Event Summary: Co-work-work-work-work-work

Last week we hosted an event during London Design Festival to do with co-working, Co-work-work-work-work-work. (Yeah, we named it after a Rihanna song.)

London has 800 co-working spaces, three times as many as New York. They account for 31,000 jobs, contribute £1.7bn GVA to the London economy, and are growing at a rate of 10% per year.

Their contribution to the economic success of the city is huge, but they are still a relatively new phenomenon. A variety of business models and different typologies of spaces exist — public and privately funded, run both for-profit, and for-free.

But what works? And how should we measure success?

Our pecha kucha style event brought together leading workspace providers from makerspaces, business improvement districts, commercial providers and makerspaces, as well as charities and social enterprises across London to share their insights.

And we’ve tried to describe below some of the key themes that were raised last week…

1. Business Models

Our speakers presented a range of business models and charging methods, but the key takeaway was the variety of co-working options presented to the consumer.

Every speaker had a unique offer that included price, location, contract and quality options…

The co-working market in London has grown, and grown very quickly, which means providers must distinguish themselves to remain competitive.

Both Workspace Group and Work.Life described their co-working spaces as having a retail offer. Work.Life only take on spaces with a ground floor location, and offer a Flex membership which involves paying £3.50 p/h to access their space.

The idea of carrying out this model 10–15 years ago would have seemed absurd, but the way we work has changed…

2. Measuring Success

We asked our speakers how they measure success, and as you’d expect a wide range of answers were described, ranging from property and design awards, to member satisfaction, economic measures of business growth as well as softer benefits for members (88% of Collective users viewed the project as having had a big impact on their networking and learning and 72% saw it as having benefitted their personal development).

Interestingly, none of the speakers focused on the financial benefits or company profits. Providers would seem to to take a wide-ranging approach to measuring success, which makes sense.

If you wanted to create the maximum possible return on land in London you wouldn’t run a co-working space.

There is of course a balance to be stuck…

We particularly liked this answer to a survey of Makerversity members when asked what the importance of making is:

3. Admission Procedure

Unsurprisingly a range of criteria were talked about. Providers like us, who are publicly funded obviously have an obligation to funders to achieve outputs so aim to achieve additionality and make use of free space (by creating jobs, turnover etc.). Other providers had a more commerical focus, but this, from Bootstrap Company was our favourite:

The importance of developing entry and exit criteria was mentioned more than once, and was one of the recommendations included in the forthcoming piece of IPPR research.

4. Top Tips

There was one very strong recurring theme here. Simon Pitkeathley presented Camden Collective’s day-to-day strategy using an adapted model of Maslow’s pyramid of human needs.

As a co-working space you need to focus on providing some basic services before being able to deliver the true value of co-working. In other words, don’t start providing ping pong before being sure you’ve got a reliable internet and wi-fi connection.

This was backed up by Chris Pieroni from Workspace who described the way in which Workspace run Wi-fi in their spaces to keep their users happy.

Internet, internet, internet…

Workspace host a staggering 18,000 devices every day, 45% of which are mobile devices, and Tuesday and Wednesday’s are the days when the most data is consumed…

5. Challenges

Immediately the effects of Brexit are unknown, but it is widely accepted that uncertainty will affect macro conditions and business confidence. But this may also prompt demand for co-working space as consumers seek flexible less secure options.

London being London, means that affordable space is becoming harder and harder to come by.

In the short term there is a business rates review later this year which will have a knock on effect to co-working providers, which will in turn be passed onto clients.

6. The Future

David Kosky summed it up perfectly in his blog about the event:

‘The co-working industry is booming for a reason. We’re seeing a fundamental attitudinal shift in the work that people are doing and the way that they’re doing it. The future of work, especially post-Brexit, is all about flexibility, and freelancing is on the increase. People want the ability to work when they want and how they want, and co-working spaces are facilitating this by providing all the perks of an office with the flexibility, creativity, and community that this new way of working demands.’

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You can download all of the speaker’s slides here:

• Carys Roberts, Research Fellow, IPPR
• Simon Pitkeathley, CEO, Camden Collective/Camden Town Unlimited
• David Kosky, Director, Work.Life
• Pareen Patel, Operations, Hub Westminster
• Chris Pieroni, Operations Director, Workspace Group
• Sufiya Patel, Operations Manager, Bootstrap Company
• Christina Hayman, General Manager, Makerversity

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This event was kindly supported by the Mayor of London’s High Street Fund and Camden Town Unlimited.