381. Turning Coworking Members into Community Builders – Liz Barney on Cahoots’ Experiment
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
GCUC discount code: EVERYGCUC for 20% off - https://na.gcuc.co/
Blog post describing the experiment: How Shared Purpose Creates Community For Remote Workers
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
TRANSCRIPTION
381. Turning Coworking Members into Community Builders – Liz Barney on Cahoots’ Experiment
00:00:00,"Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how to's 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 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."
00:00:43,"Welcome. I am here with Liz Barney. She is the director of marketing and community at Cahoots and I suspect given our pre recording chat maybe you. Well we'll ask you how you came to have this role and how you got into coworking. You are in Ann Arbor, Michigan and you spent before coming back to Michigan you spent 10 years in Hawaii. So I'm dying to know how you got into coworking and and how you went back to Michigan from living in Hawaii for 10 years."
00:01:13,"And I should give a quick preview to our guests. So Liz reached out because she ran an experiment and wanted to help others learn from this. And the experiment is around a member led approach to community building and social events. And I think everybody's gonna learn something from this, either like a shift in perspective or an actual approach they could take. So I can't wait to dive into that."
00:01:39,"But I'd love to hear a little bit about your background first. Yeah, well, I mean I grew up here in Michigan and then moved away and I was, you always know, like I'm going to Hawaii or like I can't handle the winter, like that's where I'm going. Was that like a vision or. I actually went to school for education, so I was a special education teacher and I graduated with that degree."
00:02:09,"And there were no jobs in Michigan and they were recruiting in Hawaii. So I like to say the location didn't stick, but the location did. So yes. So. So I did a couple years of work in education out there and then I kind of shifted into my own thing. So then I started taking photos and people started paying me for that. And then I started writing and I became a journalist and then I started getting into video production and all said and done, at the end of eight years I had a photography studio that I ran."
00:02:40,"It was a kind of an artist collective. So I had a lot of different artists that worked with me and I had kind of a studio manager that handled the business side of everything to Kind of like build a team of creators where we could just be creatives. So I had that company and then I also was doing some documentary and journalism work at the time. And some of those clients ended up turning into helping nonprofits with documentary style videos to tell their story and raise funds and different things like that."
00:03:05,"And so I had a lot of different things going and Covid kind of provided this interruption where I after that had the opportunity to either expand my business to. I had an in person office, so I had like three other branches I could, you know, or I had, I had the opportunity to like look at ways to expand my business. And at that point, post Pandemic, I think a lot of people had this reflection of, well, what do I actually want to do with my time and who I want to be around?"
00:03:30,"And I thought this is probably the perfect time for me to move back to my be see my family. I had this thought of, if I keep seeing my family once a year and I live like 40 more years, I'm going to see my family 40 more times before I die. You know what? I listened to a podcast recently because my parents are on the east coast and I'm on the west coast and I see them once a year and had the same, I cannot move back to upstate New York."
00:03:55,"But I was listening to a podcast and the guy said the same thing and I was like, okay, yeah, I gotta work on that. Like that math is terrible. We can't, we can't do that. So I totally get it. Yeah. Even though they're in Michigan and you were in Hawaii. Right. And a lot of my business was built in travel and tourism and all those things and hospitality actually."
00:04:17,"And so I actually also, during the pandemic, after my business had closed, one of my clients was a luxury hotel, which was Auberge. And so they asked me to do some marketing during the pandemic when my business was shut down. And I did that. And then one of my, my studio was in the Four Seasons Hotel. So I also, they started hiring me to do their in house marketing with my team."
00:04:39,"And so then when I moved back to Michigan, they were opening up a new Four Seasons Hotel in Minneapolis. And they asked me if I wanted to help them do that. And I was like, no, I'm not moving to Minneapolis. I'm back here to be in Michigan. But then they kind of came back a few different times. And then they came and they said, well, what if you, you know, you worked remotely and we flew you out once a month to help Kind of like with these marketing and storytelling stuff."
00:05:04,"And I didn't have a lot of experience working remotely, but I didn't even have a lot of experience having a job. And so I went from. But I thought, you know, I don't know what else I'm going to do. I'm in a brand new place. And so then I went from having a community of people that I was working with, doing all these collaborations and things to. Sorry, my."
00:05:20,"To working remotely in a new town where I don't know anyone really besides my family. And it was just a complete 180 for me where I. I was going crazy. And I'm sitting there, those morning standups that everyone has, and I'm the only one that's remote and I'm kind of trying to listen and hear what's happening. And I just, you know, I felt so left out. Yeah. And."
00:05:40,"And meanwhile I'm working on a lot of hospitality stuff, but with another community that's not even my community that I'm living in. So I wandered down to this coworking space that is. Was right near where I lived and I went to one of their like free trial day happy hour things and. And actually like the story of how I kind of started my. This initiative that we wanted to talk about is actually kind of inspired from this experience because I said, well, I met the marketing woman and she was kind of newer to marketing."
00:06:12,"And I said, well, me too, kind of, but why don't. I can help you. We can do a little collaboration and maybe we can trade for membership, which I never used, but I'll just come and have lunch with you once a week and we can brainstorm some ideas to help you with stuff and. Cause I really just wanted to work on a project with people in person, in my live human."
00:06:32,"Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so then that became my first experience with coworking and I started helping them with more things. And then after I got the hotel kind of launched and set up like eight or months. So months in, I was at the point where I said, you know, you kind of need somebody now that it's established. You need someone to kind of maintain who's there day to day, and that'd probably be a better fit for you."
