215. The U.S.' Largest Employer Awards Flex Office Contract

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215. The U.S.' Largest Employer Awards Flex Office Contract

00:00:01 Welcome to the everything co-working podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host coworking space owner and trend expert, Jamie Russo, Welcome to the everything co-working podcast. I'm Jamie Russo. I'm your host. This is episode number 215, and this is a breaking news announcement. So if you're listening after the fact,

00:00:38 you may already have heard this news, but will enjoy getting sort of the full details on what is happening here. My guest today is mark Gilbreath. I had the pleasure of working with him closely. He was the president of the global workspace association for two years while I was the executive director. And so we worked closely on planning conferences. He has many talents,

00:01:03 but one of them is it's planning content, putting an agenda together. That's really compelling and naming sessions. So I thought in his honor, I would give an extra name to this podcast. I'm going to call it. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. We've been through an incredible 18 months as co-working space operators or investors or whatever your role may be in the flex office industry.

00:01:27 It has not been an easy 18 months, but we're starting to see some of the best of times that are coming out of the acceleration of the ability for people to choose where they work and the latest announcement, which mark is going to share some details around is that the global, the GSA, which is that I attempted to call it the GWA. The GSA is the world's largest employer and they are part of the United States government.

00:01:58 And they have granted awards to liquid space and desk pass, and a few operators in the space and all requirements for a flexible office space. We'll go through those folks. And more importantly, 50% of those requirements will go to small businesses. So lots of you listening, qualify as a small business, I'll tell you that we work does not qualify as a small business.

00:02:27 The cap is $30 million in revenue per year. So you stand to win because the other great, exciting aspect I think about what's happening here is that the government will have distributed employees that are outside of urban courts. And so the demand for this type of workspace could be incredible. We don't know we're still learning, but it's a major opportunity. And it's also a signal that I think we'll see other employers sort of take and run because nobody has really decided how they're handling work,

00:03:04 going forward, managing their workforce versus managing a workplace and allowing more choice. It's a lot for folks to consider. So any signals that they see in the marketplace and other folks that make decisions and see how those play out, I think will help others start to make decisions faster. So I don't want to delay the intro here. I want to jump right into mark talking about what that contract looks like,

00:03:29 what that means for you, but it's an exciting day. It's, you know, signs of better times to come more demand, possibly more demand than there is supply for some of these decisions that are being made, not just by the GSA, but by other larger occupiers. So we're gonna jump right in and I will give mark a further intro, mark Gilbreath.

00:03:53 I am thrilled to be with you today. And I think this might be kind of my first breaking news episode. So mark, I'll give you a quick intro and we'll get into what we're going to talk about today. Arc is the CEO of liquid space, which is a real-time booking platform for offices and meeting rooms by the hour or the month or longer.

00:04:14 And there was a huge announcement yesterday. That is a defining moment for the flexible office industry and liquid spaces kind of front and center in that announcement. So mark agreed to jump on and share the news. And I'm excited to share this with my audience. And you knew that, so thank you for reaching out because it's a huge opportunity. It's I mean,

00:04:37 it's, it's a lot of things for the industry. So why don't you dive in and share the announcement and then I'll, I'll, I'll jump in with some followup questions. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you, my friend, and a big digital hug to you right now and yeah. Fun to be here. So, so thanks. Yeah. So the news,

00:04:56 the GSA, which is the general services administration, which is the arm of the federal, the agency of the federal government, that's responsible for predominantly the real estate of government, which for those that didn't know this or those that hadn't thought about it, that's actually the largest building an office portfolio on the planet over 700 million square feet of real estate, either owned or leased serving 2.1 million

00:05:23 plus employees, which I imagine might make them the largest employer in the world. Maybe, maybe the, maybe the Chinese communist party and Chinese army is large. I don't know, but it's certainly, it's certainly up there at least for the time being and what the GSA came out and announced on Wednesday, late day and sort of this sort of hit the wire yesterday Thursday was that they have acted on an issue of the awards for a program under what they call their total workforce program.

00:05:54 And these new contracts that they've issued are to execute on a project that they called, flexible coworking services. And the simple backstory behind this is that the GSA is in the federal government with a strong imprint of the Biden administration. Now is leaning forward on driving sort of four pillar concepts into the way the federal government works and the way they think about workplace,

00:06:19 they're driving hard and forward on diversity and inclusion in the workplace. They're driving hard and forward on the principle of empowering individuals from a productivity and a work-life balance standpoint. So employee experience, they're driving very, very hard on economic efficiency and they've got a fundamental pillar, thank God on sustainability. So people experience diversity and inclusion, economic efficiency and sustainability. Hallelujah.

