Coworking Values Podcast

"We know what's going to happen with startups before anyone else because a company will say that they're downsizing or whatever before they'll fire everyone." Jules Robertson didn't plan to become a workspace oracle. She and co-founder Laura started Tally in mid-2020 with a Squarespace site, watching their own employers bleed money on empty offices. Four years later, they're seeing London's worksp...

"We were being disconnected and distributed instead of coming together." That's Ashley Proctor describing the moment in 2004 when Ontario College of Art and Design students were losing their collaborative spaces to renovations. Their solution? Pool their money, rent their own space, run it themselves. No business plan. No investor deck. Just students who needed somewhere to work together. That spa...

Building Coworking for the People Actually Living in Hackney with Kofi Oppong When 15-year-old twins refuse to leave the AI lab and Caribbean grandmothers learn to code their way past red tape. "Those are the ones that are struggling to connect. So we went from basics in terms of online browsing to how to use AI. And I helped a lady solve problems with the council by showing her how to write lette...

Episode Summary "I know for a fact I've got two more at home." The woman standing outside Gavin's ski shop holds five pairs of ski pants. It's Brexit day—the one that never happened—and instead of drowning in political despair, Gavin's running a "Fix It, F**k Brexit" event. People are donating their excess gear, getting things repaired, and planting trees. Nine grand raised in a day. But it's the...

"We don't pay rent, but we pay them in social value... To date, I think we've provided £2.5 million to Islington Council in social value." Space4 doesn't pay rent. Instead, they deliver something harder to measure but infinitely more valuable: £2.5 million in social value to Islington Council through the creation of jobs, the launch of businesses, and the sparking of connections over Wednesday lun...

"There's always going to be someone who comes along who does something a little bit better, a bit faster, a bit cheaper than you. And then you're going to be chasing your tail. But if you can elevate this hospitality, this way to make people feel valued, then actually they're not chasing the quickest, fastest, next thing that's released." The panic hits when you overhear a member saying they're "j...

"A lot of policies are managed to, or a lot of policies are written to manage the majority's comfort. And actual inclusion asks a much different question." The rainbow sticker is on the door. The diversity statement is on the website. The pronouns are in the email signatures. But walk into most coworking spaces as a neurodivergent person, and you'll quickly discover the gap between performative in...

"I'm just trying to create the lunch table that I could never sit at myself." The mistake happens in the first week. You move to a new city, full of energy and ideas about community building. You've got credentials. Experience. A track record of making things happen. So you announce your arrival. Start a meetup. Launch an initiative. Try to gather people around your vision. And... crickets. Tony B...

“We trained people in Camden. Our alumni trained others in Gaza. It was peer-led — and it worked.” Dan Sofer didn’t mean to build a coding movement. But over a decade, through a mix of grit, generosity, and peer-led magic, that’s precisely what happened. In this episode, Bernie sits down with Dan, founder of Founders and Coders — the radically open, tuition-free coding boot camp based at  Space4  ...

"For someone who's been in the industry for eight years, I get tired of telling people what coworking is. I want people just to know and understand." Sam Shea discovered coworking the way most brilliant ideas are found — by accident, whilst dreaming up something else entirely. As a kid obsessed with entrepreneurship (selling bookmarks to neighbours, attempting to rebrand rocks), she'd imagined som...

"We are the bridge that can make the trust between the system and the association that can make the trust become more vivid." Episode Summary The swimming champion had been waiting tables for months. Nobody in the official integration system had bothered to ask the right question. They wanted to know about his qualifications, his work history, and his Swedish language skills. All the bureaucratic...

"It's not necessarily your boss telling you to do yoga, but yourself thinking that if you don't do yoga, if you don't do these networking events, you might not be as good as you would like at your job." The wellness class ends. Everyone rolls up their mats, checks their phones, and heads back to their desks. Productivity restored. Focus recharged. Another tool in the productivity arsenal. But what...

Episode Summary "We are being driven by a blind system that we support when we remain blind to it." Helena Norberg-Hodge doesn't talk about going local like it's a lifestyle choice. She talks about it like someone who's spent 50 years watching globalisation systematically dismantle communities, turn citizens into consumers, and leave people desperately lonely in a world designed to profit from div...

