119. Physical and Cyber Security for Coworking Spaces
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Transcription
119. Deeper Dive into Physical and Cyber Security for Coworking Spaces
00:00:01 Welcome to the everything Coworking podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host, co working space owner and trend expert Jamie Russo. Welcome to the everything Coworking Podcast episode number 119. This is Jamie Russo, and I am the host of the Everything Coworking podcast, Super excited about today's guest. First, I have to mention that the episode is sponsored by the Community Manager University. Brought to you by everything Coworking. I am about to launch Community Manager University, which is a training and development platform for community managers, to support them from Day one through evolving into the role of regional manager.
00:00:49 The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the community manager role, including, of course, community management, operations, marketing, finance and leadership. The content is laid out in graduated learning path so that the community managers can identify what content is relevant to them. Given their experiences and background, they will also get Resource is templates Q and A calls and more each month in a slack group for peer networking. If this sounds interesting, make sure you get on the launch email notification list at www dot everything coworking dot com Forward slash community managers Before I dive into introducing today's guest, I have to mention life as an entrepreneur.
00:01:34 We on the day morning I was going to interview James. He is in London. I am on Pacific time, so it's end of day for him, beginning of day for me. The night before I was going to interview him, we had no power and I thought, There's no storm, nothing. So at that well, this is very temporary. It will be back on and I get up early the next morning. No power. And I think, Well, my laptops totally charged. I'll just do the recording at home.
00:02:01 No problem. I had to drop my daughter off. It's cool. So my husband reminds me that when one does not have power, one also just not have WiFi and I record on Zoom. So I couldn't do that. And I thought, Well, I'd like Thio. I'll cancel James And then I thought, I can't cancel. James have found its calendar for awhile, super excited about the topic, and I wanted to get him on before the G W A conference, which is next week. So I went into hustle mode and got out of the house, took my seven and 1/2 year old daughter with me on day two of school, and we're headed to the office, which is not close to my house, depending on traffic traffic, with starting to build a little bit.
00:02:45 So as I was driving, I thought, I need a closer place. I need a closer place and I thought of my friend Matt and my friend Matt has given meat Lifetime Keesee access to his coworking space, which is closer to my house than mine. So I popped into Matt's office with daughter in tow and interviewed James and then took my daughter to school 15 minutes late. She missed a morning warmup. Coloring session. May do more advanced things in that in the second grade now, but anyway, we're out of power for more than 24 hours.
00:03:18 I left all the food in my refrigerator, so it's been a crazy couple of days, and the conference is about 10 days away as I'm recording this intro, but and I should say, and I I am excited to introduce you to James. I give a little bit of background on him and why he's on the show. So I'll just mention he is the chief product officer at it. A census and I invited him on to continue our coverage of physical and cybersecurity in co working spaces. A census has deep expertise in this topic.
00:03:51 If you missed episode number 108 that's another good listen on the topic. James shares a bit in the interview about a census solutions, and if you're planning, I am not affiliated with the census in any way. Except they are super dedicated G W A supporters and are one of the providers, one of the technology and service providers in the co working space that you should consider if you are already or are planning to be a multi location operator than I especially recommend that you put them on your consideration list for both your I T solutions and space management platform.
00:04:31 In a sense, this is a platinum GTB way sponsor at the conference. You can come meet them in person on September 18th in D. C. I should also mention that they are co sponsoring the afterparty Thursday night, which is sort of misnamed could because we have a really amazing content on Friday until noon, so it can't overdo the afterparty, but their co sponsoring it with Instant, who has amazing industry data. And they help anyway. We won't go into instant a story for another day. Michelle from Instant has been on the podcast.
00:05:03 She is back a number of episodes. Actually, she came on. She was one of the highest rated sessions after last year's conference, they presented Cem Fantastic Industry data with Scott Homa from Jones Lang LaSalle so roughly October last year have a listen if you are new to the show. But back to the after party, it's eighties themed, and Chris Companion from Braddock Commercial is co hosting as well, and he is the physical host. We are having the event at his new co working space, which is co located with Fitness Center and, I believe a juice bar.
00:05:40 I'm gonna try to d'oh on onsite interview with Chris, which I've never done before, so I'm researching that Anyway, we're a super excited. It's gonna be a great industry event, and if you're not going to the conference you should know that not only do you get to learn a lot, but you get to have a ton of fun with your new industry friends. I just ordered my eighties outfit today. So without further ado, let's talk about security. I am really looking forward to this conversation. Maybe not our super sexiest Coworking topic, but zoo per important.