00:06:47 Those are the pillars now, now what are, what are they doing? What are they contracting for? They want to rebalance the way federal employees work and they want to rebalance the way they buy and procure workplace and embrace essentially that the world of coworking and flexible office in their, in their program statement, they had declared that they now recognize that working away from the office is normal and that the technologies exists to enable that and that they want to augment that with great spaces that make that practical.

00:07:21 So, you know, Jamie at the TSA can work near home on a given day mark and five colleagues in the defense department can meet up at a hub location. They want to look to more efficient ways to think about workplace. So exciting times, these pillars Are just such a, a giant step, I think, for the government, right, to come out and say,

00:07:41 these are priorities because we're all watching, you know, what occupiers, you know, enterprise any employer is, is how are they responding to, you know, what happened over the last 18 months? And, and are they, are they going to be sort of in the camp of workforce workforce choice or, or not? And so now we're seeing the GSA say,

00:08:03 look, these things are important to us, these themes, which are, you know, I right. You know, we talked yesterday and I was surprised and just thrilled to hear that focus. And I think most of the folks listening sort of have the same core values, right? And this is what we stand for to sort of see the government,

00:08:21 you know, plant a stake and say, this is it we're doing, we're doing this and we're going to give employee choice. And it also, you know, we'll encourage diversity support diversity, but be a better experience, be better for the environment and be better economically. It's great. And I think it's just such a signal to other employers. So we can talk a little bit about sort of what we think might come out of this,

00:08:49 but so what does, let's start tactically? And so what does this mean Before we do it? Let's hold the tablet just for a minute. Like, cause I, I love what you're displaying back. Like it's multi-layered right. This isn't, this isn't just, this isn't as binary as oh, COVID has taught us all that we can work from home.

00:09:06 So we should know they're also layering in, they're also acting on, in fact making it policy that, that they consider diversity. And it certainly, that has been a part of our recent history and inclusiveness, right. They're also saying sustainability matters. And you know, if you live in Oregon or Utah or Washington or California, you're, you're living right now here,

00:09:27 right now, the implications of a warming planet as, as fires are darkening, our skies and, and what 96% of California is in extreme drought and lake Powell is, is drying up. So, so they've elegantly summarized all of these crushingly important, current events, cumin, planetary economic, and then of course as well, you know, honoring the individual and that's perhaps the most hopeful for me or most important perhaps is that they're,

00:09:57 they're shifting the pendulum around this concept. Jamie, that I, I know you and I have made a career around, which is possibility and choice and experience for the individual. Well, and that's what I think, you know, these pillars mirror, what most of our, why the why for most operators. Right? And so to see that all come together with a big decision from the government is exciting.

00:10:18 So this started back in January 20, 20 That's right. Yeah. So January, 2020 GSA issued an RFP for flexible co-working services and, and they articulated their vision and they sought responses from, from industry and, and, you know, to, to broadly speaking, two types of entity responded to that businesses that provided coworking firms like we work and expansive and,

00:10:47 and, and I presume the myriad of others responded. The in fact, in many ways the RFP was most relatable to them. The government was looking for providers who could provide them with safe, efficient economic spaces across the vast reaches of where federal employees work, which has thousands of locations across all 50 states. The other types of entities that sort of saw an opportunity to bring value to this were entities like liquid space platforms and,

00:11:18 and, and sort of one for, for those in the audience that aren't initiated on what we do. Or as you sort of said in your opener where a marketplace platform. So, so we, we have made it easy for someone who is looking for space, whether it's an individual or a massive enterprise, like the GSA, a marketplace sort of,

00:11:36 you know, create some digital shelves and stocks it with lots of great products that are relevant for the shopper, right? So we've, we've aggregated, we've created the opportunity to have a place where you can go to find not only the, the exciting and scaling large brands like industrious and serendipity labs and expensive, but you can also that passion driven high value,

00:11:56 main street coworking operator that might have one location in a tertiary market. And we should look back to the power of that. You know, the small businesses that are value-driven and compassionate providers, a great workplace experience, coworking operators are in place. So, so we, as a platform thought that we had the opportunity to help GSA with their vision, help them with reaching,

00:12:20 you know, serving their employees in all the places they might be, but also addressing one of the things that GSA GSA called out in its RFP, which was that they had an intention to steer 50% of their program transactions, their program consumption to small businesses. And if I'm not mistaken and leave, they define that as an entity generating less than $30 million a year of revenue.

