own them and run them. That’s less work for you and more commitment from the people there. 

Stu Maclaren co-founded WishList, a membership plugin for WordPress we use for the London Coworking Assembly.

Stu and now teaches people to run communities, he always points out people can only cope with an hour’s worth of content a week.

An hour’s worth of content could be a community lunch once a week, which has always been one of the most simple and successful things I’ve seen in ten years of coworking. 

7. Don’t buy social media adverts

We’ve all done it, paid to boost a post after a suggestion from Facebook or got all horny about Instagram adverts.

Maybe it is just my feed, but when I see coworking spaces advertising on Instagram, they are always the venture-backed ones with slick videos. Even I am tempted to rent a desk.

But they are selling a feeling and allure. 

When COVID hit the spaces I know with a solid sense of connection and community kept going. 

And then the ones that rented desks found it harder to keep people. 

Social media advertising fails because people don’t understand how to execute the process. 

The thing you need in place is a sales funnel.

So when people move from social media to your landing page or website, they are taken to a call to action, which is usually an email sign up form.

That email sign can simply be to download your lead magnet or join your list. 

When I do social media or buy google adverts, I hire my mate who knows what they are doing, because I don’t. 

Sort your website and sales funnel out first, then do adverts. 

8. Have a pure one line phase for your business

At the top of your website have something so fucking simple your child would understand it. 

“We make bags’ or ‘Get Your Work Done Here’ – mine is the title of this blog. Hope to market your coworking space the right way.

I believe in what you are reading on this page. I’ve tried and tested it, argued it, got results from it for me and others.

I’ve worked with all the people I mention in this post. And if you woke me up with a bucket of cold water in the middle of the night and asked me any of this, I’d be able to start talking in a second. 

In the book Marketing Made Simple, JJ and Donald outline the one-liner exercise, it is – problem, solution and fixes. 

I’m going to be every ruder, being all airing, weak, flowery, over-designed and ambiguous will confuse people.

Things of brands like Ronseal – “it does exactly what it says on the tin.” 

I don’t know if they even still run that, but I always say it.

That is what you are aiming for.

I’ve looked at hundreds and hundreds of coworking space websites, and they all have some combination of community, collaboration and something else.

Every time I run a workshop or webinar, I ask ‘what are the words people use most on their coworking space website?’

Community, collaboration and entrepreneurship come up.

These are concepts, like clutter is a concept, terror is a concept – so the ‘war on terror’ was a shit idea.

It has to be unique to you and make it as plain and straightforward as you think, what would your space say on the tin?

9. Execute 

JJ researched 1000’s of people and companies to see how the StoryBrand framework I love so much worked.

It worked in every company, and the only deciding success factor was execution.

I have been following the 12 week years book since 2016.

Every week since then I’ve lived my life in 12-week segments with an accountability partner. Every Monday at 10 am no matter where we are in the world, Karen and I have a call. 

We talk about what we’ve done and what we have failed to do and read each other the next week. 

Eventually, we got better and better at execution in the ECA. We have a weekly call at 12:30 UK time and do the same.

We track our progress and say where we went wrong.

What I’ve learnt, the hard way is that execution gets results. One blog every week gets you traffic, one email newsletter every week gets you readers, and one podcast every week gets you sales. 

10. You have to do some marketing and stick to it.

The podcaster Mitch Joel says marketing is everything, and I don’t think business owners want to be ‘marketers’ – I don’t want to be an accountant or lawyer, but it comes up. 

In 2019 I worked with a coach on my business. She highlighted that while I taught and consulted on marketing, I did not actually do any marketing.

I did a podcast here, and Instagram post here and article there but I did very little of what I taught people. 

All my business came by word of mouth or referral, which, of course, is excellent. 

But how much money was I leaving on the table? A lot.

I know coworking spaces that have been open for nearly a decade, and they fight every day for customers and do well. 

But if you went to their website, there are about ten blogs, when there could have been 600 posts, videos or podcasts talking about events, people, the local area and cats on treadmills. 

The email list could be in the 1000’s. 

They’d be doing less work to get people in their space, now more than ever it is going to be harder. 

Don’t get someone on their gap year to do your marketing, in the same way, you would not get an intern to do your accounts, draft your lease or fix the electric’s in your building.

Marketing is as severe as a heart attack for the success of your business. As I’m writing this, the whole world is online because of COVID. And if you are not online, you are pissing in the wind. 

11. Bonus one

If you have a coworking space software, learn how to use it.

In most software for coworking spaces, there is a membership community area, and you could make more of this. 

Why Coworking Now Needs To Be Local And Not Privileged

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Last week was HUGE!


We had the Coworking Symposium to which hundreds of you showed up, my eyes and ears were bleeding with hope and excitement for the future of coworking in Europe.
After that, there was the Coworkies Hack Coworking event and while all of this was going on hundreds of more people in the UK signed #Saveourlocalcoworking.

We also launched our Q&A sessions for European coworking businesses with Every week we’ll record a Group video chat with our friend’s Cobot, OfficeRnD and Nexudus and Marc Navarro to get you an answer – more on that here.

And I realise that you may not even know what coworking is, but after the COVID epidemic, you will.

(TLDR)
Find out why coworking is so essential to you, me and the local economy in this 2 minute Linkedin Video here – please like, comment and share.


