314. Empowering Innovation: CIC Philadelphia's Coworking Approach to Community, Technology, and Inclusiveness

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314. Empowering Innovation: CIC Philadelphia's Coworking Approach to Community, Technology, and Inclusiveness

00:00:02,"Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast, where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how toss in Coworking. I owned and operated Coworking spaces for eight years and then served as the executive director of the Global Workspace Association for five years. And today I work with hundreds of operators and community managers every month, allowing me to bring you thought provoking operator,"

00:00:29,"case studies and inspirational interviews with industry thought leaders to help you confidently stay on top of what's important and what you can apply to your own role in the Coworking industry. Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thanks for joining me today. I hope you're all having a great summer. We are getting ready for a little family trip to visit some family in upstate New York where it is gonna be warm and humid."

00:01:01,"I don't mind a little humidity in the summer since we don't get any of that in the Bay Area. So trying to get all the things done before we go. You know what it's like getting ready for a trip. You have 85 things on your to-do list, including taking my two dogs separately to the groomer today. And my poor Charlie, who's our puppy,"

00:01:19,"was all matted and she's behind me in a little Charlie ball because she looked naked and she, she totally knows she looks funny. Isn't it funny how dogs are onto less light and fun topics if you are in the us? Hopefully you're reading up on the C M R A changes. We sent out an email, so if you are on our email list,"

00:01:42,"you would have received that. If you're not, you should be on it. 'cause sometimes we send some goodies that are very helpful. So we created a summary doc on the C M R A changes and what the action items are. And so if you need that, join our email list and shoot a note to Carla at hello at Everything Coworking dot com."

00:02:01,"She can share the doc with you. We are also doing, we've created, I think it went out today, a huge shout out to Janelle Dzik. She actually is in Canada so she does not have to deal with this, but she created an awesome done for you communication campaign template, several templates for our community managers and our mastermind operator members to use to communicate with their members around the changes."

00:02:38,"So they're just templates. You can make them your own, but emails that can go out, signage for the space, you know, posts, we even have a tracker to help you, just a little Excel or Google sheet template so that you can track who's, you know, updated their form, who hasn't. One quick note, the one sort of common misunderstanding we're seeing is that you will get notified when you have access to the database where you upload the new forms."

00:03:07,"So you are not missing anything, you just have to keep an eye out. I think it's coming via mail. So you'll get a notification from the post office when you have access to that database. But you should start the process of using the new form. And again, all those action items are in that document we created. And if your Community Manager is in our program or if you're in our operator mastermind,"

00:03:28,"then you'll get a nice done for you box of goodies to help you with this transition. Yeah, our team has been busy over the summer taking a little time off, having fun, but we're doing a lot of work with landlords who are either considering flex or are working to launch their own flex brand. That's a lot of fun. Not totally different from working,"

00:03:50,"you know, with operators, but slightly different and just kind of a different category of supplier and some are looking for partners, so that's great. We hosted our management agreement course last month, which was great, helping folks kind of get up to speed on what's happening out there and how those get structured. And we are making some updates to our Coworking Startup School format."

00:04:14,"We're gonna go, we're gonna test, we'll see how it goes, doing more of a live cohort style where we go sort of do some of our framework together live and workshop through it live. So we do coaching calls and we do a lot of support and demos and things like that in the program, but we're gonna get a little more high touch with the group."

00:04:38,"So if you've been thinking about doing the Startup school ke, keep in touch, make sure you're on the email list so you can get the updates when we're ready to launch that, which will be sometime in September. So lots happening over here. You know, I also wanna mention, if you're thinking about opening a space, I have been co-creating a YouTube series with Mike Everts."

00:05:01,"Mike was one of my very first mastermind we called it. We called the Flight Group members and he now works with office r and d and we've been doing, he's awesome. So he's been an operator and now I, he's on the technology side. So we've done, I think, five parts of the series so far. We just released one on the Coworking tech stack."

00:05:25,"So if you're thinking about opening a space, that's a great series to catch. You can find it on the Everything Coworking YouTube channel. So another summer project. Okay, so today's interview is with Michelle Adi and she is the managing director at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Philadelphia. And I had heard, I knew, was kind of aware of the C I c but had never,"

00:05:52,"I don't think, I think I've spoken with somebody from there, never had them on the podcast. And I love learning about models that are, you know, not sort of the typical template, if you will. And we've been talking about that a lot because as our industry gets more mature, there's a little more diversification. Although the c I C has been around for 20 years,"

00:06:12,"I think Michelle said, and this location in Philly is 140,000 square feet. So there are a few things that are interesting about this. They have a lot of lab space, so you'll hear her talk about the types of users and the types of specialized like equipment that they offer and how folks kind of move through their ecosystem. And ecosystem is really the right word here."