00:12:45 And that's where I think it's particularly exciting as I, as I put on my liquid space hat, but also my, my GWA hat global workspace association had as board member. This means that 50% of the government's outlay under this program is eligible uniquely for the one location owner of the two location under the three location on it. I think, I think a lot of the people that,

00:13:07 that Jamie, you have helped nurture with your business in, in consultancy. So I think a lot of folks listening fall into that category. And I just want to highlight that for a moment, because I think it's super important because the, we works. So we work on the platform. Regis is not on the platform. Expansive is on the platform.

00:13:27 Industrious is not in the platform. So, you know, we work in expensive, probably, you know, are above the small business line. So to your point, half of the business is now going to go to folks that are independent operators, which is exciting. And a couple things about that is I think some of the folks listening may say,

00:13:48 well, I've not listed on liquid space because there's just not, you know, I don't think there's a lot of activity in my market. And I'm wondering if, you know, this is one of the sort of demand side factors that will start to shift what's happening in some of our tertiary markets, you know, where markets like San Francisco, New York,

00:14:08 you know, Miami may have been big liquid space beneficiaries. I know we were, when we were in Sanford, you know, in the bay area, some of that demand will be distributed. Right. So we'll start, I suspect. And I'm curious about what you think about that. So for independent operators who hadn't thought about listing with an, you know,

00:14:29 a demand generator like liquid space now, maybe the time, and for those that thought, well, I'm not going to be eligible for enterprise business or, you know, GSA type business, because I can't run, I'm not going to go through the work of pitching the government and on the scale, you know, all those things, that's now an opportunity as well.

00:14:48 So it was pretty exciting, but I'm curious what you think about yeah. Where, where the demand will come from geographically. Yeah. I think if I zoom out just a little bit, I think this exciting pronouncement from the GSA or that they're, you know, the program they, that they announced might happen a year ago or year and a half ago,

00:15:08 that that is not become real. It's not an isolated event actually it's in, in terms of large employers and the federal government is amongst the largest. It's not an isolated event of a company saying we are going to embrace work from anywhere. The GSA, his words, not mine, you know, work from anywhere. We want to propel that. Who else has said that?

00:15:31 Well, my God who hasn't right, Facebook, LinkedIn, you know, 18 and T VMware, you know, like, I mean, we could go on for, for hours. Thousands of companies have boldly declared their intentions to embrace the needs of their employees. They listened to those please. Right? And, and, and they're giving, they're making it policy to give their employees choice.

00:15:55 Now, what they have to do is mobilize on making sure that those employees armed with choice have safe and productive places to work for some that choice might be home. And for, for many home might be a perfectly fine environment some of the time or even much of the time, but for some, they will need to augment home for most, they will need and want to come together and collaborate with colleagues routinely.

00:16:25 And that's where the magic of flexible office comes to play. We know that face-to-face is where strong bonds are tied and where, where magic collaboration can happen. And so, so if you're a coworking operator in bend Oregon, or in Baton Rouge, or in, in some magic, smaller place or, or secondary market that was off the radar screen, you know,

00:16:46 during the we'll call it the first phase of the explosion of our icon, of our gr of coworking take stock, like, yes, the GSA is, is, is throwing in, but thousands of other companies that are as well. And, and many of those employers are sort of waking up from this pandemic chapter and seeing that meaningful numbers of their employees have either already relocated to some of these places and,

00:17:15 or they're, they're looking to hire in these places a new, so I think for the industry, I'll try to wrap it up. I long story short, I think if you're a space operator, now's the time to kind of lay the rails to, to ready yourself, to be receptive to and discoverable easily discoverable by those larger employers who in the past you maybe never,

00:17:38 ever saw. And who frankly, weren't looking for you, they're looking for you now. Yep. You can delight In one of the things that I want to point is the, the reason why I am so favorable on platforms like liquid space, is that the way the search gets done, oftentimes I, a larger employer is not, Hey, everybody go Google search in your local market and find the best space that may be an approach.

