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Page 12 — Office Properties Quarterly — June 2017
A ny space that helps makes
social connections easier is a
real estate and market oppor-
tunity. As more connections
are made online, we are trying
to bring connections to life through
meaningful office and community
planning. In the U.S., individuality often
is promoted as a key to success, which
certainly bears true in many cases.Yet,
success does not happen in a vacuum.
Success is, in part, thanks to the con-
nections and the resources you have
access to and the advice you receive
along the way.
Co-working spaces not only benefit
members, but also serve as a resource
to the surrounding community. Den-
ver is no exception as people here are
looking for new ways to connect, grow
and be are proud of the
partnerships we are helping to foster
among entrepreneurs, and we love
the thriving business ecosystemwe’ve
been welcomed love watch-
ing people connect daily over coffee
or the newest Netflix series, and over
time we’ve seen these relationships
grow, but it’s a delicate balance.Too
much chatting can pull us away from
the task at hand, but many times col-
laborative interactions can help build a
better business strategy.
How and where people work has dra-
matically shifted over the past decade,
ushering in new spaces where digital
nomads can thrive.The paradigm shift
toward flexible working has left the
traditional real estate model obsolete
for many in the workforce. Flexible
workspaces enable workers to find the
space that best suits their needs.
We are trying to make the workplace
a destination.While our design is inno-
vative, the main goal
is to create collab-
orative, dynamic and
growing communi-
believe that
success breeds more
success. Following
are things we’ve
learned that could
be adopted by all
office environments.
• Collaboration
emerges from activi-
ties and community
events. Office space
does not have to
be stagnant or limited in scope. After-
hours events are welcome ways to get
to know your surrounding neighbor-
hood. Co-working spaces encourage
social interactions, but that doesn’t
mean traditional office spaces can’t
provide programming or collaborative
events for their community.
These events can be used as a means
to introduce locals to the idea of our
spaces. As an example, at each of our
Spaces centers we invite local artists
to showcase their work at a monthly
“First Friday” event for clients and the
community. Artists can sell their work
while tenants enjoy meeting other
creatives and local residents. It’s fun
and it personalizes the experience of
both creating art and working in an
office building.These events often lead
to larger partnerships between our
tenants, the artists and other entrepre-
neurs who attend.
• Events are opportunities to network
and for tenants to market themselves.
A community manager encourages
real engagement and collaboration by
connecting clients through events and
networking.These managers are the
first to introduce entrepreneurs that
walk through our doors and actively
seek out fun and innovative ways to
get them interacting.
These events range from outdoor
yoga led by a local fitness studio to
an information session for entrepre-
neurs and start-ups on how to build a
branded website. It’s quite common to
overhear clients making connections
or giving an elevator pitch at these
events. Lots of our clients are look-
ing for feedback on their test product
or advice on where and how to soft-
launch an app, for example, and these
events can provide a sounding board.
• Flexible design helps clients share
ideas and synergies. Aside from the
communal elevator, professionals
based in traditional office space can
miss out on the potential for idea
sharing and learning from colleagues
who operate in different departments
and are at varying stages of their
careers.
Traditional offices looking to
encourage a sense of community and
communication among employees
can consider introducing a flexible
work area such as a shared patio or
informal seating area to help foster
conversation, brainstorming and rela-
tionships between colleagues.
• Remote offices are not going away.
Larger, global brands are posting up
new satellite offices each day. Remote
offices are beneficial to the overall
professional community, includ-
ing larger corporations, by providing
employees the flexibility of operating
remotely, which in turn helps com-
panies expand into new markets and
increase brand awareness.
According to Harvard Business
Review, telecommuters are more
productive and more engaged than
those in the office. This means there
are opportunities to create collabora-
tive hubs in both urban centers and
in suburbia. While telecommuters
may enjoy their streamlined work-
flow working remotely, humans are
naturally social and having a place
to interact with others to share con-
versations and resources is attrac-
tive to this growing population. The
inherent flexibility offers solutions
for companies to better utilize their
space and their employees’ time.
It’s important to recognize that this
trend will only continue to grow and
remote offices can segue into larger
opportunities for us as brokers and
property managers.
• Work is no longer a place you go,
it’s something you do. The birth of co-
working sprang from the demand for
more relaxed, flexible and inviting
environments to create and innovate.
The workplace should be an inviting
destination that offers interesting
and relevant ways of networking and
fostering a greater sense of collabora-
tion. The goal is not about the office
space; it’s about allowing work to fit
more seamlessly into our lives, to
make work a place to socialize, devel-
op and expand.
Life isn’t just about the connections
you make online. Pulling people away
from their screens can be a good
thing for creativity and for engage-
ment. We want the Fortune 500 com-
pany to learn from the startup and
we want the benefits of this relation-
ship to expand outside the office and
into the community.s
Market Trends
Michael
Berretta
Vice president
network
development,
Americas, Regus,
Atlanta