00:06:36,"It's super interesting. They have a ton of space, A lot of it is lab space, but they also have just general office space. So they also have, you know, attorneys and accountants and marketing folks and, and that kind of thing. And you know, I, I guess my first thought was like, it probably looks different than typical Coworking,"

00:06:53,"but I'm not sure it does. They are really, so one thing is of course she has a fantastic team. They're really focused on member experience. They host a lot of events both for their members and to bring in the community. So the interface between their community and the sort of surrounding Philadelphia especially sort of biotech community is really important to them. They also,"

00:07:19,"you know, treat their members just like you all treat your members. They have a treat trolley that rolls through the space, I think she said on Tuesdays. And the key point that I remember from that is that they have Klondike bars on the tree trolley. They have like a hot sauce cart that they take through the space. So they just do some really fun,"

00:07:42,"interesting things. And then again, a lot of events that are pretty focused on entrepreneurship and integrating the external and internal communities. So very focused on, you know, member experience even at 140,000 square feet, which is a lot of space. So they have a lot going on. So anyway, it's a for-profit space, which I thought was interesting. But they have sponsors and they have,"

00:08:09,"they, yeah, have other funding sources, which she talks a little bit about in our discussion. So anyway, one other just kind of higher level thought that I've had about this interview, and I was thinking about this a little bit earlier 'cause I think about Coworking all the time, of course, is really about who we're serving and who we're focused on."

00:08:37,"And I think that sometimes we're really focused on the people who don't know we exist, right? Who all the remote workers who don't yet realize they have a problem and don't, you know, know about us as a solution. And I love Michelle's story because it's really focused on people who need space, people who need lab space, they have a need,"

00:08:57,"not a want, they can't do that at home, which is very cool. And then of course they're doing some of the same work that you are all trying to do, which is attract folks who just might be better at working in a shared workspace with a, you know, a community that they can be a part of. But you know, really it's,"

00:09:18,"it's an interesting time and I think the more that we can be for people who really need us, the easier the business will be. And we can keep trekking along on, you know, educating folks and sort of raising the bar. And I think that needs to be done at some sort of high, higher level. We, going back to the,"

00:09:35,"you know, got Coworking campaign that I wish the association would run. I'm, I'll talk to Geo about that. But anyway, geo is the, for those of you who don't know Geo, Giovanni Pelini is my co-host on the Flex Uncentered podcast, is also the co-president with SSID Romberg of the Global Workspace Association. And we talk about that all the time on our other podcast."

00:10:00,"But if I haven't mentioned it here, tickets are on sale for the conference, which is the third week in September. And I will be moderating a panel. So I'll definitely be there and would love to see you. So if you're planning to go, let us know. Reach out on Instagram or what Facebook group or you know, whatever. Okay."

00:10:21,"This is a long intro. Thanks for hanging in there. And without further ado, here's my conversation with Michelle Otti. Welcome. I am here with Michelle Otti. She is the managing director of C I C or Cambridge Innovation Center. Although she is not in Cambridge, she is a proud, born and raised Philadelphian. Is that what we say? Okay."

00:10:43,"Yeah. If you're watching on video, she has her, her Philly. Is it a street map? What is what, what is that Map? It's the neighborhood map. Oh, nice. Yeah. So it's all the different neighborhoods of Philadelphia. Yeah. Okay. So each one is the word, the name of the neighborhood. Okay, so is the C I C like downtown where,"

00:11:01,"tell us about, so the C I C is 140,000 square feet of office space and lab space. And you know what I've never had a guest on this is you'll be episode like three 15 ish, but I've met folks from the C I C, I've talked to somebody in Miami before and been really interested in what you're up to. So I'm really looking forward to this."

00:11:24,"So tell us the broader C I C and then Sure. A little bit about model. Zoom out. Zoom in. Great. Okay. So C I C works to create focus spaces programming and really serve the community that is working to fix some of the world's biggest problems, right? So we work to lower the barriers to entry to commercialization of products and really getting your business going."

00:11:51,"It's been around for 23 years, Cambridge Innovation Center. So started in Cambridge, we now have two locations in Cambridge, one in Boston, they expanded to St. Louis and then in Providence, Rhode Island, Philly, right? Well here where I am. And then we also have international locations. We are in Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Tokyo. And we really believe that innovation is the key to fixing problems."

00:12:20,"And so we wanna do everything we can to support companies, whether it's an academic spin out, a Startup, a somebody who's ready to scale up, we wanna support you so that you can accelerate your innovation, accelerate your business. You know, we're looking for things like money, ideas and talent, the sort of ingredients that will help to get a business started."

00:12:42,"And we wanna remove or mitigate any boundaries, you know, or obstacles to getting those things started. So in 20 15 16, the University City Science Center and Wexford Science and Technology is partnered here in Philly and really conspired to get C I C to come to Philly. And it was amazing timing because right around that time is when the life sciences really started to boom here in Philly."

00:13:11,"And so when they built the site, we are six floors in a beautiful building at 36 75 Market Street. And when they built that, they included two floors of lab space. So wet lab space. And at the time they had somebody else man, like an external partner managing it during the pandemic. Obviously everything changed for everyone and I'm sure we could spend a whole hour talking about that."

00:13:37,"But basically we found that the labs were fully occupied. 'cause you can't do your bench work from your kitchen from home. Right? I probably could, but you shouldn't. Yes. You're about to work at home, don't Try this at home. Yeah. And there was just a real boom in life sciences, specifically in cell and gene therapy here in Philly."

00:13:54,"We are the Silicon Valley, if you will. That's what people call the city. And part of that is that we're right in the middle of University City where there is University of Pennsylvania, Drexel Temple, Thomas Jefferson Children's Hospital Research Center, top tier research organizations. And so a lot of spin outs coming out of that. And so we actually changed two of our office floors,"

00:14:22,"half of each of those floors into labs. So we retrofitted those spaces. Wow. So we could talk about that too. Yeah. So that's sort of, you know, how we came to be here in Philly. I joined the team in January of 2021 when they decided to bring the lab ops in house because I have a labs background that they wanted somebody to run the site that had that science knowledge and experience."

