The Weekly Community Managers Chat VOL. 7

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a great start of the weekend. I have been trying to post this yesterday, following our Thursday call but for some reason Facebook would not allow me 🙄.

So what did we talk about this week? Well, our chat was very much focused on…

Getting Ready for Re-opening

In a nutshell, what we covered was around:

  • What should we consider/take care of to re-open safely?
  • How to communicate with members about re-opening?
  • What coworking might look like in the coming months for all of us and how to adapt?

What should we consider/take care of to re-open safely?

  • Revamping of the space - allowing enough distance between every table
  • Kitchen usage - consider removing cutleries for the time being and either offer disposable ones to members (which might not be very eco-friendly) or ask everyone to bring their own and not leave anything in the kitchen
  • Meeting rooms - transforming them into one-person type of office for the time-being
  • Air quality - consider investing in air purifier / ventilation devices to have a better flow and air quality
  • Event spaces - shift the use of event spaces (for those who have some) into coworking for now as there won’t be any events happening any time soon. This way, the space you “loose” in the coworking area because of more distance between tables can be “balanced”
  • Cleaning frequency - increase the cleaning of the space to a higher frequency
  • Floor markings - mark the floor so people have a better understanding of distances (especially if you have elevators)
  • Visitor policy - limit (or forbid) visitors from outside and day passes

How to communicate with members about re-opening?

What we all notice right now is that members are still fearing returning to a “normal” life and the role of coworking spaces is to build/rebuild a sense of trust with their communities to show what you do rather than telling.

On that note, we all agreed that communicating very clearly on the matter with members was crucial for them to return. I want to share with you an interesting video I have come across (from WeWork 🤷‍♀️) where they present everything they are putting in place in their spaces to make them safe and clean.

Of course, we might not all want to make videos to communicate to members, but it can help you draft guidelines.

I also talked about a webinar I watched from WeWork China about their reopening strategy.

Virtual Coworking Initiative

Lastly, if some of you are interested about Virtual Coworking, please talk to Tomokazu from The DECK. As you might remember, he has shown us over the last 3 calls, the virtual coworking space they co-created with other spaces from Japan. He announced during the call that they are now keeping it active (paying for it all together) and installed a “donation based” model for members to support it. 👏👏👏

Open Questions

Some open questions remained:

  • How to deal with members who do not respect your new policy?
  • Will you ask everyone to wear masks inside the space?
  • Will you give masks to members or does anyone will need to bring their own?
  • Will you take the body temperature of members entering?
  • Will you keep track of who’s coming to the building?

What coworking might look like in the coming months

There is still a lot of uncertainty for all of us. Discussing together, we all understood that we rely a lot on our governments and expect them to craft rules/clear policies on how workspaces should operate. The question here is, will they do something like that? If so when?

Hack Coworking Online 2020

If you are interested in co-creating the future of coworking with your members and other coworking community, I have something you might be interested in.

We (Coworkies) and together with great partners are launching, from May 28th to May 30th, our online edition of Hack Coworking. The purpose here will be for you to engage in various conversations and ways on what the future of coworking will be. The big plus is: there will be cool prizes to win (both financial prizes and products/services)

We are finalizing the Eventbrite, as soon as it is launched, I will make an announcement here so you can participate and invite your communities.

Side note: For those of you who were interested in the app Apple and Google are developing (and I have read that Germany is considering to use it) you can find more details about contact tracing technology.

Thank you Mika, Océane, Arti, Méghan, Tomokazu and Olga for your contribution!

Wishing you all a great weekend and see you next week for yet another chat.