00:06:17 James, welcome to the podcast. Today I'm here with James Shannon, who is tthe e head of product for a census and all that James gonna give a deeper review of his background and his role and share a little bit more about a census. Of course, a census is a major player in the co working and beyond industries. You can talk about kind of the scope of your world beyond coworking and recently have gone public. Do we call it something else in the UK? Yeah, Come public. This right?
00:06:48 Yeah. So, lots of exciting news. So the genesis, aside from the fact that a census is plays a big role in providing service is to the coworking industry, is I roped James into kind of doing a deeper dive with us on security and sort of member experience around technology. And we won't spoil too much because James is on an exciting panel that we have at the GB way conference in a couple of weeks, which were really looking forward to. So we said he won't spoil all of that content.
00:07:18 But I done on episode on security a few weeks. Well, might be a couple of months ago now and had lots of questions about, you know, what does that mean? How to implement that? What does that look like? Sort of it. The space level. So I thought I'd get James on and we dive in a little bit more So. James, thank you for joining me today and tell us a little bit about your and I know your background is not specifically security, but you're kind of in that technology member experience role at a census to tell us a little bit about you and your background and what you're working on.
00:07:52 It a sentence today? Sure. Well, thank you for having me, Jamie. My background is probably from software development, actually, originally having founded two successful startups that specialized in both custom be to see mobile APS on enterprise software as a service to enterprise platforms that deliver value tow companies of the Web. But over the last 10 years, I've really focused on product leadership, running hardware and software product teams across everything from mobile to enterprise to consumer electronics and smartphones, really across the board sort of product leadership in sort of technology solutions.
00:08:24 My current role is cheap products or a census really brings us all together. So everything from the hardware that runs spaces and runs buildings all the way through to the software that the operator uses to run the flexible workspace but most importantly, to actually manage them and deliver that member experience that everyone is striving to differentiate around on. But really, you know, my role here is to take on the development off of our sort of market leading platforms and then further innovate around security. Big data. Everyone's talking about sensors and integrate access control all of these topics which all come together, and to deliver what should really be a friction free kind of seamless member experience.
00:09:02 I feel like we're in a really exciting stage where some of this is starting to feel more approachable. I feel like we've talked about Coyote before and smart buildings and you know, some of the analytics and it felt like it was a little out on the horizon. And maybe for folks you know, with, I don't know. But, you know, big teams, big budgets. And we're seeing some co working space operators really kind of dive into some of the measurement and analytics and thinking about member experience and companies like yours, certainly providing some of the technology to help support that.
00:09:33 So can you talk a little bit about, you know, sort of the product suite of what a census delivers and focuses on? Sure, so we can't have two platforms, and the first is really the one that we've led with them since the beginning. It was released around the fan of the company for almost 10 years ago. On That's our connects platform, and connect really is all around seamlessly managing the IittIe infrastructure of the space. Now most people might think, Well, that's just the WiFi. That's just the Internet connectivity.
00:09:59 That's just the voice and so forth. But actually, a lot of spaces are trying to run what were very lean budgets with very minimal staff with very minimal I t expertise. And so, really, what we do is we support the operator, installing their infrastructure and storing their connectivity on, then using their senses cloud, which is kind of the industry's only private cloud network that all our operators are connected to. We can minimize the amount of kit that needs to be put on site in terms of hardware and at the same time provide that sort of enterprise grade monitoring and bandwidth measurement and security that allows our operators to really embrace a star enterprises coming into their co working spaces and then the most important of all when, as members join and leave spaces, it allows the operator to seamlessly manage these moves, ads and changes, whether it's new WiFi networks, new private lands, new voice extensions, whatever it might be or allocating Internet bandwidth and labels asked them to do this through a very simple sort of Web user interface, rather needing an I T team to manage that for them.
00:10:56 So that's the Connect platform and then operate is really around their day to day running of a space, everything from Leeds to cash so they're bringing in Leeds from brokers signing members up through the sales process to license agreements, doing their monthly billing, capturing all the different charges, managing meeting room bookings and so forth all the way through to renew ALS and voicing an integration with the accounting system.
00:11:17 So we really look at two different sides of the equation, Really. One is the infrastructure, and one is the date of the operating side of the business.
00:11:23 Yeah, I think some folks don't either connect with you on one or the other and don't realize the pools full of you provide, which is, I mean, you really specialize in helping operators.
00:11:34 I mean, we talked about this a little bit on our panel prep spin up locations fairly quickly. So, folks, you are and maybe specializes the wrong word.
00:11:42 But, you know, it struck me. You know, folks like Industrias and brands like that that are expanding quickly and really need, you know, excellent.
00:11:50 I t infrastructure that serves a corporate occupier. You're really well positioned to help kind of get that up and running in a fairly seamless way and help them solve problems like you talked about your door access on different buildings, which I hadn't thought a lot about when you said that I was like, Well, that's a really basic problem that's hard to solve.