Future of work

My friend Albert said that the COVOD epidemic accelerated the future of work ‘reality’ by a decade, and I agree.

Zeljko and I dive into this more with ‘future of work and bullshit jobs’ thinker Laëtitia Vitaud on our Coworking Values podcast.
Click here to listen.

What has coworking got to do with me?

We’ve recognised a big move in the number of people not going into cities anymore.
Not even I want to go to London anymore, and I only have to get from Zone 4 to Zone 2.

Instead, we’re staying home, and that means working from home too.
Soon we’ll want somewhere near our house to work before we get cabin fever.

Until now, people had been ‘given permission’ to work from home.
When they did not ‘have permission’ they’d get on a shit train every day because their employer knew no other way.

What happens next?

This article here from March 2020 got my attention, ‘What Will Happen When Remote Work Is Over?‘

Dave writes – “Managers (especially those previously sceptical of remote working) need to be preparing for a new workforce coming back to the office; one that has tasted the fruits of remote working and won’t easily let it go.”

Because of this, cities will become less populated as Nas Daily discussed in this video here.

I LOVE Nas and the point he makes, but he could have positioned this video better.


The privilege of remote work

In the first few weeks of COVID, I got more than a little sick of the ‘remote work’ conversation.
I was an ‘expert guest’ on a bunch of ‘going remote’ webinars.

Of course, this was great for my ego.
I became one of many privileged (mainly white) people either whining or boasting about remote work.

One of my co-panellists was from a well-known taxi company whose name rhymes with scuba.
He was waxing lyrical about ‘the whole company going remote!’ – While talking from his cabin by fucking Lake Tahoe.

His company has over five million drivers who get paid for every journey.
I can’t see ‘going remote’ let alone COVID-19 being an epic moment int he ‘future of work’ for many of those drivers.

We all hang out online these days, but we have the privilege of a job, a computer or device and an internet connection.
We also talk with Laëtitia about this on the Coworking Values podcast – Click here to listen.

Listen to this episode here

The privilege of healthcare

Most of us live in a first world country with a robust healthcare system.

In Argentina, where the other half of my family is from there is a severe lockdown because there is no NHS.

If the virus spread there, the health system would not be able to cope, so everyone will be in lockdown even longer.

Coworking and privilege

I’ve been in and around coworking for a solid decade now, and the image of ‘coworking for cool start up’s’ is still an issue.

Independent research conducted in the London borough of Hackney in 2018/19 showed that the demographic of members in coworking spaces were significantly ‘whiter’ and ‘gentrified’ than the demographic of the area.

One of the most precise explanations about ‘privilege’ I’ve ever come to across ever is by Brené Brown.

In 2017 Brené Brown recorded a Facebook live after the tragic Charlottesville incident.

Brené gives examples of privilege and explains how we have to own our story as a human race – listen here.


The elite image of coworking

Unfortunately, some coworking businesses built a wanky, pretentious and toxic image of coworking.
They encouraged a “10x your entrepreneur-hustle” bullshit image of our industry.

I’m all up for building a business and making a profit, but not at the exclusion of others or elitism.

The truth is that there are way more independently owned and run coworking spaces than ‘corporate’ ones.
And the independent ones are home to all the freelancers, micro, small businesses.

How coworking excludes people

The imagery around coworking space websites, events and industy conferences suck.
it defaults to men and ‘alpha’ females drinking flat white coffee, reading copies of Fast Company or Forbes to 10X their lives.

My best example of ill-thought-out messaging is from this workspace company.

We need to pay close attention to these words, images and messages.
I doubt that people are being excluded on purpose but people from all areas of society to feel welcome to play.

Why you’ll hear even more about coworking

So we won’t be going into cities for work so much, and our way of life has changed.
What this means is coworking spaces outside of major cities will boom.

They will become a prominent connection and regeneration point for the micro and small business economies.
A local coworking space gives people somewhere to connect, collaborate and build their community and their business.

The way we communicate the coworking industy has never been more critical.
In a downturn, people spend less money and look even more closely at the values and work practice of where they spend their money.

Going forward

Right now, coworking comes with a lot of safeguards and restrictions.

But going forward, we will see coworking ‘type spaces’ becoming local community hubs.
I live in Zone 4 of London, and I had to go into Zone 2 to find a coworking space that had a sense of community and work ethic like mine.

Now more than ever, I’d rather walk my child to school and stay in Zone 4 to work, but not at home.
COVID made me change my daily routine and priorities, and I’m lucky to end up in a better place.

All this has been happening years.

A few years ago, my mate Gareth co-founded Town Square to take a local type coworking to market towns in the UK.

Before Town Square, Gareth ran the mighty Welsh ICE workspace near Cardiff.
Which five years later still has THE best coworking space intro video EVER click here to watch.

The phone at Town Square rings red hot with people wanting to know how to make a workspace in their ‘little old town’.

The Best Coworking Space Promo Ever?

It is a UK-wide feeling #Saveourlocalcoworking.

Hundreds of coworking friends in the UK have connected to launch the ‘UK Coworking Assembly’.

Our first big project is #Saveourlocalcoworking.

It’s about real people in local areas building their projects, business and community.

Can you help?

Do you use a coworking space?
Do you know someone who owns a coworking space?

Please encourage them to sign #Saveourlocalcoworking.

p.s. The Linkedin Video is here – please leave a comment on the situation and share.