"It comes from being told no, being told to reduce yourself, and working for people who don't give a s**t about your future, your culture, or the environment, or your community. And it comes from that place of, F**k me, we have got to start doing something about this now." Vibushan Thirukumar doesn't mince words. The co-founder and CEO of Oru Space carries the weight of displacement, the memory of...

Episode Summary "If we don’t have revenue, we don’t have a space." Fiona Ross joins Bernie to discuss one of the most costly, challenging, and misunderstood decisions coworking operators encounter: when to abandon DIY systems and invest in software that genuinely supports your space. Forget the sales demos and shiny integrations. This episode is about the real-life process of choosing systems that...

Episode Summary "I'm a mother now. I'm no longer a hostess." In this episode, Emily Breder talks with Olivia Jones and Tyshon Boone, co-founders of Prism Spaces in Chicago, about how two performing artists turned community managers are rewriting the coworking playbook. It starts with art: ballet and theatre degrees, open mics, and local gallery walls. But it doesn't stop there. Olivia and Tyshon b...

Episode Summary What happens when you realise your pricing model isn't just flawed—it’s sabotaging your freedom? This is a raw, practical, and candid conversation with Elina Jutelyte, founder of the  Freelance Business Community,  who has spent nearly a decade navigating the complex web of freelance economics across Europe. In this month's European Freelancer Special, we pull back the curtain on t...

Episode Summary “Everything comes back to email.” Emily and Bernie rip the plaster off a painful truth: frantic paid ads can’t rescue a hollow content strategy. They swap war stories about “panic‑buying” LinkedIn and Google ads, compare the steep learning curve of PPC platforms, and reveal why most indie coworking spaces burn cash instead of building community. Emily breaks down the real cost of o...

Episode Summary “You can hire a branding agency. Or you can co-create it with the people who'll live it.” In this REWIND episode, we revisit one of our most powerful conversations with Vanessa Sans , a coworking pioneer, community strategist, and founder of Kalima. Vanessa didn’t just open a space by the sea. She co-created a movement with the people it was meant for. From her early days launching...

What happens when you lose your workspace, your routine, and your community? In this deeply human episode, Bernie and Lucy McInally crack open what real community feels like inside a Coworking space—and what gets lost when pricing, scale, or disconnection takes over. Lucy shares how running grassroots freelancer meetups in London helped her understand the difference between surface-level connectio...

Episode Summary It’s June 2025, just a few weeks after European Coworking Day united coworking communities across Europe—and this week's SXSW event in London—are buzzing with energy about AI and creating meaningful experiences. We’re resharing a grounding, unforgettable episode with  Denise Brouder , founder of  The Future of Work Alliance  and author of  "The Science of Flexibility ." Her report,...

Episode Summary Alex Young doesn’t want applause for installing ramps. As Director at Projects in Brighton, she’s focused on something much harder: making inclusion part of the architecture of everyday coworking life. From universal design to neurodivergent coaching, this episode is a masterclass in what it takes to build truly accessible spaces, not just compliant ones. Emily and Alex delve into...

Summary How do you keep your business running when your nervous system is screaming? In this raw and resonant episode, Bernie and Emily tackle a weight most of us carry but rarely name: existential overhead . That constant low hum of emotional load—personal, political, practical—that makes every small task feel harder. From neurodivergence and mindset rituals to accountability rhythms and phantom...

Episode Summary When Sangeeta Pillai walks into a coworking space, she’s not just looking for a desk—she’s scanning for signs that someone like her belongs. In this raw and wide-ranging conversation, Sangeeta—founder of the Masala Podcast and Soul Sutras - joins Bernie to talk about what inclusion actually feels like , not just what it looks like in a brochure. From growing up silenced in a Mumbai...

Episode Summary Ever felt exhausted by the pressure to appear confident, even when you’re not? In this frank, funny, and insightful conversation, Bernie sits down with Jon Torrens, a former stand-up comedian turned communication coach, to tackle this. They reveal why true confidence is not about volume or bravado, but rather about how authentically you present yourself, even when it’s awkward, unc...