00:12:10 So, yeah, repeatability in scalability some of the challenges the really sort of ambitious operators are coming up against because it's hard to stand out.
00:12:19 Whatever industry. Aaron, it's hard to spin up people quickly. It's hard to find people. It's hard to recruit.
00:12:24 People, retain people. You know operators want to run their spaces and sort of minimal overhead. And actually, you would much rather have your start focusing on delivering a great service to the members in front of house than hand by t teams, you know, managing switches and cables and and so far behind the scenes.
00:12:39 So, yeah, we're really all about automating that sort of seamless scaling and yet reliability of predictability, of growth that a lot of these more ambitious operators trying to achieve.
00:12:50 So this might be a fairly tactical question, but how much of the need for a local on site or sort of accessibly local team does your platform eliminate?
00:13:02 So if I'm you know, expanding into various markets, do I need to go find, you know, my local I t.
00:13:09 Guy that can show up at the space and handle things. Or is that something that's primarily done by your platform?
00:13:16 No, I mean generally, you know, our provisioning team get in service, delivery team, get involved with customers very early.
00:13:21 They're involved in the design of the space. We do WiFi surveys to decide how many access points they need.
00:13:26 We work with the carriers to deliver the Internet circuits. So it very much as a handhold partnership all the way through to sort of go live to the point where actually, as long as we know the requirements and then we don't need a huge amount of i t expertise on the customer side because obviously we've done this many times and actually once is deployed.
00:13:44 My network operations team are monitoring and managing that connectivity and that infrastructure 24 7 from our offices here. So, really, a lot of our customers are getting the point where, actually, for smaller spaces, they could be running it with a single site manager, the larger spaces in that they have more staff.
00:13:59 But those staffer predominantly focused on servicing members on the sort of day to day needs on actually just operating our software platform from a single pane of glass and on their laptops or the desktops without really having to go near a Commons room or having to pat stuff in thank goodness through the weapons face.
00:14:17 So it's very straightforward. So just to back up and ask a bigger picture question since you're newer to the industry, what for you is most exciting about what's happening in co working in the flex office industry?
00:14:31 Yeah, I mean, having run several starters myself and designed several traditional workspace is I was fairly familiar with the sort of balance between traditional and flex offerings and experienced several co work environments and over that period.
00:14:44 So what's really exciting about industry from a is not only the pace at which the markets evolving, but also the opportunity for the innovation and the technology that could not only assist our customers with scaling that they're trying to achieve, but more importantly, the ability to elevate their experience for members of which I have bean in the past as well.
00:15:02 We're using these flexible work spaces, which for my team, you know the product similar census really means they've got the opportunity to enhance everyone's working day, which is a great reason to get up in the morning.
00:15:10 And it come in and think, How can we improve someone's working day today and a flexible workspace? It's exciting, and it's a sort of a great motivation for us all.
00:15:19 So for me, it's the pace of the industry. But it's also the ability for technology to touch people.
00:15:23 And generally, I think, from my past, I've always bean most stimulated by technology that really touches people's experiences day to day, you know, as opposed to the more abstract technology, which is often hidden behind the scenes and so forth.
00:15:35 This is where they were actively trainer. Make it easy to print. Make it easier toe get on zoom.
00:15:39 Make it easier to get on the wife. I make it easy. It's just a access to get into the office to get into the meeting room.
00:15:45 To put your meeting room toe, find out where the nearest coffee machine is. These kind of things, that ability to influence on enhance people's days.
00:15:52 Working days, I think, is a really nice the way to sort of, you know, bring take the impact of technology onto the set of human scale.
00:15:59 Yeah, we talked about this on our prep call for the panel at the conference. Like this idea, it feels like in many cases, some of that technology sort of lags expectations.
00:16:11 Today's consumers, so, like, just needs to work, you know? I just want it now, like one of the steps that I think are it's gonna share is around.
00:16:19 You know how long how much productivity can be lost by how much time it takes to get into a conference meeting.
00:16:26 Tech set up and all of that. Someone with real experience going into a meeting room and you spend two minutes hunting under the table for the HD my cable or trying to figure out when I wet the TV remote is to get on the right hd my source.
00:16:38 Everyone's experience that and you know, you add up those minutes worldwide and it's a lot of productivity. Yeah, exactly.
00:16:44 And frustration. So we talked in our prep for the panel, which I kind of liked about this sort of like framework of like basic security needs, like access control and door security and sort of moving on up into sort of member, you know, higher level member experience and sort of frictionless ability to move through the space and do what you need to dio.
00:17:05 Can we start just sort of more of the basic security level and sort of talk about what you're seeing in terms of, like, what are the physical risks that we need to be aware of and the cyber security risk that we need to be aware of, and maybe sort of any kind of tangible, you know, recommendations or tips about how we need to be managing those risks in our spaces?
