GCUC Podcast - Dr. Felicia Fai, Associate Professor, University of Bath

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Juicy podcast where we explore the future of co working community and the spaces that bring people together. I'm Liz Elam, um, the founder of jucy. Today we're going to go somewhere we don't go often on this show into the world of research. My guest is Dr. Felicia Fay, Associate professor in Innovation and Regional Resilience at the University of Bass, ah, School of Management. One of the few academics seriously studying what coworking spaces actually do for entrepreneurs, communities and regional economies. Felicia's work focuses on the independent operators outside the big cities, the spaces that quietly carry so much of the impact and rarely make the headlines. She, she has been published in oecd, the Conversation and the top regional studies journals and she's about to co lead a workshop on accessibility and inclusivity with Stacy shepherd, ah at Juicy UK Manchester in just a couple of weeks. Hey Felicia, how are you? Welcome.

Speaker A: I'm fine, thank you. Liz, thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor to be among all you practitioners.

Speaker B: Oh, thank you, thank you. We're so glad to have you. So, before we dive into the meaty stuff, I love to start with how your morning routine goes because I believe that my morning routine is something that's really helped set me up for success. I don't look at my phone first thing, I pray, I meditate, I set my intentions for the day and I really make a very solid practice of my morning. So I'm always curious what other people do for their morning routine and if you don't have one at all, that's cool too. Just curious.

Speaker A: No, I'm uh, not as structured as you. I normally wake up about, I know five or six and quite often can't get back to sleep. So I'm on my phone and I'm sort of scrolling for items on social media that look interesting and relevant to my research and things like that that have come in overnight. And then I'm normally up to get my kids out of the door for school by 7 o'. Clock. They're pretty good, but just sometimes, you know, um, and then I get prepared for my day of work and uh, that is between the office and also at home, so I get to do hybrid working as well. So. And then my day then just proceeds by emails and firefighting. Anything that comes in on the teaching side or the admin side or from my students and then I try and get some dedicated time to focus on my research because that's, that's the important, really important thing.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's exciting. Okay, so you came to the coworking world through research, not by running a space. Walk us through how an academic at the University of Bath and ends up studying flex space. And what made you think this is worth my career's work?

Speaker A: Yeah, so my background is um, I did my PhD in corporates actually and how they used technological diversification to prolong their lifespan and become resilient. And then over time I sort of moved more into industry level studies rather than corporate level studies and looked at um, how firms work with government and universities and kind of system kind of way to help regional development. And then more recently I've been doing work with colleagues on industrial strategy in the uk um, because, well, everybody knows about Brexit stuck on the table politically at the minute. But, um, that was put down to a lot of discontents amongst the regions. So a lot of regions were kind of voting, saying that Westminster didn't really understand what they were going through and enduring. And so sort of this kind of agenda of how can we make regions stronger led us to say, well in Italy there've been lots of studies about how coworking spaces can actually help regional growth, um, but we hadn't seen that many in the uk. So we were curious whether co working spaces operated differently in the UK or do they have the same characteristics as was displayed by the Italian scholars? And that's how we started really. Uh, we found that co working spaces in the uk, yes, it's one of the most popular destinations in the world with London being a hub, but beyond that, outside into the regions, into the urban space, beyond the urban spaces, into the regions, there was growth and they were doing really good work in terms of supporting communities trying to raise an entrepreneurial class in their local areas and yeah, just seem really worthwhile. But there is no policy to support co working space in the UK and um, we compared that to the co working hubs in connected hubs in the island, in the Irish situation, where there is full policy backing to support rural communities with these kind of hubs. But it was completely missing in the uk. So that's how I became fascinated and just talking, going to interviews with um, operators, I just got more and more interested.

Speaker B: Do you think we'll be able to get uh, funding for the regional co working spaces through your research?

Speaker A: That's what I'm hoping. I'm trying to sort of bring it to policy attention I think at the local level. So if you look at independent regions, you see some local councils are involved with co working Spaces.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Some councils are not.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Some just see them as retail. Not retail rental, uh, space, office rental space.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And they even use themselves for meetings and things like that. But they don't see them beyond space. And I think that is a big policy message that needs to go to local government and national government is that you're not just space, you are community builders, both inside the four walls, but really importantly beyond the four walls. So, uh, into the local villages, towns, areas, things like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, they are hubs of innovation, community connection and business.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but not beyond business because you get some coworking spaces that connect to schools and colleges or to charities. So it's not all business focused.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's all over. Yeah, absolutely. So what is a story that you wanted to tell and what is the rest of the industry really missing when we ignore these spaces?

Speaker A: So I think what I wanted to say was that co working spaces should be considered as actors, organizations that can be integrated into local networks and ecosystems. So as I said before, my background in research looked at universities, industry and government. One of the businesses should be co working spaces. How do they support growth? How do they connect to universities and the colleges and the education side, how do they connect to government? So at, uh, the minute, I'm quite interested in how, yes, co working spaces connect to their community, but also how coworking spaces that do connect to their communities strongly can actually become place shapers that can work with government, with other institutions and organizations to shape their region and therefore, you know, become more recognized for things beyond just space. Space is great, but I think there's so much more value to them than is currently, uh, understood by the public and by policymakers.