00:14:46,"Got it. So that's how I came here. Okay. So CIC is, is not lab specific. They're an innovation platform and Yes. But Philadelphia said, well this is what we need because this is kind of what we do and this is how innovation, how we wanna sort of support innovation was through the lab space. Yeah. C I C is an industry agnostic,"

00:15:10,"so each of our centers serves all different kinds of clients. Here in Philly now we have 115 client companies and only 30 of them are actually lab scientists. Science companies. Yeah. But they take up the most space and have the biggest teams. Okay. So obviously we have to really work to cater to that, to that demographic. But we also have,"

00:15:31,"we have a lawyer who works for the German consulate. He's generic. We're a Cosmetics company. Yeah. Like regular typical Coworking and Yeah. And shared office type users. Yeah. But we have that real big focus on the life sciences here with, so with all that lab space. So does C I C operate as a not-for-profit? How is it funded?"

00:15:51,"No, C I C is a for-profit company. Okay. We are partnered with not-for-profit. So Science Center is a not-for-profit. They are a consortium of 30 to 40 universities in the city or surrounding area. And we partner with them to really support their efforts in their commercialization and capital readiness capitalization programming. And we have some interesting partnerships with them through our social impact cohort as well."

00:16:19,"Okay. Interesting. Okay. So how does the sort of keeping on the, the zoomed out, how does sort of the c I C platform support individual locations? Yeah, so, you know, we have a, a headquarters in Cambridge and we have a great executive team that really helps to guide those of us on the ground in each of our centers."

00:16:41,"Each center either has a general manager or or a managing director. And we obviously work to drive our center's initiatives and our goals to meet the company, the overall company goals and initiatives. And so in each of our centers, if you're any, if you're any level of member, so if you're a co-working member that's paying, you know, 300 some dollars a month for a drop in Coworking space in full access to all the amenities,"

00:17:08,"or you are a large lab client with 50 benches, you have access to the same high quality team. Wait until we talk about my team. They're so cool and effective. Okay. Agreed. Yeah. Interesting. I'm kind Of dying to dig into like, how's this place run? Yeah. It's really cool. And then you also have access to all of the unmetered amenities."

00:17:28,"You have a, which we could talk about too. And then access to our programming, which is interesting in each of our centers. Hey, I'm gonna interrupt our interview for just a minute with a word from one of our partners and we will be right back to our conversation with Michelle. I want to interrupt you for a minute. With a special offer,"

00:17:50,"if you are an operator that is getting ready to launch or your space is less than a year old and less than 200 members, office r and d is piloting a program called Flex Startup program, which allows you to save 50% on your first year with office r and D Flex to help you grow your Coworking space. As many of you know, I run programs that help operators launch."

00:18:16,"I run mastermind programs for operators that are in business and a Community Manager program. And we have lots of members that love using r and d office r and d. It's kind of an all-in-one platform that has fantastic analytics, meeting room management, lots of integrations, all the things as I like to say. So it's a fan favorite of the Everything Coworking program members."

00:18:43,"So I'm excited that you get a chance to kind of get started with it at a discounted rate. So 50% off of your first year, you can learn more about the offer and sign up for a demo by going to Everything Coworking dot com slash o d, that's Everything Coworking dot com slash org d We'll also throw that link in the show notes. So if you open your podcast app,"

00:19:12,"you can grab the link right there. You also have global access to any of our centers. So if you are a Coworking member here in Philly and you are potentially, you know, a partnering with somebody in Tokyo and you wanna go over there for a meeting, you have a, you can walk in using the same card tap to get in and have access to all the conference rooms and the same amenities."

00:19:32,"So really serving clients at all different levels. We don't necessarily change the offering. We want everybody to have the same access to all of these sort of high quality amenities. Yeah. I, I think that's really, really interesting. I have to mention, by the way, my husband is in biotech. I mentioned in our pre-chat, he used to work for Merck and he works for a,"

00:19:55,"they're public, but a small biotech company out of Seattle. So they commercialized technology out of the University of Seattle and they worked in a shared lab space for a long time. And I thought that's so brilliant because they were really a Startup, but they were doing very serious science and lab work and, but they just, like, we think of office space,"

00:20:19,"like they, they didn't need to build their own, you know, until they got to a certain point or had I, I, yes I do pay attention to his work, but until, you know, yeah. Whatever milestone or you know, data, you know, readout or you know, whatever. And they finally built their own space because it was my husband,"

00:20:39,"I was always like, Hey, could you, why don't you go to Seattle this week kind of thing. And he's like, there's no place for me to work. He's like, the office is full. And so, but clearly it's a great model. It's very highly utilized. He's like, there's no office space for me to, I can't get a spot."

00:20:55,"He's like, I have to work in the hotel room. But I thought, well, good for them. You know, and it was really professional. He felt very comfortable. Like if you had to take a you meet meeting there with, so I, I love the shared, it makes a ton of sense for like the commercialization stage. It Makes a big difference for,"

00:21:14,"well first it makes a big difference for somebody who's spinning out of academia because if you're doing your research in your academic lab, the IP is not yours. Right? Yeah. Like you, it's a university. So if you wanna own that IP and be able to patent it and have all of that in your name, you need to be in your own space."

