Your Coworking Space Is a Conversation, Not an Office
LinkedIn Show Notes #51 from the Coworking Values Podcast Bullpen. 🎙️ Listen to these stories and hundreds of others on the Coworking Values Podcast Hannah Mojica's train was cancelled on the way to a fireside chat she was supposed to be leading — on member retention. Standing on the platform, she bumped into Mike Lawrence, a FOUNDRY member. They ended up in a coffee shop and just talked. Operations, the CEO role, what it actually takes to build a team that can run without you. Hannah calle
The Golden Thread: Why Unreasonable Hospitality Needs a Story First with Sonya & Julie
Why your coworking space needs a Story before it can practise hospitality "Marketing makes these promises and service delivers that. So for us, StoryBrand and unreasonable hospitality, really work together hand in glove. And StoryBrand is really about thinking about how you communicate that you care to your customers. And the unreasonable hospitality side of things is how you prove it." — Sonya Whittam Sonya Whittam and Julie Firth run Story22, a customer-centric marketing agency base
They Come for the Promise. They Stay for the Hospitality. with Dr. JJ Peterson
"They come for the promise. They stay for the hospitality." — Dr. JJ Peterson Episode Summary JJ Peterson has spent eleven years inside the StoryBrand universe. He co-authored Marketing Made Simple with Donald Miller. He helped Will Guidara write the certification for Unreasonable Hospitality. He hosts the Badass Softie podcast — for leaders who are unapologetically driven but want to lead with their hearts. He is flying to London in June to teach at the first workshop in the world to b
You know you do this work. You just can't prove it in a council meeting.
I recorded a podcast today with Felicia Fai. A lot of you will have met her at Blue Garage during the last Unreasonable Connection. Felicia is an academic at the University of Bath, and the research she recently co-authored adds the economic scaffolding to what we do. Her team studied 161 spaces across 74 regions of the UK to prove what you already know. Local authorities look at your coworking space and see office space. Desks. Square footage. Revenue per desk. Occupancy rates. That is the e
Your Coworking Space Is a Conversation, Not an Office
LinkedIn Show Notes #51 from the Coworking Values Podcast Bullpen. 🎙️ Listen to these stories and hundreds of others on the Coworking Values Podcast Hannah Mojica's train was cancelled on the way to a fireside chat she was supposed to be leading — on member retention. Standing on the platform, she bumped into Mike Lawrence, a FOUNDRY member. They ended up in a coffee shop and just talked. Operations, the CEO role, what it actually takes to build a team that can run without you. Hannah calle
Why AI Can't Feel the Room: Practical Operations with Carlos Almansa
"The AI cannot feel the space. It can't feel the dynamics or the vibe. But it can free up time for you to talk to your members, to have a coffee with them, to understand and to read people." — Carlos Almansa Ballesteros Episode Summary Most conversations about AI in coworking are either evangelical or dismissive. Carlos Almansa Ballesteros, co-founder of Nexudus and author of the Coworkings AI newsletter, isn't interested in either. He's been building software for this industry for 13
Why The People Who Build Communities Never Show Up For Themselves
May 19th Unreasonable Connection Live! You spend your whole week lowering the barrier for everyone else. Nobody does it for you. When I ran @Workhubs by Euston Station with Phil, there were days I was so exhausted it felt like the liquid had drained out of my eyes. When you run an independent space, or when you're the community manager, it is a profoundly lonely place. You are the person holding your own shit, and everyone else's shit too. You're having that quiet conversation in the kitche
The Golden Thread: Why Unreasonable Hospitality Needs a Story First with Sonya & Julie
Why your coworking space needs a Story before it can practise hospitality "Marketing makes these promises and service delivers that. So for us, StoryBrand and unreasonable hospitality, really work together hand in glove. And StoryBrand is really about thinking about how you communicate that you care to your customers. And the unreasonable hospitality side of things is how you prove it." — Sonya Whittam Sonya Whittam and Julie Firth run Story22, a customer-centric marketing agency baseExplore More Content
Start Cooking. The Recipe Will Follow.
We're moving everything up a gear. At the last Unreasonable Connection Live in Lewisham, you told us the groups were too random and the curation could be tighter. You were right. 75% of you left with more momentum than you arrived with. The room worked. The curation didn't. The people in the room, the conversations that happen, and how those conversations are curated—it all matters deeply. That's why on May 19th, Tilley Harris and the team from Akou are collaborating with us to facilitate
The neighbourhood is a site of freedom (why community won't save us)
When I was a kid, I loved Christmas time. We would visit my grandparents in Bristol and end up wandering around the massive department stores, surrounded by the hum of cheesy festive music. Walk into the old abandoned Debenhams in Bristol today and listen to the noise. It is the harsh, percussive clatter of urethane skateboard wheels slamming into concrete. It is the heavy bass line of a live band tuning up for a Friday night gig. It is the chaotic, overlapping hum of a Sunday market, where a
You're Never Broke If You Got Ideas: How Koder Brings Music to the Neighbourhood
"Ideas are currency, you know. And you're never broke if you got ideas... Everything we are looking at around us came from an idea. So for me, they are, it is a currency within itself." — Koder Koder runs Undeniable Studios, a music production conglomerate built from youth clubs, pirate radio, and 10,000 hours of free studio time in Brockley. He's now the first Creative in Residence at Blue Garage in Lewisham, where he's installing a commercial music studio, planning his Circle the Ends
The Last Room Standing: Why Rural Coworking is the Real Frontline of European Revitalisation
LinkedIn Show Notes #48 from the Coworking Values Podcast Bullpen. European Coworking Day is weeks away. ACTionism screenings are filling up across London, Europe, and as far as El Nido in Palawan. Here in Vigo, we're running our first-ever European Coworking Day event: LiveGalicia, a pop-up coworking day at the incredible La Contenedora, right around the corner from our home. And a special shoutout to Fento Coworking—the first coworking space in Vigo to ever take part in European Coworking Da
How to Host an ACTionism Screening for European Coworking Day (May 6th)
You know you should do more community stuff. Everyone knows. The problem is the gap between knowing and doing. Between the idea of getting members together and actually creating a moment when something happens. The people who came to Blue Garage in February for Unreasonable Connection told us two things kept coming up: making the numbers work without selling out, and convincing anyone outside the room that what we do actually matters. We get it. We run events. We know it isn't easy. What we