00:06:59,"And then I can kind of turn my attentions to things here because I also want to be more connected. And they agreed. So I kind of helped transition them to a new marketing person in Minneapolis and who was there, who lived there. And then I started doing my own thing and then cahoots this Coworking space that I've been volunteering for. Said, well, can we pay you to help with some of this stuff?"
00:07:19,"And so I started working with them a little bit and then a little bit more. And then I just kept doing more things until it kind of evolved and said, now I'm here usually three or four days a week working on things. So that was my segue. Totally. I love it. To coworking. I know, but it's. I mean, it's the like typical pain point. It's like, well, you're lonely and you want to do so."
00:07:43,"I'm curious though. Did you know about coworking? Like, what. How did you. Do you remember how you sort of thought like, okay, I'm gonna go to this coworking space and go to this event and check it out. How did that happen? I don't think I heard about it before since I wasn't really in the professional world, but I can't. Except, no, I had. Okay. I was in New York, I think the fall previous to moving back with one of my co producers on a documentary that I just finished."
00:08:11,"And we were working on this documentary project in New York and went to a. We work. I think one day. I remember. I think that was my only experience. That was it. You're like, okay, I had no idea what to expect. Yeah, totally. Well, do you? Do you. What made you think I'm gonna go to this coworking space in. In arbor. I arbor. I don't remember. I saw something somewhere and you were, you know, I asked."
00:08:36,"Probably started Googling. As a marketer, you're the profile. Right. That's like, kind of elusive. It's like there are people who need offices, so they're easy to attract because they're looking for space. And then there are remote workers who, you know, might know they need an office because they've been used to having an office. And then there's all these people like you who have this like, sort of emotional need and."
00:09:00,"And, you know, social need to go to a coworking space. Like, you don't need an office in this case like you did, you know, you did in your previous life. So. So it's like, how. How do you attract people like you and how do you, you know, draw them in to show them what's possible? So you just somehow like, stumbled into it and sort of believed like, this might be the thing that I need."
00:09:22,"So I. I think people often think of serving people like you and coworking, but you're not the easiest to market to because you may not Be like solution aware and you may have this like vague problem aware state, you know what I mean? But you don't, you know, connect the dots like oh, coworking is the thing. So I just, I always think that's such an interesting problem and, and often the segment that people start coworking spaces for and yet it's the hardest actually to market to."
00:09:52,"So which you probably know because you're working on some of those things for sure. And I think that I was definitely probably just googling ways to meet people, looking up examples of that. So but that's a good insight. Something that you know are looking for where they'd probably be Google. And that's going to be one of the things that's going to come up is the way you can meet people is find a coworking space."
00:10:13,"So totally. Yeah. And, and you went to a specific event. So was it a trial day with a happy hour attached to it? It was, yeah it was but I was really just there for the happy hour. Yeah. So that was perfect. You didn't necessarily think you needed to do this day pass like work in another space. You were like I just want to meet the people. And then, and then you sort of fell into."
00:10:35,"People are surprised when I tell them I'm an outgoing introvert. People think I'm an extrovert, but I'm not. And so a lot of times what's interesting is that I think that sometimes overtime business are only set up for extroverts. Sure. And that's the thing is that introverts want to be around people too but we just work in different ways. And so before I was, when I was just working here I would have still paid for a membership but my, I would have probably done most of my deep work in my home office by myself and then just come do these other things throughout the day and just having a space to kind of do my busy work or different things like that."
00:11:08,"So a lot of times yeah, just having more structured ways to meet people could probably like pull me into then. I love this insight. I actually think it's. We're, we're going to get momentarily into why we're here but I think these conversations are so helpful because especially new operators, I again I think they think they're attracting you and you are like a five day a month, you're like a casual user who needs to be drawn in potentially with like specific community events and so that you know, thinking about segmentation and who are our offers for and you know, what should we plan on in Terms of who's going to use the space."
00:11:48,"Like if you were, you can't probably fill up a space with, with Liz Barney's because you're like a casual user, even though you love it and you're now working in the industry. Okay, so. Right. And the thing. Oh, I was just gonna say. And the thing to add to that is that although I've never paid for a membership here, I was here for a long time coming specifically to work on things."
00:12:11,"And I think that introverts really connect with people through like a project, through a purpose. Right. We skipped the small talk. Yeah, so, so going to all these happy hours and networking events when I first moved back was actually my literal nightmare. And so for me, I kind of created opportunities like say for example, saying, hey, why don't I be your free marketing consultant once a week? And I think that there are probably a lot of other people where if there's a structure for them to actually add value, then you start to feel more comfortable with coming and being in the space more regularly and interacting, finding other ways to do that."
00:12:44,"No, I love this. Okay, so yeah, let's dive in. So you created, you, you ran this experiment around sort of member led community, just, you know, sort of just stayed at high level. So how did you think, how did you come to think about this approach? Like, why were you like, okay, let's, instead of me or the community team sort of deriving, you know, events, etc. Like let's engage the community."
00:13:13,"Because I could see the mindset, you know, people listening, being, and I would have been in the boat like, okay, well they're paying me to belong here. So it's our job to, you know, create all of the community events and to really like be in charge and make everything happen. And you sort of didn't, you know, you just didn't have that mindset. You, you were like, well, I want to try this approach."
00:13:34,"So talk, talk about the initiative and, and I'll, I'll dive in with some specific questions and sort of like what, what was your mindset in thinking? Like let's, let's get people involved instead of us just deciding what we're going to do. Yeah. So the, the three month experiment that we ran last fall was called the Community Committee. And the kind of, the call to action was to any member kind of who wants to create the, be the change you want to see."