00:17:27 Yeah, sure. I mean, what's interesting? As you say, it really is a hierarchy of needs.
00:17:31 We started the most basic and I had a way. Lock the space and we get into space and then go through the gate, go up the pyramid in terms of, you know, doing the basic network security and then all the way up to sort of elevating that member experience.
00:17:42 So I mean addressing the physical spit first. It's the most traditional industry, the access control industry. It's kind of in the the same.
00:17:48 No, it's locks, its relays, its magnets. It's very sort of low. Taken in many senses.
00:17:54 Andi has traditionally been a hard industry to engage with from a technology perspective, because they like to do.
00:17:59 Seeing certain ways on technology hasn't really moved on. So on then over laid on that you've got the intersection of landlord infrastructure using one system and then 10 and in restaurants from different floors using different systems.
00:18:11 And then immediately you got a member experience that has two cards rather than one. And so you know what we're seeing is a lot of effort being brought to try and remove a lot of this friction.
00:18:20 Some of it's in, depending on the age of the building and sit in others. But there's some creative solutions.
00:18:25 So one really creative solution is trying to find a car technology that works in two systems. So, for instance, that a census here, you know, were Orlando uses one system.
00:18:32 We use another, but we found a card that works with both. So even though it has to be provisioned into two systems, the member experiences a single card.
00:18:40 So there's a very simple things and creative that ways to address effectively what a low tech problems, but then moving sort of more sophisticated solutions.
00:18:49 You know, we're now looking to more real time access control solutions. So unlike that, the traditional world where you have to have dedicated cabling going from locks back toe white boxes on the wall in comes rooms were moving Maur, toe edge controllers above doors that are powered over Ethernet, that a real time and talking to our infrastructure in real time so that you can really get to the point where I can tap my smartphone on the meeting room door.
00:19:11 On that, not only no books that meeting room for me, it takes the credits off my account, and it opens the door really moving from a world where I need a physical piece of plastic on.
00:19:21 I need to do everything in advance to really be able to make it. A simple is paying for a Starbucks in terms of using my smartphone and tapping to pay.
00:19:29 So that's the aspiration, and that certainly where we're driving the member experience, what it's all about, trying to remove the friction from everyone's day, it's to increase productivity.
00:19:38 And really, it's tryingto I come from the consumer electronics and then the consumer product world where you know that the bar is very high in terms of ease, of use and insurance of and so forth.
00:19:47 And we're really trying to bring that we live in a kind of a work in a strange sector in a way.
00:19:52 So from our perspective, it's not B two B or B to C. It's B to B to C fingers up.
00:19:57 Our operators are very much a B to B relationship with us, but they have a very B to C relationship with their customers.
00:20:02 Their members are expecting a consumer great experience, and that's what we're trying to help them deliver. So I think it's from a physical access perspective.
00:20:09 It's all about trying to pivot this what is a very traditional industry, and we still need locks, and we started all these things, but then put this layer this this seamless layer on top of it that just makes it work.
00:20:20 Hey would expect with your smartphone and really move it into the 21st century? Yeah, that's it. The point about sort of delivering experience to the consumer is interesting.
00:20:30 We talk about this a lot because I think when operators are designing a space, Sometimes they'll think about the corporate occupier, and I sort of feel like they're thinking about them as this, like a gray box of corporate nous.
00:20:43 And I like right. But they're people like they have iPhones. They're right on line and on instagram and buying things, and they're doing all the things that are sort of advanced consumer experience.
00:20:55 And, you know, I mean, from technology to, you know, furniture. It's like, Well, they're just people, too.
00:21:00 So you don't think the irony here is that whilst the as you say, the operators reacting to a lot of the security requirements and the network requirements of enterprises, they have to remember that the very reason enterprises are drawn and being attracted too flexible workspace is is because of the consumer great experience.
00:21:22 They like the funky furniture, and they like to put eight table tennis tables, and they like the lighting and they like the field.
00:21:28 It allows them to attract and retain staff and not have to worry about designing workspaces like that. So, you know, we then we can't sort of adapt to the user experience around network and security of crime.
00:21:40 It's We need to deliver those table stakes for enterprise but not forget the member experience has to be consumer because that's the reason they're attracted to flexible work spaces.
00:21:49 So, yeah, it's a double edged sword in many respects, and that's part of our challenges. We have to address the checklist on the one hand and say, Yeah, we got the network security covered with physical security covered with cyber security covered.
00:22:01 We could cover all the ice, so you know, requirements that you need. But we can make it feel a great place to work your members of your employees, a NASA because all these cool things, that how they can interact with space, a fun challenge.