00:21:31,"But it's expensive to have a spec lab built. Right. It's incredibly expensive. Yeah. And like one of the, the biggest benefit that I always try to highlight for people about the shared amenities here is that as a lab client, you have access to over $4 million of top of the line equipment that as a Startup you're not gonna have the capital to invest in."

00:21:54,"Yeah. So, you know, we have this beautiful, and I get so nerdy about this 'cause I, I'm a scientist and I was not wasted. I spent so much of my time using cell sorters and flow cytometers and like the old clunky ones in the, in the s in the two thousands, you know, because grandma's moved on. But it's like we got this beautiful $400,000 bench top cell sorter."

00:22:19,"And I'm like, my lab director and I are like drooling over how beautiful and easy to use it is. And we never would've had access to that. Never in an academic or a Startup lab. Yeah. And so having access to all of that equipment and a team that takes care of the equipment and supports you using it, it's almost priceless. Yeah."

00:22:41,"Yeah. I love it. It's brilliant. Yeah. And the shared model, they built their own office and 30,000 square feet with their own lab and they have a hard time getting the non-lab folks to come in. Yeah. So I, yeah. But if they had access, you know, you have significant scale, 140,000 feet is, is a lot of space."

00:23:02,"So if they had access to something like that, maybe they could have stayed in there, you know, or done a, done a mix. Yeah. Well, okay, so you have a PhD in genetics. So let's tell, give us the short, like how did Michelle become, you know, managing director of Yeah. Of the CIC and Yeah."

00:23:19,"What do you, you know, we were talking a little bit about you love it and you've got some programs that you do with kids and Yeah. Give us the, Yeah. So I, I've loved science my whole life. Absolutely. Like, passionate about it. From the fourth grade, I knew I wanted to do something with science. I was a bio major in college."

00:23:36,"I went to Rosemont College out on the mainline all women's school at the time. It was great. I loved it. I, but I was like, I love science, but I love philosophy and I love politics. I'm sort of like a, I don't know what I wanna be when I grow up person, so I just, let's make the most of whatever opportunity."

00:23:51,"So I was a bio major. My wife often jokes that I'm the only person she knows that got a PhD because they didn't know what they wanted to do. I was gonna say, I'm like Michelle, for someone who's multi-passionate, getting a PhD I know. Pretty bad commitment. Yeah. And, and I didn't love it. I didn't love the process,"

00:24:06,"but I loved the science. Okay. I did really cool grad work on the fit tumor suppressor gene, a cancer research. It's, it's aberrant and lung cancers. It was really interesting work. But I wasn't like, I was passionate about the intellectual knowledge, but not about the actual implementation of the experiments. But I still didn't know what I wanted to do."

00:24:25,"So I did a po I followed the sort of traditional academic tract and I did a postdoc at UPenn Vet School in Cancer. But I moved from mice work to yeast and I was doing a different cancer pathway. And again, intellectually really stimulating. Interesting. I didn't love bench work. It felt sort of isolating. Yeah. The things that I felt really passionate about when I was in college and grad school were like the extracurriculars,"

00:24:49,"student government, things like that where I could talk and be involved and shepherd people extroverted, Nerdy PhD person, which Is so interesting. 'cause I'm really not an extrovert. Okay. Like, I am such an introvert at the end of the day, I don't wanna talk to anybody. Okay. I wanna go home and be quiet, but I could turn it on when I need to."

00:25:09,"Right. But I do love that type of leadership and like operational oversight. And so I knew that I couldn't stay in this postdoc. I knew I didn't wanna do the academic track. So at the time it was 2006 Fairfax Cryobank, which is one of the country's largest sperm banks. They had opened a site here in Philadelphia, right here in University City."

00:25:33,"And they weren't necessarily looking for somebody with my background, but it worked out. And I was with them for 15 years in various roles where I gained a lot of experience. I had, I oversaw the Philadelphia site, I was able to get a high complexity clinical lab director certification, which allowed me to be the lab director for a CLIA certified lab."

00:25:58,"We were f d a licensed. So I had all this experience doing a lab director and director of operations role. And I oversaw anywhere from six to eight labs in different cities around the country. So I was familiar with regulatory and compliance requirements in different locations. We also had a, a big international component to our distribution. So we had to be familiar with international reg regulations."

00:26:21,"Yeah. So it basically just, it gave me all this great experience. And c I c approached me in, in 2020. And I, I am a firm believer that the universe conspires to get us where we're supposed to be. And I had toyed with other opportunities over the years, but nothing was, nothing really pulled me away. The thing thing I really loved at Fairfax is I got to do community outreach."