00:14:00,"Like, let's just start a committee together and find out some ways that we can kind of be involved in that. And I think that the ideas for that were twofold. One is from obviously my personal experience of that and when I started helping cahoots more I started creating more programming and different things that kind of connected to my experiences. Both my creative programming for entrepreneurs because I've been a solo entrepreneur and done all that on my own, but then also for remote workers since I'd been in both people's shoes and felt the loneliness and isolation of both worlds."
00:14:32,"And as I was doing that and trying to get people to come as I got more involved, what I found is that as I mentioned, an outgoing introvert and it can be draining and I'm sure a lot of people in coworking spaces feel that we're so much of the job is you put it in the newsletters, you put in the different, the Slack channel or whatever. But then a lot of it is just engaging with people and hey, you should come to this, hey, you should do this."
00:14:56,"And being the connector and the galvanizer, we, I, I think Michelle Slater might have used that term. She's at Work Lodge in Houston and she talks about that role. To your point, it's like one thing to organize it and then you need the person who has the like social energy to, to write open doors and be like you need to come to this. Which is. Can be a lot."
00:15:17,"Yeah, yeah. And like even on happy hours. Right. People say I'm the, the in person LinkedIn despite me not really using LinkedIn personally for myself. People say I'm the first, the in personification of LinkedIn because I'll say here's this person you need to talk to. I'm really good at introducing people and saying this is why this is your point of connection that you would bond over and kind of then stepping back and watching those things form."
00:15:41,"And I can do that. But it also can become a lot and it's a lot of burden for one person, you know, or just even the staff of a coworking space. Because obviously I'm not the only person here. There's other people who are also doing that. We have, you know, our executive director and our community coordinator. And even between us it's still a lot to try to have those touch points constantly."
00:16:03,"And I'm. And you can burn out, right? Yeah. Having me on all the time. And so yeah, I thought there's a lot of great people who wanted to get involved and we're starting to volunteer and I kind of started bringing in people to volunteer on different things. Like we had a UX person and I said let's work on those creating the survey we had. So I started kind of having people come to me who wanted to get involved and try things and so I'd kind of help work with them."
00:16:29,"And I saw, you know what, there's a lot of interest that's similar to what I had of. I just want to be involved. Like, I love, like everyone is like, we love being at cahoots, we love being here and we want to feel like we can contribute to something here. And then also sometimes people have complaints or concerns or things and it can also be overwhelming, you know, for us to go, okay, well we can't do all of this."
00:16:50,"And so the thought was that maybe there's a way that we can provide people the same opportunity that I felt so rewarding and then also probably for us, like alleviate the burden and empower them to create the experience that they wanted. Okay, so how did it start? Yeah, so we had a group of, I think it was nine people sign up for the first one. And we just decided them."
00:17:15,"You did you send like a broad email or did you recruit? Yeah, I think that a lot of the people I already had connections with and had been working on different things with and had come to some other smaller things I'd organized. But I, and I put, then I put out the fill out this form to apply to be part of this group and there'll be some kind of reward or something or you know, just what."
00:17:38,"And it was just like, here's your name. What is one thing that you could contribute? Or something like that. And people signed up. And so then obviously everyone was applied. Who was applied, was admitted. And then we had our first meeting and we just started by asking people, what is it that you want people to feel when they walk into this meeting space? Right. And so they just started brainstorming all these different things."
00:18:02,"And there were a lot of commonalities. People were putting up all the post it notes and stuff. And then it was kind of like, well, what are the some of the things that we could try that could help? Like, what is the thing that could do that? And so then they started kind of coming up with ideas and we kind of encouraged them to try a small thing."
00:18:21,"Right. Because I think a lot of times people think of this great big grand thing. But then I liked that it was, we were just trying out for three months and so the ask was, how could we make this a very small thing, just a sample size, just to try a small thing that could then be built on in the future? And so then they started thinking of little small events or things like that."
00:18:41,"And I think that was really, I really appreciated doing it that way because then everything was a sense of ownership instead of saying, all right, you're here and here's our task list for you. Totally. It was like, what do you want? Right. What do you think are the problems? Yeah, back to like my worry. Like, you know, you're paying to be a member but I'm recruiting you to this committee and here's your to do list."
00:19:04,"Like you just totally flip that to like what do you want and how do you want to play a part in that? I love that. And it's a good idea and it's what you want. Yeah, exactly. And then they're in charge of deciding how to contribute. Hey there, I'm jumping in again. This time I'm speaking to those of you that are either getting ready to hire a community manager or who have a community manager and you would like to support their training and development."
00:19:35,"We know how challenging it can be for coworking space operators to create their own training and development material to support their community managers. And this is so important in terms of onboarding new community managers and supporting the growth of your existing community managers. And we're getting towards the end of the year. What a great holiday gift. End of year gift to give to your community manager. So the platform is really around a couple of things."
00:20:07,"One is access to a community of like minded folks. We have a very active slack group with really wonderful questions that are posed every single day. And we find that's one of the biggest values we have community managers from all over the world. And this is an excellent group of community managers that have invested time and effort into getting better at that role. And they are the kind of folks that you want your community manager to be by and hanging out with."
00:20:37,"And they know their stuff or sometimes they don't and they ask questions and we help them out. So I'm in the group. We have coaches that are in the group to support them. So we love when they ask questions for things they need help with because the other aspect of the program is really around helping them get resources they need to make their jobs easier and to learn things that they can use in their role to be better at their job."