00:22:12 So talking about the table stakes, can you just walk through sort of what the expectations are from a corporate user, like some of the things that we may not.
00:22:21 If somebody's sort of starting out and hasn't encountered, created there, kind of got requirements, list what's typically on that list?
00:22:30 Yeah, so I guess then the obvious one to start with his wife. I mean, you know, those who aren't familiar with the industry are familiar.
00:22:35 The technology it's easy to think of all WiFi as equal. What's the difference? Needs Starbuck's wife live?
00:22:40 This is my home. WiFi versus my work wife I. They're all WiFi. They all work the same way, but actually very different under the hood.
00:22:47 So you know, home WiFi is fine. It's limited to your four walls pretty much make. Maybe you can browse into next on your next door neighbors, but pretty got a password on it, so there's some level of encryption, but it's a relatively private network on dhe.
00:23:00 If you then transplant that into a more public environment there like a coffee shop. Then there's an element of sharing.
00:23:06 Because you're all sharing the same network. You're all sharing the same encryption key, so it's less secure.
00:23:11 And if you lift up that same technology and drop it into a flexible workspace, you know have multiple companies potentially sharing the same WiFi with the same password and so forth.
00:23:20 So which doesn't sit well with a corporate. So you have to think about the corporate security requirements from a very different perspective, and to be attractive to an enterprise or corporate coming into a flexible working space, they will be looking for what we call Private Leland's, and these are a virtual hand, a virtual network.
00:23:38 That nun only applies to the ports they plug into on the wall, but also the wife either connected on what we mean by that, is that everything that connects to their private Phelan is private to their company and isn't being shared with a private villain with the company in the next room or company.
00:23:53 The room after that. Now this is all delivered over the same physical infrastructure, but it's, ah, virtual technology that segregates these networks, and that's really important.
00:24:02 And that's kind of AH foundation of our platform that we deliver out of the box. You can't tell it off.
00:24:06 Every single member company has their own private villain across WiFi and across the land as well. Whether they're plugging in a phone or plug in a laptop or using their leaves in the WiFi is that I think that's the first thing.
00:24:18 The second thing is no shared passwords. So having individual Loggins the WiFi again when employees joined and leave cos many companies have shared passwords will not change the password.
00:24:29 So therefore you immediately have an employee who's left, who's still has access the network, which again is an immediate lapse in security for any corporate or any enterprise.
00:24:37 So having individual Loggins, the WiFi is important as well, and I think the final thing is the ability to offer them to be able to bring in their own hardware into the workspace if they need to.
00:24:47 And that requires them to be able to use a public I p address. So normally inside flex workspaces or even in any corporate, you use private addresses, which are sort of unlimited.
00:24:57 But to connect directly to the Internet, you need a registered or a public I p address. So the ability for an operator to offer these two corporate if they allows them if they want to bring their own kids into their office in a flexible experts that they want to on this allows him to do things like VP ends, run their own voice and so forth, so that flexibility is important to them.
00:25:15 So I think for me those are the three things that really makes a sort of flexible workspace attractive to an enterprise.
00:25:21 On those sort of things, we focus on sort of delivering, as you say, has table stakes on our platform.
00:25:26 Right? And this is not something you can easily piece together on your own. I mean, yeah, exactly.
00:25:34 So you could go by WiFi router. You can plug it in, fire it up, and you can eat very easily create the equivalent of a network you might have at home.
00:25:41 But as soon as you have multiple customers on the multiple on a member companies on there, as soon as you want to, then plug in voice ports and allow him to bring it.
00:25:49 Then all of a sudden, the you hit start to hit these barriers. And what I would say, yeah to any sort of aspirational operator is that, you know, no matter what scale you're starting at, it won't take long before you hit that difficult question.
00:26:01 And with a prospect, Can you do this? Can you do that? Is the secure is it private?
00:26:05 And it's very then very difficult to change one's. You've got your space up and running than to rip out that infrastructure and change into something that is secure.
00:26:12 Yep. And even outside of corporate users, I suspended many tech start ups should be requiring, you know, I operate in Palo Alto.
00:26:22 We don't get asked for that, and it blows my mind because they all But yeah, I mean, one thing you know, you mentioned at the top of the call.
00:26:30 I mean, you know, security isn't a sexy topic. It's something that's often not talked about, but it's talked about a lot.
00:26:36 When something goes wrong or something. There's a breach. Something has penetrated, and it's always too late to fix it at that point.
00:26:42 So I would agree that even if the customer isn't asking for it, putting in place from the beginning just means you're never gonna have that difficult time.
00:26:49 Where a customer who assumed you were secure discovered that you're not because something went wrong. It's not a problem until it's a problem.