00:26:45,"I got to like do family building for the L G B T community. And I loved that sort of like, it, it was incredibly impactful work. It felt impactful. Yeah. Like real purpose in addition to some more technical Yeah. Yeah. So I was getting to talk science and like, you know, medicine with civilians, you know, like non-scientists,"

00:27:09,"but also getting to do like the proficiency and stuff in the lab. But then when C I C came to me, I really saw this as an opportunity to have an impact in a larger footprint like the, the life science ecosystem of the city. And so I was like, yeah, I have to, I, I'll be honest with you, it was when I came on site and did my,"

00:27:26,"my interview day and I saw the facilities and met this amazing team and I was like, I gotta do this. And it was just a unique opportunity. So I said yes, and now I'm here. Yeah. That's amazing. And they were like, you are the one we like. I'm sure they, They, they, yes. They seem,"

00:27:46,"they seem happy with me so far. So a some of my audience does sort of just, you know, more typical Coworking like shared office space. Yeah. And I think there's something really special about facilitating innovation because innovation needs place, right? Like, you can't innovate over zoom. You need labs. You need the serendipitous, you need mistakes that turn into,"

00:28:13,"you know, you need the conversation. You really do. It's like a need and you're, you know, to facilitate. Yeah. It is, is super interesting. So I think you have a unique role in that. You have people who are, you mentioned like, we have attorneys and you know, we have just normal civilians do Yeah. You know,"

00:28:35,"the normal jobs. But, but the, yeah, you're playing an important role in just bringing, so can can you talk about sort of, you, you, you mentioned your for-profit, so you have the typical KPIs of like, let's be profitable. Yes. What are the other kind of metrics that you're going for as an innovation center? Yeah."

00:28:56,"I mean, obviously you're right. We're looking at like occupancy revenue, things like that. But we also do have KPIs set up around our events and programming. So C I C has a really strong commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And so one of the things that the company has our initiatives, we use O OKRs objectives and key results."

00:29:18,"And then we've got like KPIs built into that. So it's like All the acronyms, but Yeah. All the acronyms. Yeah. All the things that you have to keep looking at the acronyms for. And they all mean something different in science and they mean in the business world. So it's like interesting, a accomplishment. Okay. Okay. But like our,"

00:29:34,"our events team will work to meet certain, you know, certain numbers of events. We do client engagement events that everything from, you know, a wake up with c i C breakfast, which is simply just like a breakfast and networking event to get people out of their labs, out of their offices into a shared space, talking over food. Food doesn't Every time."

00:29:57,"I was gonna say, to get scientists outta the lab, you gotta have some snacks or some good food. And so, so it's things like that. But then we also do our D E I B programming, which is both for the staff and our client community. So this past year we've done a trans inclusivity in the workplace training with the Bryson Institute through the Attic Youth Center."

00:30:18,"We partnered with the Autism Institute at Drexel University to do inclusivity of differently abled individuals in the workplace. And we actually hosted two interns from the, the Autism Institute, which was a great experience. So we're not just providing like space and opportunities to eat meat, we're also providing programmatic content to hopefully inspire people to be more inclusive, to think about how their business,"

00:30:46,"their company culture is going to be more inclusive. And we really do work to have clients that are mission aligned. And specifically with our life sciences clients, we have something called the Ecosystem Engagement process, where it's basically a screening process where potential lab clients will present a deck to us and we talk to them about their science and their D E I B efforts and their funding and their commercialization potential because we wanna be able to shepherd them through the process."

00:31:19,"You know, we're not an accelerate accelerator, we're not an incubator. Yeah. So we're not doing that like sort of coursework Yeah. That you would get in those situ in those environments. But we do try to provide things like HR basics because as a new founder, especially if you're a scientist, you're not gonna have had training on that. Right."

00:31:40,"You know, so we do try to create And you're focused, You're focused on science, right? Not the Yeah. And they're at a stage. Yeah. Where, you know, you, you talked about culture, like you're really setting the groundwork for what's important. Yeah. What are our, you know, what's our, you know, mission,"

00:31:57,"vision and Mission Values. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how will we grow and who will we grow with and Yeah. Yep. And one of the things that we've gotten, 'cause we do the N P S net promoter scores surveys every year with our clients. And one of, one of the main bits of feedback that we've gotten is that C A C really helps to provide that foundational culture for new companies because we're creating that environment for people to come in and interact with other companies that are either doing similar work or different work."

00:32:29,"But maybe that inspires you in some way. It's those serendipitous connections that you never know what that may lead to. Yeah. Super interesting. Okay. Yeah, tell me, okay, so you have 140,000 feet. How, how many feet is lab space? Yeah, so lab space is 90,000 square feet, 5,000 of which are shared function rooms or shared amenities."

00:32:51,"So like we have tissue culture suites on each of our lab floors. So we have four lab floors now. We have freezer farms, and then we have like molecular bio suites, bacteriology suites, things like that. Okay. That's about 5,000 square feet. So it's like 85,000 square feet of rentable wet lab space. Okay. And that includes one large shared lab that you can literally come in and rent one bench once you get up to four."

00:33:19,"We really encourage you to take a private space, but somebody could literally come in with one bench and a cell line. And we have, you know, a sponsorship relationship with Thermo Fisher, their supply centers. They can buy their media on site, go into the tissue culture suite. We provide those consumables and they can start culturing theirselves on day one."

00:33:39,"Like that's, that's wild's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, talk about your team. You sounded excited to talk about your team. I Love my team. Yeah. My team is so interesting. It's, so I have multiple teams. We're a team of about 27 total, and it's broken up into a sales and events team,"

00:33:58,"a community team, and a labs team. So I like to think about the community team sort of as our stage crew. And they are really responsible for keeping the space pristine. You know, making sure all, everything is stocked, that our, our kitchen amenities are all stocked, making sure people moving in or moving out or being tended to, they're so helpful."