00:21:01,"So we provide some done for you resources like Google business posts, detailed event ideas, et cetera that they can just kind of grab and go and use. And we also provide monthly resources that add to our training library so they can do our certification and then we Have a lot of electives that help them kind of get better at all the things that, that go with the role."
00:21:28,"So our community managers wear a lot of hats. So we break our content into industry knowledge for new community managers, Community building, operations, sales and marketing and leadership. So the leadership bucket is great for our more advanced community managers we also have virtual office and digital mail training and coffee training for anybody who needs to know how to use commercial coffee brewers. So we have some of the."
00:22:00,"I'm just going to give you kind of a sampling of content that we have. So in our community building modules we have hosting your first member events, building community with budget friendly events, Member event swipe files. Our sales and marketing modules, we have tour training, we have the training on the full coworking sales funnel so they understand what that looks like. We have social media planning frameworks, we have."
00:22:29,"What else do we have? Three simple steps to an effective marketing newsletter. These are just some of our samples. Oh. These are some of our best utilized topics. Demystifying the process of letting your coworking members use your address for their Google business listing. How to close a tour, operations modules, how to set up automations, how to do a new member onboarding audit, simple ways to use AI to boost your productivity."
00:22:55,"We have over 40 courses in the program, so we cover kind of higher level topics and then we also cover things that are timely like the CMRA updates, Google business updates, et cetera. So we get together monthly to do official training and we also host a best practice sharing call which is one of the fan favorites of the group and the Slack group. So if you have any questions at all about the program, don't hesitate to reach out."
00:23:26,"You can learn more and register at everythingcoworking.com forward/community manager. Now back to our episode. Okay, so the four key feelings and there's a blog post about this. We'll link to the blog post in the show notes as well. Where belonging, support, connection and empowerment. And I love that empowerment came up because that's exactly what you're doing with this committee. Right. Which is, which is very cool. So it's, it's like that that drive was there and then you facilitated it."
00:23:58,"So yeah, yeah. What did I say? Yes, I may. I know I made notes totally. But yeah, so yeah, so they came up with those different things and then yeah, the things that they had said where they want. I want to. I know who people are and they know who I am. I have relationships where I can help out, reach out for help. Personally, I feel empowered to ask for Help and be supported before professionally and then just feeling a greater sense of community and connecting with others who share my interests."
00:24:26,"And a huge thing that came up for a lot of people is office culture. And a lot of people came from big tech offices that invest a lot of money in this office culture. And obviously we have the standard offerings that any coworking space would have for happy hours or different social events. But yeah, it was like, how do you really compete with the office culture of a massive tech office like that?"
00:24:51,"Right. And we also have quite a few contractors and entrepreneurs in the group as well who also had that. Who wanted that, you know. And when you say office culture, do you mean like they wanted sort of amenities and planned events, or were they thinking more along the lines of how you felt like, I want to like work with someone, like I want to be connected to people versus like maybe there were they most was the committee."
00:25:18,"It was a. Was it a mix? It sounds like you just kind of walked through that remote workers and then like entrepreneurs and freelancers. So kind of a mix of that group. Yeah. And some people are actually. So there's also people who are on small teams here, part of small teams here in the space. Right. So it's kind of everyone. Everyone wants that office culture. And yeah, some of the small teams are here at our space because they like the office culture here."
00:25:44,"When you say. But when you say office culture, because I almost feel like that has a negative connotation these days. So like when you say it, what do you think it means? Yeah, so. Okay, sorry, that. That is your question. So I think that examples that people listed were we used to always have a group that went to lunch on Tuesdays or we used to have always have this place that we went around the corner after work on this day."
00:26:10,"Or just these teams of social like that you could count on. Yeah, so. And some of the things that I would say that what came out in the things that they wanted to try kind of reflected like what office culture was to them. Because one of the things was starting finding ways to start a volunteer in a ship to go out and volunteer in the community, which a lot of students do."
00:26:33,"One of them was starting an informal happy hour. So we have our once a month happy hour, but having an informal happy hour every other Thursday where they just go to a local bar around the corner. One of them started organizing group lunches where people walk down sometimes. Another person started a kind of like a morning meditation group for a little period of time. Someone else started a program to have one on one coffees with new members to kind of connect people one on one."
00:26:59,"Especially for introverts, someone else made name tags so they tried out having so name tags, especially for the part time desks where people aren't always at the same place. Having a name tag that they can put like some talking points for people to connect on and kind of playing with that. Also played with the having the I'm busy but find me on Slack or open to chatting, you can approach me."
00:27:25,"Look, there were some initiatives around that to help facilitate people getting to know each other. So I think it's just that general sense of knowing people around you and having that sense of camaraderie and yeah, just having more of the connection. And I think that actually the connections made from working on the committee together probably then also transferred into that sense of office culture. Right. Because one of the biggest things that people, when we reflected back after three months said that it was really cool to have a project they were working on with a person in person and they created deeper friendships and connections with each other as a result."
00:28:05,"Totally. No, I love that you walk through the office culture because I think, and you may not, you know, because you were not sort of like long term an office sort of person. You know, I'm like, I've never had an office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is so interesting. But you know, there's so much talk in the media today and certainly, I mean the algorithms shape this but you know, on LinkedIn you don't spend any time on LinkedIn so good for you there."
00:28:33,"But there's a lot of chatter in the like workplace circles about, you know, it's not just about, you know, kegs and ping pong and golf simulators and it's, it's not about those things. Like, so I love the examples you gave. Like it's about like having a group of people that you enjoy that go to lunch every Friday. Like I remember my first job out of business school, we would go to Pot Bellies on Fridays and we had a little group, you know, that would go and it was like the highlight of the week."