00:26:56 I always say, always 2020 exactly, exactly. You know what? Let's talk about one other piece is all of the other, and you can tell me if there's anything I'm not asking about that I should.
00:27:08 But all of the other devices that are in a space like security cameras and how did those get managed?
00:27:16 Because from a security perspective, those air all critical, right and routers that people, you know, other devices that people are trying to add to your network.
00:27:24 That may be a way we get all sorts of wild and wonderful things. People in Apple TV by a stick is you name it, people bring them in on.
00:27:32 Yeah, what we offer actually have a separate WiFi network on a separate be land to allow them to connect those devices on.
00:27:39 This really allows us to make it very easy for the operated Everett. They're sort of process to add those devices, obviously not using use names and passwords, because sometimes it's hard if those devices to join using that method.
00:27:50 Yes. So we have a way that the operators can easily add any devices that members bring in to this separate network that allows them to easily set them up and bring your own device type TRIBE methodology to to set him up Perfect.
00:28:02 Yeah. I mean, I think those are all the little things you sure don't think about. But again, it could cause a lot of problems.
00:28:07 And all of a sudden you're like, I don't know what What is that device you know devices, you know?
00:28:11 Yeah, exactly. And then all your network slows down. I mean, this is the other trouble.
00:28:16 Shoot it. You don't? Yeah, troubleshoot. So all of a sudden, the Internets? No.
00:28:21 Who is it? No company. It's relatively straightforward because you control all the employees or not control. But you you're responsible of the employees.
00:28:28 You can narrow it down and stuff. It's very difficult. It's multiple companies were doing their own thing.
00:28:32 What? They're in privacy. Don't want to want you sleeping on the data. So having robust network management that allows you to do band with reporting Thio isolate where certain traffic's coming from which a member or which remembers company is responsible for using that bandwidth and, more importantly, actually, segregating dedicated bandwidth to each company in a space so that there are a lot of members may be happy sharing bandwidth there, just like in a coffee shop or whatever.
00:28:56 But a lot of companies, especially friends branch you want guarantee that they won't be sharing bandwidth with others so they can guarantee you know that their voice calls and video conferences on their Web browsing acted just because you know the agency next door suddenly got a big pitch and and is using little video.
00:29:11 So actually having a platform that can actually split out your Internet connection in two different sized pipes that the operator can then bill, which becomes a revenue opportunity as well and upset opportunity.
00:29:21 That's an important part of our platform. The lot of operators leverage as well. You talk a little bit about so I mean your platform basically allows.
00:29:30 It's a comprehensive sort of management platform to the I T in the space. Can you talk about either what's what you have available today or sort of what the future looks like in terms of sort of data and analytics around that, right?
00:29:45 Yeah. So I think some of our more sort of aspirational or exploratory innovative customers are very much focused around measuring their space.
00:29:53 And I think that's where a lot of these types of talking only to come in So many customers like enough to be at occupancy a lot of their sights, and they can't build them quick enough so that filling up a lot of their spaces on DDE they I don't want to know whether they're optimizing the use of that space.
00:30:08 Did they put too many meeting rooms into? They're not put enough meeting rooms in or how a member is using me to rooms.
00:30:13 How big should meeting was be? Do we find that? But in lots of 10 person meeting rooms and they're largely of used by two people.
00:30:19 So we have a lot of questions now around measurement on around, aggregating all of this data and then analyzing it.
00:30:25 So we're very much focused the moment around, expanding the platform to cater for one of these types of sensors.
00:30:32 People counters are increasingly common ability to count people in and out of rooms and in and out of spaces and floors and buildings.
00:30:39 It's important for a privacy perspective that there's a big debate around moment. Where is where the facial recognition is acceptable for that, for whether sort of an infrared and ahead counter is more appropriate.
00:30:49 But then it what gets interesting is when you overlay that data. So we have already have zonal WiFi movement data that we can use.
00:30:56 We can then sort of mash that up with people counting data on. Then you can overlay access control on that on All of a sudden you start to get a really good picture of movement within the space at different times the day and also how the space is being utilized.
00:31:09 What are progressive customers are doing it. Then you using that analysis to design their next spaces to ensure that that not only optimized for revenue but also optimized for utilization and, more importantly, remember experience to make sure they got the right number of the right types of spaces within the space.
00:31:24 And I think, you know, we've got some customers measuring air quality and meeting rooms. You know, some of them aren't liking the results somehow.
00:31:31 Yeah, yeah, you know, And again, starting to think about now in the member experience, and I should the room prompt them when they've been in there for three hours.
00:31:38 And the quality isn't great. Should prompt them to take a break. Oh, you opened the door, Aaron out the air quality Think it's another one of those really basic things that I think we don't think about.