00:18:11 Right? But oftentimes somebody in probably the real estate group slash HR, you know, there's some partnership there that figures out how to approach, letting people choose where they work and getting it paid for and reimbursed. And so that's oftentimes a central decision, right? So they're, they're not Googling and bender Baton Rouge, they're going to a platform and saying,

00:18:33 how do we have one point of contact, one point of payment, which is super critical. And that's why liquid space sort of, you know, evens the playing field against not that we're against, but versus a we work or an expansive that has a broad network who may more easily sign that master services agreement with a larger employer. You sort of stand in the middle and make it work for both sides.

00:18:58 Yeah, that's absolutely right. And, and it actually, if I may, it, it, it, the scenario you laid out of, you know, enterprise wants to have inner employers, don't just say, Hey, did their employers yeah, go, go. You're, you're allowed to use coworking, go find something. No, they don't do that.

00:19:17 But if they say you're allowed to use coworking rest assured that they're going to mobilize their procurement organization for applying for more a partner to help them help their employees go find coworking. And so we anticipated that when, I mean, it was early in, in the COVID chapter, literally in April last year, we were six weeks into it. I didn't get,

00:19:42 as it was like with James Gorman from Morgan Stanley just made his pronouncement on, on Bloomberg TV that he was expecting to support remote work for a long time. And he'd know Michelle's real estate. We, we, we, we, early on in, COVID developed some pretty strong convictions that, that enterprises were likely to accelerate their already rapidly growing use of flexible office.

00:20:05 And furthermore, we, we expected that the actual need or desire to have on-demand space, enabling employees to have a space every other Tuesday or on Wednesday and Thursday, but, but really transactional on-demand by the hour, by the day was going to be a boom aspect of this economy. And, and we also reasoned that they're not, as you suggested that,

00:20:27 great, they're not just going to say good luck, go do it and send us an expense report. So that, that led us to surge on what, on the development of what's been the biggest sort of product step for us in recent years. I mean, liquid space is 10 years old, but, but we announced in November a new enterprise solution,

00:20:47 and we started delivering it to enterprise clients early this year. And in essence, we've created an additional SAS tool set. We call it a workplace manager, but it's a tool for the HR or corporate real estate leadership that want to give their employees choice, but they want to put a duty of care. They want to have some oversight and control from a quality standpoint,

00:21:11 from an expense standpoint and forecasting standpoint, they want to be able to put the, the curbs and gutters in place. So, Hey, so, so, so in essence, it sets the stage for an enterprise to say, Hey, Jamie, my employee, you now can you, you can go use space on demand if, and when you need to,

00:21:28 we trust you. And, but, but, or, and you're authorized to spend $50 a day and a thousand dollars a month. And, and you're authorized to use space of these types or in these geographies. And, and here are the vendors that we're making available to you, the properties that are available to you that meet the quality levels that we require.

00:21:52 We're going to make sure that we're opening the door for you to spaces that are safe and productive and in a appropriate quality. That's our duty of care. That tool, that platform now is what is surging for us in the market, right? And so, you know, GSA is just sort of the latest example of an enterprise that wants to give choice to employees,

00:22:13 but how do you do it safely? And how do you do it in a way that not only keeps everyone safe and keeps forecast, but also equips the enterprise to have data insights and understand what they're learning as these new patterns land. So, Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion. If you're working on opening a co-working space,

00:22:34 I want to invite you to join me for my free masterclass three behind the scenes secrets to opening a coworking space. If you're working on opening a coworking space, I want to share the three decisions that I've seen successful operators make when they're creating their coworking business. The masterclass is totally free. It's about an hour and include some Q and a. If you'd like to join me,

00:22:57 you can register at everything co-working dot com forward slash masterclass. If you already have a coworking space, I want to make sure you know, about community manager, university, community manager, university is a training and development platform for community managers. And it can be for owner operators. It has content training resources, templates from day one to general manager. The platform includes many courses that cover the major buckets of the community manager role from community management,

00:23:29 operations, sales, and marketing, finance, and leadership. The content is laid out in a graduated learning path. So the community manager can identify what content is most relevant to them, depending on their experience and kind of jump in from there. We provide a live brand new training every single month for the community manager group. We also host a live Q and a call every single month so that the community managers can work through any challenges that they're having or opportunities get ideas from other community managers build their own peer network.