Speaker B: Yeah, I totally agree with you. So you've written that one of the biggest problems in our sector is a lack of good data. And by the way, uh, 100% agree. We have a multitude of stories and antidotes, but we don't have a ton of hard evidence to pull policymakers along with us. From your seat as a researcher, what data do we actually need and who needs to be collecting that? Is it the industry that needs to do it or is it a third party or is it the government?

Speaker A: So I've been really interested because I was looking over some of your podcasts previously and it came up as, you know, more and more the data issue is coming up more and more as an issue and I think for operators that's great about how to improve their own operations. Um, and you know, I've seen Yardi baseworks and Next and things are doing much more to collect data for operators to use AI to make that more systematic, to improve performance. I think what needs to go beyond is beyond your just operational, uh, aspects. You also need to talk about impact on m the area. So you probably collect. Oh, you might not, but you might collect. You know, how many people are using your space? But how many people were new businesses born in the space? How many are uh, businesses that grow within the space and move on to um, either you know, their own premises or they have grown space within the building. So again, you know, X +Y is sort of coworking plus office space and things. So you can grow on people, stay within the building, stay within the community, stay connected. But you know that co working is the starting point. But where do those people progress to? Yeah, not everybody just stays using co working one day a week or four days a week. They also grow. And if we're talking about regions have uneven growth, if we're talking about AI is going to take away jobs, then I think in the region says a feeling like we can't rely on the government to say let's go and set up this industry here or let's put this skills and training program here. It's like we have to do it for ourselves. We have to build from the bottom up. We know what our area needs. And so co working spaces are entrepreneurial communities that can support that. But at the same time you need to track the impact because without, if you can't measure it, how can you display to anybody that you really have impact? And if you can't display to anybody you have impact, how can you attract policy attention? How can you get investment into the region? It's really important to not just look at operator data, but the impact of the operators on the broader environment in which they're sitting, I think so.

Speaker B: So interesting. And I've been, you know, watching this industry for over 15 years. The only place where I've seen the impact tracked well is actually when people take public funding and then they're required to track it and then they provide really great data. So there was a company that's no longer around in Chicago, it was like 1881 or something like that. And they, they tracked amazing data. And then there was one in D.C. called, I think it was, I don't know why they were these numbers, but it was like 1776 and they had amazing data. What I find is the tech incubator spaces tend to do a really good job of that. Um, and I Mean, I would absolutely love to see an impact report on coworking because if you go all the way back to some of the earliest folks like Duncan Logan, who had rocket space, he incubated, I think it was, um, Airbnb, Uber and Instagram. And so like, if you like, the impact that coworking had is 1000% in the hundreds of billions. And now there's tons of AI startups and co working spaces. Um, there's a co working operator who one time pointed recently down a hallway to me and said the market cap of these five offices is $60 billion. And so. Yeah, that's a very good point. It's interesting too. Um, you know, there are, in, in London, there's the Wynn Group that is getting data, but they're, they're, I don't think they're doing anything on impact. And then Ben Newton, who I just interviewed is doing some interesting. He might be a good person to work with to try to figure out how to do the impact piece of it. But yeah, I totally agree. And it's also hard to get right because uh, also the people operating the spaces like they don't have time and they're not incentivized to then go follow the customer journey beyond outside of their space.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think I have heard that on the ground we don't have resources to do that.

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker A: Uh, but I think, I think there is a shift with your, your yardi and your base box and next distance things. Collecting that data now for our. And I don't, you know, I wonder how much of a additional cost or shift it would be to add on a few more variables.

Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah.

