This episode features Chris Holt, co-founder of TechArtista in St. Louis, Missouri.
Chris shares his experience on expanding his space over time and adding member-driven services such as a Movement Lab, a hair studio, a photography studio and a maker's space.
Welcome to Episode #31 of the Everything Coworking Podcast!
This episode is brought to you by the Global Workspace Association.
In this episode, Craig Baute, founder of Creative Density, a coworking space in Denver, shares his experience around how to cultivate community in a shared workspace. He gives some tips on how to facilitate without going overboard. This episode and our next episode, #32, focus on facilitating community in a shared workspace. I created a downloadable cheat sheet with a list of tips and insights shared by our guests, Craig in this episode, and Chris Holt from Tech Artista in the next episode.
To get the cheat sheet, text GWA2016 to 44222, and then follow the instructions on your phone.
Enjoy our conversation!
In this episode, I chat with Natalie Grasso, Senior Editor for Work Design Magazine. We talk about workplace trends and their new event series on exploring choice in the workplace. Natalie shares some learnings from the first two events in Washington DC and Seattle. The series continues in Chicago in April and another event in June in Washington DC.
Enjoy our conversation!
Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast #29!
Today I spoke with Mike Lanni and Colin Bovet. Mike is Head of Key Accounts for Enplug and Colin is Head of Marketing at Enplug. We talk about the idea that workspace members are experiencing unprecedented levels of technology that connect, simplify and enhance their experience. They will expect this level of experience in a workspace. Enplug has a dummy-proof digital signage solution that puts IT guys out of business. We talk about trends they're seeing in the marketplace and what types of content workspaces communicate to build community.
Enjoy our conversation!
Dale Hersowitz predicts how the Internet of Things will have a major impact on the way shared workspaces are run and on the member experience.
Keith Warner, Managing Partner for Pacific Workplaces, shares how the company, which has 16 locations in the Bay Area, has changed their name, the titles of their client-facing staff as well as their space design to experiment with the open-plan coworking model. If you are a traditional serviced office space thinking about making some updates this episode is for you. Enjoy!
Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast #26! Today I spoke with Mike LaRosa who is the founder and publisher of Coworkaholic. We are doing our 2nd annual 2016 trend report. Mike is reporting from Bali where he is helping out with the Coworking Unconference Asia (GCUC) which is happening February 24-28, 2016. We are actually not going to talk about the conference today. Coworkaholic and Deskmag just issued a 2016 Coworking Trends Report based on data they received from a survey they received in the fall, but Mike was in charge of the trend part of the report.
In this episode we talked about new concepts and new developments in the coworking world. The episode is brought to you by the Global Workspace Association.
Enjoy the show!
Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast #24!
Today I spoke with Aalap Shah. Aalap is the founder of SoMe, a Chicago-based digital marketing company. He has worked in the online, retail, and service sectors, and knows what it takes to market and succeed in our increasingly digital world.
Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast #23!
Today I talk with Evan Oder, founder of FindWorkspaces.com. I met Evan at the annual Global Workspace Association Conference last month in Denver. His company was an exhibitor and they were catching the attention of those of us that wake up at night in a cold sweat worrying about our organic search rankings in Google. And if you’re not in that camp, you should be! Enjoy the episode!
Jamie Russo announces her new role as Executive Director of Global Workspace Association as well as a new show format including industry trends in the coworking world including Grind/Verizon news, the GCUC 2016 location and a new tool released from CoShare.
Welcome to episode #21 of the Everything Coworking Podcast!
My guest today is Dr. Tracy Brower. Tracy shares insights on how corporations are supporting work-life integration, and how corporate office design and third space design can support work-life integration and uses her experience to share some suggestions on how to use research and insights to design better work spaces.