00:24:05 We also have a private slack group for the group. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go to everything co-working dot com forward slash community manager. Mark, is there anything notable in terms of requirements? So if I'm going to opt in to that, that's your pro platform, is that right? So, So as a, if I'm a coworking operator in Chicago and I want to be featured and promoted to XYZ,

00:24:34 large telecom company that might be using like the space platform to equip their employees, we feature for in the interface that those enterprise employees in Canada, we feature, we highlight our venue partners that we sort of label as pro and a pro. If you to earn that pro label in our marketplace, the following things need to be true. You have an expressed desire and intention to serve enterprise clients.

00:25:03 You have a track record of responsiveness, and our platform shows you those metrics. As in, if I don't, if I don't respond to liquid space leads, Right? Yeah. If I, if I disappoint a customer, like if, if, you know, if, if you're giving shabby service to customer, if our platform helps you see that and,

00:25:19 and, and we help insulate our enterprise clients from people that maybe don't give as much of a Peck about the quality of experience. In addition, we ask our pro partners to utilize the standardized contract structure that our enterprise clients appreciate. In fact, we expect, so we've one of the things we've made easy for enterprises is overcoming the reason why they often didn't go to the smaller operators.

00:25:46 You know, I had my MSA with IWG or would we work perhaps because I negotiated it once. And I had, you know, 500 locations, well, infant challenge for enterprises now is that they need, they need space for employees in thousands of locations, they need more solutions and more places than any one brand can provide. So with a standardized contract structure,

00:26:08 we're giving enterprises that, that legal and procurement simplification that they want, you know, one, a platform that can help them find all of those exceptional high quality spaces, large brands, and small. So bracelet embraced that contract structure have a stated desire to serve enterprises, a track record of billion and a nice quality space, Any unique requirements that have come through like security wise,

00:26:34 any anything that operators should be thinking about to, to qualify You may, you know, certain enterprise may have additional unique requirements. We've been cautious about not being overly prescriptive to the supply side, because I think one of the, one of the interesting and there's learnings on both sides, like, like coworking operators in markets that were off the radar screen for enterprise and sort of going to start to be main street for,

00:27:06 for distributed work. Right? So that, so operators are going to be invited into learning what it takes to the light Centure and Spotify and VM-ware and Facebook and the federal government. That's great. So they'll be learning, you'll be receiving reviews and feedback, and that will help you elevate your game. If, if that type of client is someone who wants support,

00:27:26 there are also learnings that, and, and, and culture change that's happening on the enterprise side, within their leadership organizations. Remember for a moment, or just reflect for a moment, what, what a workplace or a, or a real estate leader at an enterprise has known and behaved for, you know, for the last 50 plus years is, oh,

00:27:47 you know, I build, I create buildings. I design them, I lay them out. I choose the furniture. I organize what the workplace is. And then I prescribe to that. So the employees, Jamie, this is your cube or desk for office. And I, I I've maybe heard me say this in the past. I refer to it sort of as a bullet benevolent tyranny,

00:28:06 like it's like, let's give them a gun and put it out there. They're, well-intentioned like, this is a fucking awesome space. Like, look at the ping-pong table, or look at this $800 chair we've given you. It's also a little bit tyrannical because you're saying, I, I'm not asking you your opinion, if you like the chair or the format,

00:28:24 and I'm just presuming that it's appropriate for you. And I think, well, I believe deeply the reality is that every individual is unique and the environment that they're gonna thrive in is unique. And in fact, the environment that they need or want to thrive is going to vary with the task at hand and their emotional state and their needs. Sometimes privacy and darkness and,

00:28:49 and isolation is in sometimes collaboration, space and noise as needed. It's just, it's a spectrum. So what, what enterprises are learning a new now is how do I let go? How do I, instead of prescribing which co-working spaces I want them to use, how do I, how do I just sort of take a step back and, and without losing control,

00:29:12 really give my employees choice and learn from what they demonstrate in the choices that they made. I think that's the exciting and fascinating moment that we're in. If that makes sense. It totally makes sense. Yep. It's right. Again, back to the, the individual choice. So I'm curious for any of our asset owners that are listening, what is,

00:29:34 what, what's the opportunity for them to kind of take the plunge into flex if they haven't yet, or to get their inventory in front of the GSA and the other enterprise companies that are figuring this out and looking for it? I mean, there, there are so many exciting things happening in an hour. I know I'll, I'll make sure we know.