00:34:22,"This group is so eclectic and quirky and I love it. I have somebody who studied marine biology, somebody who was in the theater, somebody who was in hospitality and hotels. Like, it's just such a diverse group of people and they have such cool ideas. They moved projects forward every once in a while. Like creative community projects. The big one for this month,"

00:34:43,"this past month, people are obsessed. We have a hot sauce cart that travels between our kitchens and it has a collection of hot sauce, and I love it. They put a big thing of Tums on the cart, like, it's so cute. Yeah. It's like a red push cart with like flame stickers and like, so it gets people to like,"

00:35:03,"interact and have conversations in kitchen. That's really easy. And it moves from kitchen to kitchens. Okay. So like, they get to do fun projects like that. And then I have my sales and events team, and the events team does the community programming, and then they will help clients. We have event space that our clients can use for their events."

00:35:22,"And so they'll help with all the faci facilitation of that. And then our sales team is, has, we have relationship managers. So as a client you have a specific touch point that, you know, you can go to with any concern or question. You wanna talk about your reservation, you know, you want to, if you're ready to move on or you're ready to grow or you need more space,"

00:35:45,"they're who you're gonna interact with. And then I've got this incredible labs team that is made up of people with all different backgrounds. My, my, my director, my lab director is, she's, she's badass. I'm just gonna say it. Her name's Kelly Sullivan. She's amazing. She really, you know, helped to put together this great team. Her background is biochemistry and cannabis,"

00:36:11,"which is just fascinating. Yeah. So she brings the cannabis, I bring the sperm. We, you know, we bring the, we bring some interesting stories to work, but she's put together this really cool team of people with like, you know, lab experience, neurobiology. And we actually had somebody from our community team go through a workforce development program,"

00:36:32,"the Bold program, which is understanding lab basics. And he went through that program and has now joined and transitioned onto our lab team. Oh, wow. So we're taking advantage of stuff in the ecosystem to even develop our team. And what they do is they take care of all that behind the scenes stuff for the lab clients, where all of the preventative maintenance,"

00:36:52,"the temperature monitoring, calibration of equipment, troubleshooting, you know, we do all of your safety checks for safety showers and eyewash, like all of that behind the scenes stuff that takes up time that you would have to hire like a lab manager to take care of. We do all of that for you. We provide safety training and all of that. So it's just a,"

00:37:13,"it's a great team. And there's a lot of cross team collaboration where there are different projects that are happening between the lab team and the community team. And it's actually, it's Tuesday and out in the hall. I can hear the treat trolley. We have a little trolley that we have multiple members of the team. They go around each floor, they do rounds on the floors,"

00:37:33,"and today they have like klon bars and little ice creams and That's Awesome. Yeah. Crazy. But we have somebody from the events team who's handing out flyers about our Wellness Wednesday event, which is chair massages. So clients can make reservations for a chair massage tomorrow. And so she's handing out like little flyers for that. So we have everything from like,"

00:37:54,"you know, these interesting people on the team who wanna just, you know, come in and make sure the space is great to like real creative thinkers. Yeah. It's a really great team that I get to work with here. So do the lab folks kind of come out and play? Do they participate in like, treat Tuesday or They kinda heads down."

00:38:13,"So you mean the team? No, the, like the clients. The clients members. Yeah. Whatever. What do you call them? Do you call them clients? The Yeah. Clients or Yeah, the scientists. Yeah. Like it's, it's so interesting because as you can imagine having such a diverse group of client companies, you have to be really creative with your programming."

00:38:30,"Yeah. Because we do want stuff that appeals across, across industries. Like we have very specific programming for the lab clients. Right, okay. Like office hours with vendors and Right. Tech trainings and things. Yeah. But then that's almost, we try Year because it's so, so specific guest. Yeah. But everyone loves the tree trolley. Right."

00:38:49,"No matter what industry you're in Contact bars for Universal Yeah. Ice cream and treats, like chips, whatever. Yeah. Which I love that. It's like a little, it's like hospitality. It's just like, look, you don't, nobody's got a Klondike bar at home or Yeah, yeah. Even In a traditional office. And I, I don't mean to like keep,"

00:39:10,"I love Klondike bars, but Yeah. It's like those little like surprise and delight things that That's exactly what, that's actually our line item in our budget. Okay. Oh, nice. Surprise and delight. Yeah. Okay. Team, what are we gonna, you know, how, what's the surprise and and delight next week or, Yeah. Very cool."

00:39:28,"It gives people an opportunity to be creative and think about like, oh, I know this client. Really, it's so funny. When I first started it, it came out that I love Albany's gummy bears. Well, that's now one of our like standard offerings on our seventh floor. Okay. It's our gummy station. We found out a client really loved,"

00:39:46,"like tropical Skittles. They'll get tropical Skittles for the treat trolley. Like little things like that. Yeah. It seems so small, but it's, it's such a special touch that can really like cheer somebody up in the middle of a busy or crazy day. Yeah. Okay. But I love that your team is sort of taking this like maybe not high touch,"

00:40:08,"I don't know what, what language you would use. Yeah. But you have a lot of humans in 140,000 square feet. But the fact that you're paying attention to like, and you probably don't do this for all of them, but when you see an opportunity, like who likes Skittles? Yeah, Yeah. You sort of, it's Important because it adds,"

00:40:27,"it adds real value. And like we do much more like formal client check-ins where we have quarterly Yeah. Check-ins with the relationship manager. And if it's a allowed client with our loud client lead and the like, you know, the decision makers of the labs and we do that to like, check in, are you ready to grow? What does your next 12 months look like?"