00:31:49 But I was reading an article about Seabury Hana Brand and I think it was the hunter brand they were talking about, like all the research they did about what's critical, and it's like air quality and light your point.
00:32:02 Like that stuff that operates in the background. But, you know, if it's not right, it's bad.
00:32:08 Yeah, And I think, you know, going back to the simple things like avian print and sign it and blow for air quality, light heat, great temperature and air quality.
00:32:18 And the temperature. Yeah, real basics. Ineffective space. Actually, as our operators are expanding and creating more more sites and more more spaces, it gets harder and harder to actually monitor and measure and correct and design better spaces.
00:32:32 On the back of that, it's a lot of it is collecting the data and then analyzing it on driving insight from it.
00:32:38 So then make better strategic decisions that, and ultimately deliver better member experiences. Yeah, that's gonna be a really competitive advantages.
00:32:45 We move forward. Yeah. What else? You know that we haven't talked about Sort of an aspect of Ah, you know, attacker.
00:32:53 I t sweet that you see the best operators integrating to enhance member experience. Is there anything we haven't covered yet?
00:33:01 I think sign It is an interesting one. I mean, I've seen everything in space is from the old push on letters and two felt all the way up.
00:33:07 Thio sort of improvised Google docks PowerPoint on screens. So I think again, something we're looking at is sort of mass deployment on the master control of Sign Ege intelligence.
00:33:18 Sign it again. So that again where you started, all this technology starts to winterize. You know, the people counts that can turn on the lights when you move into the room and Alexis speaking and then ask whether you want to start the stream automatically for you, so you start to get their space.
00:33:31 That really works for the member. But rather than relying on them to do everything on, I think again, coming back to the consumer user experience.
00:33:39 A lot of people are accustomed to smart homes Now. They control their lights of their boys, stay over the door with their voice and so forth.
00:33:45 I think it almost feels like that the court pretty flexible workspace world needs to catch up. And I think there's an expectation now consumer great expectation that it needs to sort of be reflected in flexible workspace is because we are operates is trying to create these consumer experiences and therefore that expectation is there to deliver on that.
00:34:01 So I think, yeah, the interaction of the different technologies is one of the challenges because you could go out and find people.
00:34:07 Countess, you could go out and find side A V and so forth, but actually getting them all to talk to each other.
00:34:13 They're actually fairly limited in their value as isolated solutions. But when you put them together, they're hugely more valuable than the sum of their parts.
00:34:22 And that's really where we see our role as a platform is that if we can find the best of breed solutions, building on what we've already done for WiFi and voice and Internet on the whole monitoring and management and orchestration of I t, we can layer on top of that access control and people movement on a B and sign it and temperature and air quality and so forth and actually pull those together.
00:34:42 Then we can actually deliver a very intelligent experience to the end user. And dare I say it, you get to what I would start to call a smart building as opposed to things that control lift on H back, actually something that smarts to the member because it reacts when they walk into a room and it's expecting them.
00:34:57 And after a minimal amount of efforts to actually start the meeting, Yeah, that dreamy state of the world for everyone.
00:35:03 But I know I know. That's my job. Is product, right? Yeah, Wait, that's what we aspire to.
00:35:08 And that's what might be trying to build four operators that are either kind of just starting or looking to expand and, you know, on a fairly rapid pace.
00:35:19 What technology components do you think should be a focus for them, especially if they're in more competitive markets?
00:35:27 I mean, I'd always advise, as I mentioned to not ah yet to try and select a platform initially of that allows them to scale because it's so hard to change later that same time, in a competitive market, you know, they have to be pragmatic, and they have to find a solution that works.
00:35:42 So it is difficult, and inevitably, as soon as you go down that route, you require more expertise because a lot of work is actually in selecting the solution's configuring them, integrating them and so forth.
00:35:54 And that's a lot of what you get for free with a platform. Yeah, it is a tough decision.
00:35:59 Sometimes on the face of it, it may look more expensive, but actually, we add the time and the expertise you need to find and then hire and then bring on board.
00:36:07 It's the opportunity cost of that. That's the real impact. So we have a few customers that have come to us having bean through that and have ended up on our platform because of that sort of experience with a sort of struggled to do it on their own.
00:36:18 Or was that this is the traditional build verses by argument, right? Yeah. We have a pen on that at the comforts.
00:36:25 Yeah, I need to Your point. I think it's such a Yeah, we all. I think especially entrepreneurs sort of underestimate everything.
00:36:33 Takes 10 minutes. You know, that's certainly me, like, Okay, so, you know, you just underestimate.
00:36:40 The resource is in the time and the time is which so critical and we don't have enough of that.