00:29:03,"And it, you're totally right. Like things like that that you just miss and if you're sort of casually surrounded by people but you don't have those routines with those people, it's, you know, it's nice, you feel like you have exposure to other humans but you don't have, you know, that deeper sense of connection and belonging. So I mean those are simple things. What I love is like they're very simple."
00:29:27,"But. But also like one community manager or two community that cannot manage all of those things. Right. So you found this way to help the members like sort of raise their hand around like what, what do they want? And help them be more empowered, which is also what they want. It's like, it's like a win win. Yeah. Well, you're making me think of something because yeah, people are like, what is office culture?"
00:29:52,"Does that mean we have more keggers? But then I guarantee, I don't know, like, I bet a lot of spaces then plan all these different social events that nobody show up. Totally. Because I've definitely had that experience where when I first started volunteering, I don't even remember. This might have been before I was even getting paid here. I don't know. It all just blurs together. Just always been here until the last week."
00:30:12,"But we had some member who had an idea. They wanted to do a Rock Paper scissors competition. They're super creative. They thought it'd be fun to have a rock paper scissors tournament. And there's actually like a really cool boutique gift shop around the corner from us called Rock Paper Scissors. And so we thought we'll do this. We'll have, you know, a few different months, we'll have this. And we actually got Rock Paper scissors to sponsor it with prizes."
00:30:34,"So Rock Paper Scissors. Sponsored by Rock Paper Scissors. It was silly, it was fun. But then nobody showed up except for the person who was their idea, I mean their friends. But you know, it was very small. It wasn't really. And it's just the thing is that there's so many things and so I think that maybe what's different. Different. What I saw for these initiatives is it was."
00:30:55,"It's different when you have this. The, the. The coworking space staff always inviting you to everything and it's kind of like it's their job. And also you're just kind of on repeat. Are you coming to happy hour? Are you coming to lunch? But then also if you're inviting them, you also, if you get five people to show up, you can't have one on one conversations with five people."
00:31:13,"And if they're just coming to talk to you, that's not really sustainable either. And so I think that what's cool with these events is that because it was not my event or its event, but their event, they then felt empowered and inspired to go individually talk to people. Because an in person invitation, one on one is a much more effective. Right. And it was kind of expanding and then kind of Expands our reach."
00:31:38,"And I think that helped solidify between the one on one copies, the name tag conversations with the person, the other people individually reaching out to them. I think that helps create this ripple effect where all of a sudden everyone is inviting everyone to everything and they're creating connections on their own and it's not being facilitated by the teacher. Right? Yeah, totally. I mean, there's so many powerful things here."
00:32:03,"I mean, we run a community manager university program and we spent a lot of time on events. Actually, March is event month, so our content and discussions are really focused on events and we have this event planning guide and we spend a lot of time trying to help people come up with ideas and also a framework for figuring out like, what will your members like, like who is your member type."
00:32:27,"And then we have this whole framework for kind of figuring out and you know, surveying them certainly to see what they would like. But it is still. The onus is still on the community manager to sort of guess. Right. And then. Right. Host these repeatable and hope people come. And a lot of times community managers get really deflated when people don't come to events. And I love this conversation because it's not necessarily that people don't want to engage, although some communities don't."
00:32:55,"Right. Like, I always caution people, hey, you might have a group of like moms who are like working moms. They got to be out at 3 for school pickup. They're not coming to your happy hours, you know, so it's like you, you sort of have to know your audience and you can't take it personally if they are in a season where maybe they're not going to engage as much."
00:33:14,"But you might Kahoot. Sounds like a community where people are kind of there because they want that connection. And I do want to ask a little bit about Cahoots. So Cahoots does not have an office product, is that right? Yeah, they only have three small private offices. Okay. So it's most. Then everything else is open, which also impacts the community because you don't have a bunch of like service professionals and people who are like, I got to go to my office and talk to clients all day."
00:33:42,"Like, like it's a. Maybe a different, slightly different community. How many square feet is it? How big is it? 25,000. Believe 25,000 with no offices. So there are companies inside of here. So for example, it's three historic buildings combined. The building in the middle is a cafe, coffee shop that's open to the public and then also a large event space. Okay. And Then the second floor above that is the kitchen and common areas for the coworking space."
00:34:13,"And on either side are two other historic buildings which are both two floors of open space. But some of them are occupied by small teams or larger teams. So there are some larger teams that will take up a whole section. So there's a variety. And so there's a few larger teams, some small teams, and then open coworking spaces. Okay, good. And then a lot of dedicated desks too."
00:34:37,"Ah, okay. Got it. Yeah, yeah, There's a lot happening here. Interesting. Okay. Juicy North America, a coworking conference is coming up April 7th through 10th in Boston. It's at the Track and New Balance. It's a great venue, but even better than the venue. The content and the people and the conversations and the connections and the insights and the perspective. Nothing replaces taking a couple days out from your business, getting out of town and really immersing yourself into the business that you're in or working on, being in that you love and getting to do tours and just connect with people that you've seen on Zoom but never seen in person."
00:35:20,"I might be one of those people. I'm definitely going to be there. I haven't missed one in 10 years and I would love to see you there. We have a special discount code for you. Thank you to the Juicy team. It is in the show notes. So grab the show notes on your phone or on the website and the URL to get all the details and register is in the same spot."
00:35:41,"I'd love to see you there. So, yeah, I mean, again, I just, I think this is so interesting. Okay, I am curious. So you had some folks try some things, like the name tag example, Anything like, just didn't work. Like the rock, paper, scissor example. You're like, well, somebody organized. No one came. Which is going to happen. So I'm just curious, like, did that happen? And how did you, you know, how did you in the group handle that?"