00:40:47,"You know, that's, we have those more formal touch points. Yeah. But I almost think there's, I don't know if it's more value, but equally valuable are those small moments where somebody makes a connection. Like you are making your morning coffee, like you decide you wanna do the pour over coffee station, or you go to the specialty tea station on the fifth floor."

00:41:06,"Like that's a moment where somebody makes a connection and has a conversation that can really help them to feel seen and cared for in the space. And my, I have a really wonderful director of operations, Anna Dixon. She's so talented and she, she really brings a real hospitality focus, a real client focus to the work so that every decision we're making, we're doing it inclusive of the client experience."

00:41:34,"Because that's what we do. We are a service provider, we are a space provider for these people, and we wanna make their lives easier. So how can we do that if we know that you love this specialty T, we're gonna keep getting it. Yeah. Yeah. I love that though, because I could also see the flip side of saying,"

00:41:51,"we got 140,000 square feet. We're just gonna keep it simple. You know, we're gonna just sort of, not bare bones, but kind of a more basic approach. And you're not doing that. Yeah. You're kind of going, going all in. Yeah. I mean, tend to, over the c like over our various locations, we tend to have like standard offerings."

00:42:11,"Right. And that would be like, I'll just use the kitchen as an example. Like three different snacks, three different cereals. Sure. Whatever. Yeah. And then like we have that standard. Yeah. And then we've got the coffee machines, the water spark, whatever. But then we wanna add a layer onto that just so that people feel a little bit more taken care of."

00:42:31,"And we wanna be that gold standard. We wanna be the best that there is. We wanna be the most high touch option for you and give you the value that you're paying for. You know, it, it makes the difference for people. We, so you have a pour over coffee bar? We do. We have a poor over coffee station."

00:42:49,"We have a specialty C specialty tea station that's really lovely on our fifth floor. It's like a little nook with all specialty teas and little bags and everything. It's okay. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's so typical of c i c, like there's an intentionality and a thoughtfulness in everything from our design to the choice of our snacks. Like, I was so impressed when I first came into the space because there's,"

00:43:14,"like I said, so much intentionality in color choice, like the research about the psychology of colors, colors, yeah. And angles. And it's such a creative, quirky, I love quirky stuff. It's a quirky space. Like we have this great area on the eighth floor, they're little like pods and it's built out of like particle board and they're all the different angles and they're little stations where you can just like sit to get some quiet within the big space."

00:43:42,"Yeah. And it's like, there's something really organic about the wood and there's access to natural light and there are transoms and you know, most of our hallways are taking you on a path toward a light source. So there's just such an intentionality that I don't think people can help but feel cared for in this space. I love that. Although that does not come easily to your point."

00:44:04,"It's very, no, you have to have the intentionality. Yeah. That's really, yeah. Interesting. I wanna come visit now. Please do. So I'm curious with your lab clients, what does the, what does the typical journey look like? How long do they stay? Yeah, they, yeah, It's, it's interesting and it sort of ebbs and flows depending on a lot of different factors and variables."

00:44:27,"But the traditional sort of journey would be that somebody starts as a spin out or a Startup, right? And they come in, I'm gonna use one of our client companies as an example, century Therapeutics. They came in in 2018 with I believe, three shared benches, like three benches in the shared lab. And over the past five years, they went from those shared benches into private,"

00:44:51,"into a private lab, into several private labs into office space where their admin administrative staff came in and they built and they built. And then finally they were like, oh yeah, it, we need our own space now. Like we we're ready. And this past summer they actually moved into three floors in a new build behind us. One, one new city that our partner company,"

00:45:15,"Wexford Science and Technology builds. Okay. And so that's sort of the dream because we kept them in the, in the Philadelphia ecosystem. Yeah. We shepherd, we helped to shepherd them through that process. They scaled up and then they grew out. And so for a company that is able to commercialize, like they did, I would say it's like a three to five year journey from like getting in the space to outgrowing us."

00:45:38,"And we have a couple of other clients that are, that are getting there. You know, they've like, they've got a lot of benches, they've got a lot of office space. And you know, century moving has allowed us to open those spaces for the other companies to move into. So it's kind of an odd business model that you want people to outgrow you."

00:45:57,"Totally. Yeah. But That's what we ultimately want. And it is about not just the, not just, you know, c a C being successful, but really the ecosystem that we're a part of being successful. Yeah. So how much do they miss the tree cart when they get their own space? Like so much. Yeah, so much. Literally we've had a couple of the clients come back and be like,"

00:46:19,"can we still like hang here and have lunch and be here on Tuesdays? Like Yeah. Yeah. That's The Bummer. But the good thing is like, we have these great relationships with the clients. And so, for example, Thermo Fisher, one of our mean sponsors, our founding sponsor, they wanted to demo a piece of equipment for them for Century that we have here."

00:46:39,"So of course we're gonna allow them to bring them back into the space and do that. Right? Sure. Yeah, exactly. It's like they're alumni, right? Like we love our alums. Yeah. Yeah. That's very cool. Yeah. What else do I wanna ask here? What am I not asking that we should talk about? Let's see,"

00:47:01,"I think we talked a little bit about programming. We could talk a little more about that. I think, you know, it's, we really do try to partner with other organizations as well, just to provide some of that programmatic content for the companies and give them access. We're partnered with Venture Cafe Global, have you, are you familiar with Venture Cafe?"