00:29:56 I could ask him, we can talk for hours about everything. Yeah. So investor owner, landlord, as a category, you know, three years ago, 18 months ago, most were quite happy and contented with, with absorbing tenants in relatively large blocks of space on long-term leases, when market was, was roaring we'd fully recovered in more from the GFC.

00:30:27 And that, that, that, that long-term commitment lease space model deeply coupled with the enterprise buyers that, that, you know, the benevolent tyrannical force of prescribing workplace that was all world, we're all locked in a dance pre COVID, a number of notable landlords. People like Tishman and Boston properties, and others had started to experiment around more purposeful deployment or allocation of portions of their assets toward flexibility and example that I love to highlight.

00:30:59 You know, they, they, they develop their own co-rec and brand studio and a fabulous success for them and offering full service coworking experiences, and also offering things like turnkey suites. And they're not alone. A number of other owners had begun to experiment around spec suites in particular turn-key offices, but made available in more flexible terms as we emerged from COVID,

00:31:21 we're not out yet, but as we emerge, and as I've spent a significant amount of time in recent months making the rounds and revisiting large institutional owners, there is a groundswell of activity. I would dare say that the majority of leading owners fully recognize that flex is an important and secular enduring category of tendency and that it's growing and that they need to embrace it.

00:31:45 I literally was on the phone an hour ago with a large institutional household name owner that is, is thinking even beyond that to, wow. The ideal for us is going to be whole buildings that are nothing but flat, right? And in fact, he articulated the only thing, the only impedance on that is getting the capital markets like their investors to embrace that.

00:32:07 So, so I, I think there is an enormous market moment for, for institutional landlords. I'm thrilled to see that so many of them are mobilizing and they are now becoming much more active participants in our platform. So, so, you know, on a given day or for a given requirement that GSA might need a meeting room at a co-working space for an hour on another day,

00:32:31 it might be a 50 person team suite for a year. That that is a slow pitch up the middle for institutional owner for landlord provided they have a ready to use 50% team suite. So it's prebuilt furnished offices call them what you will. There's various labels applied to it. Owners are bringing that kind of inventory forward. And it's exciting. In fact,

00:32:54 I think another thing that I was in violent agreement with this individual, when we're speaking about an hour ago, he, he said, Hey, mark, I think, I think you and the industry may be facing a supply shortage for, yeah. I think I brought this up yesterday. I'm so curious about that. And it's hard to predict, right?

00:33:12 Cause we don't know exactly where the demand will come from, but you have to think there will be some unmet demand. And that's what I think prompted me yesterday to say, well, the landlords need to get in, right. Because if it's right, can they convert? Can they, can they get inventory up to speed pretty quickly? Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:32 So we're excited to have partners like GQ office and granite and boxer and VGO and others that are rallying. There really is a market moment. And like everybody should be mildly patient. We are still steaming with our enterprise clients and small customers that, that everyone is still largely on hold. I mean, Delta is extremely unfortunate setback, not out of this.

00:33:53 Right. And so, and there's this great paralysis around just the uncertainty, occupiers are fearful of making a misstep. So, but it's absolutely the time for everyone to be ready because there's a lot of pent up demand. And, and, and I do think we're going to encounter shortages and locations and the market's going to have to be really good at responding and creating,

00:34:14 removing inventory to where it's needed because it's, it will be new demand patterns for that without a doubt. Yeah. Well, well, I, I'm sure you're thinking about this, but sort of how to use your data to inform, you know, where do operators go? Yeah, yeah, Yeah. I mean, one of the powerful aspects of the liquid space enterprise solution,

00:34:35 this tool we call workplace manager is real-time data insights for, to be, to serve a variety of purposes that enterprise might have, you know, checking in on their employee experience. How well are they being attended to like, you know, how, how quickly are their customer service requests being responded to what are the ratings that they're giving to spaces? Are they engaged?