00:36:06,"I don't think that anything worked. Yeah, worked. Yeah. But maybe it's just iteration. So, for example, name tags. Not everybody wants to have a name tag. So that's not really. But I think that everyone wants to know each other. And so I think it's one of those things where it's up there, but it. Not everyone wanted to kind of have that. And so. But what was kind of inspired by that is that."
00:36:31,"So what I did was in the member newsletter that I write up and send out to everyone, I kind of said, hey, welcome, here's your community committee or at that time I called it an advisory panel for the first three months, but because it ended up being so focused. It sounds really boring. Yeah, Community panel. It does. I mean, you know, advisors, they were kind of also giving us insider feedback on things that we might not see, which was really helpful."
00:36:57,"But anyways, I said here's some of the initiatives they're working on. So we had some people who were hosting a mentorship event with a professional like Lunch and Learn, kind of ask anything. They had some people doing a volunteer thing. We had the name tag thing. We had the, the. The different things. And then what happened is that other people saw that and got inspired. So someone else said, oh, I saw you working on name tags."
00:37:16,"But I actually kind of had programmed this thing where they had kind of. We used it a little bit, but they programmed this map just for our space where people could actually digitally put their name, attach their name to their desk with their slack and different things like that. And so they helped us expand that and. Yeah. And add that in. And so the physical name tags are still there if people want them."
00:37:36,"But then also people can put their information in digitally there. And so I kind of like the inspiring imitations or iterations because I feel like one. I don't feel like if something doesn't quite take off, it's never familiar. I feel like it's a starting point for imitations and I don't know iterations where. Yeah. Then just so I feel like the one on one copies is probably becoming a better facilitator for people starting to connect."
00:38:04,"But name tag thing is still in progress. I don't know. But it's cool that that guy, you know, maybe you would never know that he had that. He was like, well, I have this thing. We could use that too. I mean it's very, very. I love that. You know, I also just, I, I really like this because you're trying to create like more authentic connections, not just happy hours."
00:38:25,"And I think this is like a real, I mean it's really aspirational for coworking spaces. But it is also like a real skill and you like stumbled onto it a little bit with this experiment. But you know, when people have friends at work and they pre Covid this used to be, you know, sort of common knowledge. Like if you. Not common knowledge but they would do studies and show that if you had at least one friend at work, like a pretty good friend that you could go to lunch with or you know, chit chat or vent to or whatever you were like many times More likely to stay in the job."
00:38:58,"Like you might not like your manager. Managers are very important but like the work friend, you know, was really critical and it's not that easy to make work friends at coworking spaces. Like real friends. Like you can go to happy hours and sort of stumble into people. But I think that's sort of the real goal is how do you help people form those connections. And I don't know if you've looked at this, but I have to think that drives member lifetime value."
00:39:26,"Like they stay member retention like just like you would in a workplace. Like, well, if you have a friend. And even when people are sort of part time, like I think one of the challenges with part time memberships is people fall back into the inertia of their home office. Right. Like they go on vacation and then they sort of get, get into this habit of like working from home, which a lot of people can do and then they just stop going to the coworking space."
00:39:53,"Right. And they cancel their membership. But having the, the like the friends again, even if it's not like they're doing something every day with this person but they've got the Friday lunch or they've got something or a project they're working on, like that's really I would think. Do you have a sense? Yeah, that's true. No, I agree. And I think that again I'm going to just go back to being an introvert."
00:40:17,"Right. Like for me working on a project with someone is a way better way to connect, inform I than small talk. And so I think people talk a lot about the water cooler conversations and I do like those a little bit. Like I said, I'm not great at smell talk and so maybe that's not. But for me, I mean I guess for me it takes the water cooler conversations from just like some random conversation about the weather and all this thing to purposeful conversation where now when I bump into somebody it's we're having a water cooler conversation around a project that we're working on."
00:40:53,"I have this idea for our thing. Right. Or seeing other people kind of start to do that where they're going to lunch but they're going to lunch to like ideate together. And it's just a much deeper. I feel like it's just an accelerator for deeper connections. Right? Yeah. And yeah, yeah, I mean it's really valuable. Yeah. I just, I like this so much. I think when we talk about loneliness, you know, it's considered an epidemic and so but there's a, so they, they you know, I've seen articles talking about, like, the minimum, you know, impact you can make on somebody is like a water cooler kind of thing."
00:41:31,"Like, they say if people are lonely, like, you don't need, you know, interaction with your best friend every day, but you need some, you know, other human direction. And it could be like the really friendly barista at Starbucks or the community manager at the coworking space who, you know, gives you a nice greeting and tells you they like their, you know, your shoes or whatever. But that's that on the spectrum."
00:41:53,"That's like minimum, right? Like, it's having an impact, but it's not what we really want for people and what you're describing. And again, not everybody's going to opt into it, but I love that you are an introvert and you're talking about how it works for you. Yeah, I mean, it was bizarre for me, but go. I'm so sorry. No, I'm just. I mean, I just keep thinking about."
00:42:14,"I really do think that a lot of community managers want to achieve this, but the how is is is hard. And also having a community that's open to it. I mean, I would caution people listening, like, your community may, you know, may not. They may, but. But I also like the fact that you can make it social or you really could make it professional. Like, your interactions through started like on a professional project, which is, you know, probably a lot of people would be interested in that in some sense, like mentorship or learning, you know, either side of that."