00:47:20,"Nope. Very cool organization. They do Thursday gatherings and it's basically global Thursday evening. Gatherings happening all around the world in all of their locations. Each of their C C I C locations has a relationship with a venture cafe. So every Thursday here in Philly, from four to four to seven or eight in our cafe space on our third floor Venture Cafe hosts this open to the public gathering."

00:47:45,"So a lot of our clients will go, our staff will go, the community comes in, it's everything from like pitch nights and access to venture capitalists to demo days where local entrepreneurs are featuring their products. So things like that are really important to the success of C I C because it's, we're about bringing people together. Yeah. And so that's one of the ways that we can do it."

00:48:08,"And Venture ca Cafe is just one of the ways that we do it. It's a really cool partnership. And then, you know, just, just participating in sort of ecosystem programming opportunities is really important. I have, I'm really happy to have very collegial relationships with, with others that would be considered competitors. But we all see a role for ourselves in our ecosystem."

00:48:32,"We cross refer all the time. Like somebody might not quite be ready for c I C, maybe we refer them to one of our com quote unquote competitors. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it's kind of an interesting, you have a high focus on internal members, but also that community interface, so Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think it's,"

00:48:53,"it's so interesting. Like I, I wasn't terribly familiar with Coworking Space or Shared Office or Shared Labs before I came here. And so getting familiar with how it works and how the ecosystem works and learning a little bit about some of more, some more, like traditional Coworking, I've really been impressed with the, the differences that c a c that c a C has,"

00:49:16,"you know, like just the, from the amenities to the approach to the intentionality about design. And I think one of the reasons that c a C has been around so long and has been able to weather various economic environments and things is really their ability, our ability to pivot and to focus on the needs of the client companies in the regions where we are."

00:49:41,"So, you know, we're a life science cluster here in Philly, no doubt. About a 90,000 square feet of wet lab. That's what we do. Yeah. We also serve other clients. Our, our Providence site has a, an offshore wind cluster. There's a lot of offshore wind companies up there. And so they have a cluster. And so they build their programming around that."

00:50:01,"They're doing engagement with different organizations that support offshore wind. So there are different clusters in each of our locations that our teams are really intentional about catering to and meeting the needs of. And obviously having space that can be changed up Yeah. Is really important. You know, like when C A C realized that we needed more labs in Philly, they can,"

00:50:28,"we converted to like half, half of two of our floors from office to lab. Not the easiest project. Yeah. Not A small office specs are a little different. Yeah, yeah. Like doorways are narrower, hallways are narrower. So you have to sort of work around that. But the space was really designed in a smart way that allowed us to make that conversion."

00:50:52,"And, you know, we do smart builds where we have go stores. So the large client that moved out had a huge office and then a swirl of private spaces that were connected, they moved out. We know we're gonna have better luck selling those swirl that swirl as individual offices. Yeah. We flipped the ghost door with the door. And so having that smart build space Yeah."

00:51:15,"Makes a huge difference. Well, It allows us to pivot Plus years of, of doing, you know, creating these spaces and learning. Right. What's the best way to, to create flexibility. It's huge advantage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and having really good teams that can think creatively. You know, we serve innovators, but we are also innovators who are serving innovators."

00:51:39,"Yeah. So it's, it's just, it's really interesting. And, and I've, as managing director, I've been lucky enough to be able to visit some of our other sites and it's just, it's so cool to be able to walk into a space and you just feel and know that you're in c i c whether I'm in St. Louis or Cambridge or Philadelphia or Miami or,"

00:51:59,"you know, like it's, there's a feeling. And that's not just about the space, it's about the people that the company hires too. It makes a big difference. Yeah. You sound like you love your job. I do. I do. I'm really, I, I, yeah. I like different weird stuff, obviously. And I mean that in a really good way."

00:52:20,"Like weird to me is positive. Like, that's a compliment. Totally. Yeah. It sounds like your role has enough to keep your multi-passionate, self entertained. Yeah. I, I absolutely, I get to do things like this. I love talking about what we do. And I love, you know, the podcast world and I media stuff. I love doing tours."

00:52:43,"I get to work with our expansion team because we're constantly looking at other opportunities and other cities that really have a, a high density of intellect and capital and, and commercializable ideas. And so if there's a potential expansion in a city where we wanna include labs, I, I get to help out with that. We just announced a couple weeks ago that we're partnering with the University of Chicago,"

00:53:07,"and we're building some space with them, some lab space with them, which is really exciting. Yeah. Love Chicago. Yeah. I went to the business school there, so Oh, cool. Yeah, at the University of Chicago. Yeah. I spent a long time in Chicago. That's very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll be in one of their new builds in Hyde Park."

00:53:25,"It'll be, you know, we'll have one of the floors there, and we'll be managing the lab space, and hopefully we'll create the same type of very comfortable and supportive environment. I'm sure we will. Totally. Well, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to share your story and to learn more about c I c. It's a, it's a really interesting model."

00:53:46,"So yeah, thank you for doing this, and thank you for everything that you do. What a great impact on, on Philadelphia. Oh Yeah. Thank you so much, Jamie. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you like what you heard, tell a friend, hit that subscribe button and leave us a rating and review."

00:54:07,"It makes a huge difference in helping others like you find us. If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching programs, head over to Everything Coworking dot com. We'll see you next week."

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