00:34:54 Are they using the platform? Are they meeting with colleagues? We'll give them the ability to see that type of important things as well, data insights on how and where they're spending and where the demand is. And so, so, so there's, there's that opportunity that we're now delivering on, on the demand side, you're on enterprise clients and then over on the supply side to the coworking space or the institutional landlord that has some fundamental questions,

00:35:19 like, what does the market one, where should I open my next location? Or I have this building, how should I build it out? And how should I price it? Those are those fundamental sort of first order questions from an, from a, from a and asset return standpoint are, you know, we're getting to a place now where we can be very materially helpful to,

00:35:45 to answering or at least steering some of those questions. So data Exactly. I mean, it's an exciting time and still to your point, so many unknowns, so a lot to learn still about demand patterns, because again, to your point, the demand has not truly been mobilized. Right? So sort of philosophically, we're seeing these, these decisions and these signals,

00:36:08 but, but the activity is going to be a slow ramp. So the GSA, for example, I think I, you know, I asked you before we started recording. Okay. So when, you know, when is this going to happen? And you're like, it's probably imminent, but the volume is sort of TBD, right? Like the,

00:36:24 the pace and because of the federal government, just because that's what we started the conversation talking about is largely still working at home. But I also love the signal because I get really frustrated when I hear of companies who say, right, like it's the office or home, right. It's making this assumption that people are happy at home, which I pretty wholeheartedly think is wrong for,

00:36:49 you know, in many cases. And so I love that the government's recognizing and saying, you know, I don't know exactly what their policy looks like or how they've worded it, but you make a choice and we'll support that. But yeah, back to the timing, it'll be a, we'll see, and we'll learn. And yeah, we, I mean,

00:37:09 we'd love to have you share when you start to see, I think you'll just, you'll have a unique perspective on where the demand is to your point. Well, I'll get myself. Yeah. I'll get myself in trouble with my colleagues a little bit here. Don't do that. I'll call the shot a little bit here. Like we've, I've been excited about data insights and frankly,

00:37:32 a little frustrated with myself for quite some time that we haven't surfaced more of that than we haven't found a way to, or we haven't as, you know, too many fronts, but surfacing in useful ways that data is, is of great interest in that and is now a high priority for us. We've already made enormous progress on that in building it into the product that we now sell to enterprises to help them answer the questions and the challenges that they have,

00:37:57 that analogous opportunity exists on the supply side. So writing a check here for the future that my team will, will be, will be investing against. Yeah. We will be revealing data insights to our supply partners. Right. And then I think more broadly just to the, to the public forum, I think we've got an opportunity to, to put information out there,

00:38:19 you know, whether it takes the form of case studies or marketing reports or the, like, I think I'm keen for that to happen too. So because that look for the patterns are going to be new. We, we all sort of need to reach all of our prior assumptions. And so we can help with that. Yeah. I, I think that's exactly it.

00:38:40 We know it's an exciting time with so much to come, but we don't know exactly what is to come, so there will be much to learn. So can I ask you a question? Oh, sure. Yeah. Like, like what do you, what do you channel channel your audience? Like the psychology, the psychology right now, PTSD, even on an edge for some degree,

00:39:01 amongst the small sort of passion driven owners, you've been such a force in helping inspire people to take the leap and helping those that have left to be able to, to find their legs and, and, and make it work, speak for them. How are they feeling right now in this moment? And, and how do you think they'll respond to the prospect or this whiff of the occupiers,

00:39:24 like GSA and enterprise? What do you, what do you think their reaction is? Yeah. I mean, you, you put it really well when you said, you know, for those that choose to invite those folks into the community, certainly there may be folks who serve a unique purpose, then that's, you know, not their purpose, but I think this past 18 months has just been an incredible,

00:39:49 you know, time of sort of, you know, pushing the model and for operators, you know, really figuring out, okay, how do I make this sustainable? How do I, you know, remain open? How do I keep my doors open? And some of those things are out of an operator's control, right? Like the landlord's response and,

00:40:08 you know, back rent and some things you just, it's a hole you can't get out of. But I think in general, you know, there's a recognition that, you know, enterprise customers are humans with their own unique personalities and passions. And just because they're not like the, you know, next door entrepreneur or freelancer, they can contribute. And they,

00:40:31 it's an incredible opportunity, I think, to create a sustainable business where you can capture that demand. And for operators in, you know, again, non-core urban markets, because I think I can remember on the podcast having, you know, focused on to talk about is suburban coworking, a thing, you know, like not that long ago, like do coworking spaces in suburbs work.