00:42:46,"Anyway, I'll stop talking. Oh, no. Yeah. And actually, to your point, I was gonna say, like, not everyone socializes the same as me. And some people do need that. Like, even in one of the programs that I first created when I started helping out here was basically inspired by my experience of being in a standup meeting every morning. And, you know, when I would go there in person and I'd be physically connecting with people in the standups, I thought, wow, this is five times better than trying to sit."
00:43:12,"And so one of the things I started was a midweek standup for remote workers. I called it flock. And it was like a morning coffee hour where we did kind of. This is where my old days and the teacher comes in. We would do a rosebud thorn exercise of like a win something you're looking forward to a thorn. Sometimes it's just one or the other, and it was just a little structured."
00:43:31,"But then it gave people ways to share what's going on, their week, what they're working on. And then when they ran into each other. It was like, how was your friend's baby shower that you're working on that thing for? They had points to follow up with each other. But what happened is that then I. When I stopped hosting it every week and we split it between four people here at the coworking space, taking turns."
00:43:51,"Not everyone who hosted the flock, which I call it flock because it's inspired by my chickens. So I had some chickens in my backyard. I love chickens. And I was watching my chickens hanging out as I was being a remote worker by myself. It was like, man, I need my flock. So made a flock for remote workers. And some of the people who lead it, like, do more of a casual."
00:44:14,"Just copy chat. And they. And some people really like that because it turns out that my structured thing was anxiety inducing for them. Oh. Like I have three things and then I have to say it out loud. And what if I don't have a thing? Yeah. Okay. Mm. But for other people, going to a thing where you're going to have general small talk and you don't know what you're going to be talking about is also anxiety induced."
00:44:37,"Totally. Yeah. Or not a good time or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we rotate it like I do my rosebud thorns at the first of the month, like monthly recap. Come and share if you want. Two other people do one where it's more of a casual banter and then another person does. Leads a silent book club block where everyone kind of brings books and they can read quietly while they eat their lunch or they can talk and."
00:44:59,"And just kind of people get to self select. So yeah, different people connect in different places. And even similarly with the community committee, we broke it up. So after three months, they said they wanted to do it. We broke it up into two groups. And one is the connections committee, which is more focused on helping people get connected personally and professionally through whether it's one on one coffee connections or mentorship circles or different things like that."
00:45:26,"And then the other one is just social events, the happy hours, going and volunteering, going to a basketball game, whatever. And so we kind of have two different groups. We meet all together and then we kind of do a little huddles and then come back together. And it is kind of two different ways of a coaching. Yeah, I. I mean, there's just so many good things about this because one of the things that keeps coming up for me is like the community building part of the reason community managers do the same."
00:45:52,"You know, you're like, well. And then the weekly Happy hour and then the weekly bagels on Friday. You know, it's like part of that is because community building is, like, not that scalable, so it is hard for the community team to just own it. And what you're talking about is really like, you know, admitting sort of this, like, we're going to do a bunch of different things for different types of people, but spreading that out."
00:46:15,"It's not the community team has to own it all. It's, you know, member led. And so that's just. It's such a great way to do it. And I even love your example about, like, how the coffee chat works, because that's something I think it's really hard to remember, especially if you are an introvert. And I think most community managers are pretty extroverted. Some are not, you know, and so we don't relate to, like, what the introvert might, you know, might be feeling or those feelings of anxiety, you know, about the share around the room or."
00:46:48,"I would, because I love the share. I'm an enneagram. 3. Do you. Do you ever. Have you ever done anything with the Enneagram? I'm a. I'm a 4wi3, so I'm the moody, broody artist, except for I actually have some motivation to do stuff with it that's probably pretty powerful. That's really interesting. But I. So my co host for my other podcast, Giovanni, introduced me to it and I think about it all the time."
00:47:13,"I think it really changed my life because it just helped me really understand how different people are because I just think we forget often. Like your example of, like, not everybody wanted to do the Rose Thorn and, you know, the what? Like. Like, you know, I do think it's hard to remember how different people are and how they come to the table with different feelings. And so anyway, it's."
00:47:36,"It's complicated and I know for sure and. And that's where I feel like my background is a special education teacher. Coming into, I would say Cahoots has a lot of. It was founded by four tech founders, actually. And so what happened is that they created a company and were successfully acquired. And then they wanted to. At the time, there weren't really any coworking spaces in Ann Arbor, and there wasn't really a lot of flexible office space."
00:48:01,"And so they were kind of really, some of the first people to say, we want to create this space for other tech companies and people to have a space to get started. And so it is. It does have a lot of tech people. But I would say now we also have a lot of creatives, we have a lot of other type of entrepreneurs. We have a lot of remote workers."
00:48:18,"And so it's not just tech, but there's still a lot of tech people. All that to say that I found that tech people tend to be very neurodivergent. Special education is all about understanding neurodivergent brains. And when I was creating a classroom for that, it's all about accommodating different styles of learning and approaching things. And I feel like maybe in something like a community committee, you can kind of let different people, whether it's different enneagrams or different brain types or whatever, come up with a solution that's best for their brain and other people are."
00:48:47,"That you might not have thought of. Right? A hundred percent. Yeah. It's so interesting. Yeah, Ann Arbor is a very interesting market and I suspect it's. I did a feasibility study on it recently also. When this goes live, Amanda Lewin will call you immediately. Have you met Amanda? Okay. She's awesome. She's really awesome and does a lot of community work too. She's gonna love this, I'm sure. But Ann Arbor is one of those markets."
00:49:14,"I suspect it's also remote worker like just growing in all those areas post pandemic because you could, you can live in Ann Arbor, which is a great college town and tech transfer from the university and. And all those things that are happening. So that's. Oh, I was just gonna say that was interesting because it's reminding me of something you said earlier that I was thinking about. About just the better."