00:36:45 And we need to put that, you know, in the right places. So and I think what we tried to do is, you know, we have our problems, different editions way try and offer, you know, sort of cut down versions the platform that allow people to enter at a more cost effective level but getting them into the ground for allowing them to scale up as their business scales.
00:37:03 And I think that's one thing we've identified as a trend in the recent months and over the last year is that you know we are exposed.
00:37:10 Market is so rapidly growing and getting a lot of young entrance and aspirational entrance coming into the market with big growth plans, and we want to support those operators get to That's the size that they aspire to be.
00:37:20 But it's also really important that they get on the right platform early. Otherwise they're not gonna be able to achieve that.
00:37:25 So, you know, we are constantly evaluating up our business model to ensure that we can support those operators, are very early on, be cost effective for them and then allow us to grow with them in terms of succeeding together.
00:37:35 So there's something we're very much focused on and want to support those sort of growing with growth aspirations because in order to scale rapidly, they do need a platform that they can reliably turn on sites quickly and easily and repeatedly without suffering the sort of member experience or having to hire an I t team to support them.
00:37:51 Doing so. I'm curious you're located in the UK and you guys see a lot or you may tell me I know you're still new and although you're you seem completely up to speed Thio, I'm curious what markets are most interesting to you, Where you seeing sort of the most activity and expansion.
00:38:11 I mean, sure, Here's Mark Gilbreth I talked to the other day was saying I think it was India has made ext.
00:38:18 I mean, some of the Asian markets, it's just the expansion is wild. Yes, yeah, we're seeing huge growth in India.
00:38:24 I mean, not from our customer's perspective, but from the market perspective. We're seeing a lot of growth in India.
00:38:29 I think a lot of supplies in the market such as ourselves. I'm monitoring it closely. We have to be a little bit careful because even though they tend to be categorized as the same market, that the offerings are actually quite different in different regions.
00:38:42 The world expectations are very different in terms of connectivity, in terms of security and so forth. So it's very difficult to take a one size fits all approach to all the different geographic regions.
00:38:53 So one thing you know, a census, there's a very good success. You know, obviously we that established the business in the U.
00:38:58 K. And then the grown hugely, very rapidly in the US over the last year or so. And that's because the markets have very similar security crime.
00:39:06 It's never requirements and so forth. I think in the Asian markets are huge. They're growing rapidly as well, but they do have slightly different than more cost conscious.
00:39:14 The cost of labor is a lot lower, therefore benefit and the value proposition of a software platform that automates not the same equation.
00:39:22 It's actually very cost effective to throw an I T team together on throughout Space is so I think it's yeah, it won't necessarily see sort of an even expansion into across the markets that the necessary growing quickly in the same way that the prince we've seen in Western Europe in the US just because of this different value equation between cost of labor, cost of technology and also expectations around.
00:39:44 So, for instance, shared WiFi is very common in India and very acceptable. So again, the value proposition is very different in terms of the requirements and black city and so forth.
00:39:53 But yet it's certainly what we're seeing. India's growing very rapidly, I think, sort of other areas and in Asia also seeing it.
00:39:59 Two candidates growing quick We've seen Brazil coming up, So yes, I mean, I think it's in a part of the interesting and fascinating parts about the industry and inflexible working in general is it is the way in which it's spreading and capturing people's imagination.
00:40:12 At the same time, it's just a CZ. We have many different types of operator in many different sizes and growth aspirations of operator within the Western European in the U.
00:40:22 S. And North America, I think it's just a. Similarly, there are different types of operated with different aspirations.
00:40:28 Different choir mints in the other group, rapidly growing part of the world, so it's becoming a more and more fragmented market.
00:40:34 May just a zit is amore, a rapidly growing market which is challenging to focus because it drags all of us in lots of different directions.
00:40:40 Yeah, right. I know. I think that's still such an interesting piece of our industry. Obviously, there's a lot of focus on we work these days with their IPO filing, but the number of independent operators, the flavor and variety, is really exciting, especially globally.
00:40:57 Yeah, James, anything I'm missing that you wanna mention before we wrap up? I don't think so.
00:41:02 I think we covered everything. I think that's been run in succession. Yeah. So thank you for joining us today.
00:41:07 And for anybody who has not yet bought their ticket to the G W a conference, James will be sharing more of his insights on security and Technology panel at the conference.
00:41:18 So we'd love to see their September 18 through the 20th right around the corner. But yes, James, thanks for taking the time.
00:41:24 Super helpful. I know my listeners always loved to kind of dive into some of these more tactical Well, you did a great job of balancing the technical and the strategic and thinking about what's possible and what's next.
00:41:35 So thank you. Thanks for joining us on this episode. of everything co working. Be sure to click the subscribe button so you can stay up to date on the latest trends and how to until next time.
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