00:40:59 Yeah. And today it's like, well, that's where the humans are. Right. And they don't want to drive downtown. So we've seen such a shift. And so I think it's a real opportunity. I think, you know, downtown we'll come back for folks, but it'll be, and you know, and there's all these folks now to your point that didn't used to be looking for another place to work third place.

00:41:20 So now, you know, there'll be looking. So I think there there's right. There's some PTSD and certainly some unfortunate closures. I didn't email from a lovely listener in France today saying it's been seven years and she's going to renew our lease. And I'm sure that's, you know, COVID related, but I think, you know, a real sense of optimism and,

00:41:42 you know, possibility. So I, that's why I'm excited to have you on to, to share because I think, yeah, folks are looking for ways to stay in the business and, and be sustainable and, and surf, Can I, can I channel uncle Sam then? Yes. We're, we're, we're coming, we're coming to a coworking space.

00:42:07 You're co-working space. We're coming. Please let us in. Right, Exactly. Potentially to 2 million of, of uncle Sam's employees who knows. It'll be fascinating To see, I, you know, even a small fraction of that community of people, humans who are serving our country, those federal employees, even a small fraction mobilizing and answering the call or,

00:42:36 or, or taking the offer that they've been given will be enormous. Right. You know, in the commerce that it represents, but also the, just the encouragement and the influence it will have on other organizations. Like it, it really is a movement that is happening. This isn't this, you know, no one company is going to corner this market.

00:42:58 It's not going to be IWG or we work it's in no one company is the entirety of the market. It's going to be this, this wonderfully messy, coordinated human dance. This massive experiment is continuing. Now. It's no longer the work from home experience experiment, rather it's, it's now we're moving into the good stuff. Right. And we're going to put all the pieces back together,

00:43:21 again in a more sustainable and equitable and inclusive and nondiscriminatory way. And I think that's just such a hopeful, hopeful opportunity at the end here. Very well said. So, mark, I don't want to leave without getting sort of tactical here. If folks are, I would like some, you know, GSA and Okta and VMware, and I want in,

00:43:44 on access to that, and I'm not on the liquid space platform yet. If you have questions that you would like to ask before, engaging probably the best path would be to send that question to supply@liquidspace.com. That'll be a direct feed into our partner team that supports all of our 5,000 plus real estate partners from individual coworking operators to large onwards. If you are fairly self-initiated and you want to get started,

00:44:19 go to liquid space.com and up in the top margin of the website, you'll see a button that says list space, and you can today, you know, create your profile today. You can present space into our platform. And so self-service tool and let you set up a profile. We'll also explain the terms of how our platform works, but, but that's the first step like getting,

00:44:40 you know, get on board, get your space, set up, you know, lay the rails. And, and once you establish yourself as a, as a venue partner, as we call them on our platform, you can express your interest in being considered as a pro partner. And, and look, we're eager to fast track that. We're,

00:44:59 we're, we're rolling. And by the way, I don't think share we're rolling out international now. So that's some other news as, as we are like this month, it's been a dozen cities in Europe. And so we've got, we've got, so That's huge because I have listeners who write are not in the U S have not, that's not,

00:45:19 you know, not here yet. Wow. Yeah. So I actually, it there's so much happening. So yeah, as, as we've been, as we've been earning the trust and signing contracts with major international employers, mostly U S companies, but with global workforces, it was very clear early on what they want. They want a platform to manage in an equitable and consistent way,

00:45:42 their global workforce. So we've got a aggressive roadmap over the next six to 12 months to sort of be everywhere. A center point of that activity right now is Western Europe. We've got stuff starting to happen in south Asia. So, so as you know, Jamie, we've been, we've been operating in the us and Canada and Australia for a number of years,

00:46:02 but the, the gloves are off and we're kind of going everywhere, which is a big task. So be patient with us, everybody, but it's anybody anywhere in the planet can initiate and create a listing for their, their space on our platform today. And mark again, tactical, but people ask me that all the time, there is no fee to list.

00:46:23 That's right. Yep. A lot of folks, I think hesitate cause they think they're, they're paying to get access, but they're not paying upfront to get access. Yeah. Good. Well, mark, congrats. I'm going let you, you know, onward and upward because you've got a lot going on, but thank you for putting us on your,

00:46:41 your breaking news path and for sharing some details around, you know, a really important moment for the industry. It is my great pleasure and it's always a delight to be with you. So thank you. Likewise. We will have you back on again. I look forward to that.

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