Dr. Brower is a work environment sociologist and Global Vice President of Workplace Vitality for Mars Drinks. She is the author of Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to Work: A Guide for Leaders and Organizations which focuses on work-life integration and abundance. Over her career, she has had the opportunity to engage with a wide range of organizations including many of the Fortune 500. She is a three-time recipient of the CoreNet Luminary Award for speaking and a recipient of the University of Houston Alexander Real Estate Innovative Practices Award. Tracy has also taught university courses in management and organizational effectiveness.
Enjoy our conversation!
Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast Episode #20!
This week my guest is Hasan Mirjan, Founder of Spheremail and Spherepad. He started both about the same time. As he shares during the interview, he started Spherepad, a coworking space, in 2008 in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood and at the time, friends and family warned him of a low chance of success given the bad economy and an unproven location. So to hedge his bet, he started Spheremail, a virtual mail management platform, to diversify his revenue streams. It turns out that both ventures were successful. Spheremail is now being used by shared workspaces across the country and around the world.
Welcome to Episode 19 of the Everything Coworking Podcast!
Today we’re going to talk about how to hire a Community Manager for your shared space. I share the process I followed for my most recent hire and a tweak I made to the job title and description that might be considered controversial in the coworking world. Check the show notes for links to the resources I used and for a copy of my job description.
Welcome to Episode 18 of the Everything Coworking Podcast!
Today we’re going to talk about 2 somewhat unrelated topics, but I thought I’d throw them together: Phone Service & 24/7 Access.
I walk through how to think about phone service options and what access level to give to your members.
Today we’re going to talk about virtual mail. It’s something that folks in the business center world have been doing for a long time, and it’s really lucrative for them. Their view is that your revenue has finite potential if you are only selling memberships for space but a virtual membership revenue stream has infinite upside. It’s also a nice way to introduce people to your services and engage them in the community.
I discuss how it works and my personal experience with it at Enerspace Coworking, which is the coworking space brand that I also run.
Today's guest, Tiffany Knight, is the Community & Space Manager at Workbar Boston. She gives us a glimpse of what it takes to make a strong community like Workbar thrive.
She also takes us along for the unpredictable day in a life of a coworking space community manager.
Adam Friedberg is a Managing Broker and Partner in Brand & Company, a real estate company in River Forest, IL. Adam got into the coworking industry accidentally - he and his partners started co-locating their business associates - architects, other real estate colleagues, bankers, in the office building that they had purchased. They saw great stragegic value in having their professional network in the same office for easy collaboration and relationship-building.
They've recently extended this shared space success and started River Forest Kitchen which is, as the name implies, a shared commercial kitchen space in River Forest, IL.
Adam thinks that if you're in real estate and you don't see where the world is going in terms of shared space and services, you should get on the bus. Learn more about coworking from his real estate perspective in this eposide.
Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast Episode Number 14!
In today’s episode, I chat with Matthew Dunstan, author of The Coworking Revolution: Four Secrets to Successfully Working for Yourself, just published May 2015. Matthew spoke at GCUC Australia and I wanted to share his story.
I read Matthew’s book on a recent flight and was really struck at the time by his perspective on the problems that coworking solves. And I have to say that since our interview, I can’t stop thinking about his ideas. We talk a lot in coworking about this idea of “serendipitous interactions” - this idea that if you collide with enough people, you’ll make connections that would otherwise never present themselves. And these connections should help you personally and professionally.
The thing I love about Matthew’s value proposition for coworking is that he’s suggesting that hope is not a strategy. I read that book some time ago and love that title and it’s really making me think about what we’re doing in coworking spaces to facilitate more than just lucky conversations at member events.
I know you’ll enjoy our conversation but I also highly recommend the book.
I love talking shop with Chris. He launched his successful marketing business out of a coworking space from scratch and is directing his coworking passion towards helping other entrepreneurs be successful by introducing them to coworking. He interviews entrpereneurs on his weekly podcast show called Coworking Success.
Chris shares his perspective on what coworking will look like in 2020, some marketing tips for coworking space owners and some personal approaches to keeping himself in top business shape.