00:49:37,"I think that talking a little bit about, you know, the this is ways that this can benefit a coworking space, ways it can benefit the members. I think also the greater community was really. It's been really fascinating for me to meet people who are. I'm working on public health in Maryland, I'm working on education in Arizona, whatever, and they're here. And I guess my thought is just, I wonder, it's really cool post pandemic how much remote work has opened up way for people who maybe work in one place to still be by their family or whatever it is."
00:50:08,"But I also wonder what the greater impact is then on your community when you have a bunch of people come in who are working out of there, but actually have no real authentic connection to the actual place that they're living in. And so I wonder just what are the ways that coworking can provide a meaningful place to actually feel like they're contributing to their actual community? And bring in their brains a little bit more to feel engaged in the place they're living in."
00:50:33,"Yeah, that's so interesting. Like somebody could be working on. Right. Education in Arizona and. But not yet. What's their connection to that locally or anything locally? When your work life is. Yeah, like in another state it's so. There are so many post pandemic, you know, challenges and opportunities, I guess. Okay, I could talk about this all day long, but I have to let you wrap up. So your committee decided to, you know, keep going any like in the last couple of minutes, like, like lessons or like if somebody listening today wanted to try this, what advice would you give them?"
00:51:11,"Yeah, I think that definitely starting by asking people first what it is they want and what ideas really helps set the tone for people to create what they want and feel more autonomy and ownership for it and that. But then kind of from there giving them a few. Having a few guidelines of. It can't be this. Right. So maybe having some general structure or guidelines of what, you know, if there anything that it has to include or cannot include, maybe setting those parameters up front so that they don't just wild."
00:51:45,"And then I guess the second thing is I definitely noticed that people who partnered with other people to kind of work on initiatives, it seems like we're able to get the most traction because. And this is where I feel kind of bad because I think I wasn't able to one on one meet and kind of conspire and collaborate with all the people who are working on individual initiatives as much just for time and."
00:52:08,"But then I think that maybe if I had known what I know now, I might have maybe upfront front more act proactively, try to encourage people who had similar interests or ideas to kind of create little groups of two to three to work on an initiative together from the get go because I think that's probably the most valuable component is being able to work on it with other people and maybe even like yeah, two or three that you have a little bit support."
00:52:32,"I think also when you're doing something, you know, sort of launching something, it can be hard to do it on your own. You know, you have questions you want to. This is totally not the same, but it's, it's kind of a similar effect. I run our local REC soccer group and we've been talking recently about like every role needs to be pairs because there's so many things that come up that you just want somebody else's opinion on or you want to brainstorm on and even that I noticed too, which is like the theme we've been talking about."
00:53:04,"Like people who have connections, like they just want to stay longer. Right. Like if they're not really integrated and they don't build relationships and they kind of bounce out, like they thought they wanted to volunteer and they do it for a little bit and then they kind of bounce. But the people who get involved with. Really involved with the. In small groups with the other members or have a buddy that they just work really well with, they stay for a long time."
00:53:29,"So, yeah, I do think the pairs piece just. Yeah. And having a friend that isn't a coworking staff member. Right, right. Like, nothing wrong with that, but being able to. Yeah. And also that's for. For me, I think that I can't. I don't have the time to meet and collaborate and ideate outside of the community meeting with every single individual person. So. So not only is it, I can't do this, but also the thing that I think that's going to keep them there more than their friendship with its coworking staff members, maybe their friendships, is all the people there."
00:54:03,"And it's that my idea is to create a ripple effect that just kind of grows beyond my reach. I want to step back as much as possible and just kind of start it going and not be micromanaging all those connections and initiatives. Totally. Yes. I love that phrase, like the micromanaging. You. You don't. Right. And also the community team will shift over time. So it's not sustainable for the community, you know, for there to be one person on the team who owns it all because then what happens?"
00:54:34,"So you're, you know, creating a more sustainable approach. Yeah. Okay. I can't. I'm like, I probably won't always be there either. So. Yeah. To have them feel empowered to create whatever they want is going to be the most successful long term. Right. Okay, thank you for diving into all of these details. I think this is fascinating and really interesting and probably very thought provoking and exciting for the."
00:55:01,"All the coworking space owners and community managers who are listening will leave us with. What are you most excited about that's next for this group? Yeah, I'm excited on how they can build on it and bring in new members because now other people want to be a part of it. So I think that's going to be a really exciting part is to see how other people, how they can kind of grow together."
00:55:25,"And I don't know, I think we're still all figuring it out, everyone here. So it'll be interesting and I'm excited to hear if anyone else tries it what works for them because yeah, I think there's a lot of cool things and I'm not sure where it's going to go but I think it'll be a good place. Okay, do if somebody wants to share what they're up to, what's a good way to connect with you?"
00:55:48,"Sure. You could find me on LinkedIn so I if they message you, you'll get the, you'll get the alert. Yes. So I don't, I haven't updated my profile in a very long time but I do manage it for Kahoot LinkedIn so I am on there on a day to day basis. You can always find me there. Awesome. Okay. Yeah, I mean thank you for sharing your experiment and I mean it was really out of the interest in hey, what if other people can learn from this and want to try it and we really just appreciate that."
00:56:19,"Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And if anyone has any ideas I that's why I love being able to share because I'm sure other people have other insights that I would even have since I'm brand new to coworking. Right. But yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. 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."
00:56:42,"If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching program, head over to everything coworking.com we'll see you next week."
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