Speaker A: And collect those. And I think when I'm also thinking about things that go beyond monetary value. So in my most recent work I was trying to sort of say, you know, how do co working spaces, um, support entrepreneurs? Because entrepreneurs have been found in the UK at least not to use formal business support and innovation services that private, um, companies or the government provide access to.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And a lot of the finding that we got from the entrepreneurs was partly to do with language and confidence. So you know, the government provided or the official business provider will sort of say, we have this program for entrepreneurs. And they said the co working space is saying to us, some of our users don't recognize themselves as entrepreneurs yet. They see that being, you know, Richard Branston or Elon Musk, uh, if it says, you know, how about your business? They're like, they don't recognize the word business yet because you Know they may be thinking about, I want to start a business, I want to start experimenting. But I haven't established my business. So those programs don't apply to me because I haven't reached that stage yet. And a lot of the co working spaces can come together. They get confidence through their conversations that you're having in your community. They get leads from, from one another, they see each other um, in what they're doing in practice, what it means to market your, your, your company or your products through um, apps and social media. What does that mean? What value does that bring to their, you know, their peer in that space? And they can see that. But when they go to training programs, it's normally we give you information and say you need an app. But it's like okay, I need an app, do I really need an app? And then they go away and they have to sort of deal with it themselves and there's nobody sitting beside them that goes uh, actually you know, this is quite easy. You can, you can do it through this or I use software. So uh, we found spaces like um, Town Square, um, in Hertfordshire and we found um, for example Northeast, um, Bic, um, as co working spaces that really, really sort of tried to connect with users in a deeper way beyond they would get from business support people. So I understand that those that uh, are publicly funded may have a requirement to report back to their funder. But we also found problems there because it might be you have to report on your GVA or you might have to report how minutes did, how many minutes did you spend talking to those people. So that's a great input measure and it m auditors, that's how the money was spent. But the complaint from the coworking operators themselves is that it doesn't capture outcomes.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You can say we spent 15 minutes a week talking to this person and supporting them. But they're not asking us to capture does that person actually succeed in building a business? Do they actually stop or they come to the space, learn a little bit and go actually this isn't for me and then drop out of the thing. All they, all the auditors capture is that we spent time with them, but did that. Anything that's not being captured, so it's um, you know, it's data beyond. Yeah, monetary impact value is really important. Of course everybody talks money but the operators that I have been interviewing have sort of said, you know, that they do so much more that isn't captured and that you know, if they could signal that to policymakers, if they could signal that to funders that would be, uh, you know, incredible. So, for example, in Manchester, I'm presenting the session with, um, Stacey, um, from the tribe in Ness in Devon. And I think a lot of people are aware of her in the UK because she runs one of the few women only spaces. Uh, he has really strong views about how women need different types of support within co working spaces. Another founder that I talked to in, um, Middlesbrough called Flock F L O K, he's an Asian entrepreneur and he has co working as sort of a, in effect a side hack of his main business, but it's very focused on entrepreneurship. And in that space he was saying that they deliberately brought in designers to sort of help Neurodiverse, um, users. So the space changes from the common space to the more private and working space. Uh, they, they have different furnishings for those who might have issues with the, how tactile the furniture and furnishings are. And also he said, I set up the space because there weren't people in entrepreneurship who looked like me Asian. And so he wanted to sort of present visibility that there are successful entrepreneurs who are Asian in the area. Come and work with us, Come and learn with us. So I think, you know, again, that's where there is value that, uh, is beyond the monetary that co working spaces can offer.

Speaker B: Hey guys, just breaking in to let you know if you would like to join us in the uk. We've got an event coming up in Manchester and one in London. You can get more details on that at UK Juicy Co and Africa Juicy Co. We've got an event coming up in September in Cape Town that we're super excited about. We want to learn what's going on in Africa and we want to pour everything we can into that continent. If you'd like to have a, a Juicy ad or be a podcast guest or talk to us about sponsorship or anything else, just hit us up at Infogcuc Co. Talk to you soon. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that's one thing we really work hard at at Juicy is making sure that we are paying attention to inclusivity and diversity. And we've been talking about neurodiversity at Juicy for the past ten years.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, because one of the things that Juicy does as a business is, you know, we're not an association that's, you know, trying to get fees. We are in an organization that sees the value in coworking. And when we come together at Juicy conferences, what we're trying to do is help make you the best you can be so that you can grow and evolve and we can build more coworking because we know how important coworking is in this world because it's a place of connection and community and belonging. And for a lot of people that's the only place where they get that.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I absolutely see that in the interviews and all the social stuff and the posts that you do. I, um, think it's really important that that happens. But I see a potential connection to policy because government, at least in this country, is concerned with regional inequality. That's what the, uh, Boris Johnson kind of leveling up, um, rhetoric was about. It's about regional inequality. Uh, we know that the government is interested in upskilling. So you know, they try and put on short programs like boot camps, they try and do apprentices, they try and do different kinds of T levels to try and sort of shift where people can build skills as opposed to education in universities. But skills, again, your spaces are providing that informally. The government is interested in social cohesion. Right. So we have a lot of friction at the minute between distant racial, ethnic and religious groups. And again, the sense in which you build communities is, you know, there isn't a sense of that division. Everybody is welcome, everybody is part of the community. You contribute as well as benefit. And I think that kind of demonstration, that building of that culture in your local area can be helpful. And that's why I think, you know, uh, for policymakers it's important to understand more about what co working spaces do because they actually connect into a lot of the things that government is concerned with. Uh, yeah, you know, just simply.

Speaker B: Then they should give us a lot of money so we can make more of them.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, there's money and there is support in different ways.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: So one of the ways to get the money is, um, you know, you have to get the money you need to prove you can do it. Right. So then we come back to data. So if you're not, I was going

Speaker B: to say that's where you come in.

Speaker A: You know, you go full circle. You can't ask for money or you can't apply for money and hope to get it without having some proof of what you're doing. Which is why collecting that data initially needs to be the hard graft, unfortunately, by yourselves and not subsidized or funded by government. I think once you can have that proof and you can go through a cycle of having become, uh, a business support provider for the local area, then, you know, you're more likely to get More money from the council. The next time you have to bid for it because you've, you've proven yourself.

Speaker B: How can co working spaces help support you?

Speaker A: So I think there's a lot of this going on, but it's under the surface. Um, so that's why I went to GC in Manchester last year, just to go and listen, hear what you guys are facing, make contacts. Um, and again I'm going to Manchester this year. I would love to just people to come up and talk to me and sort of um, say what they're doing in their space about these issues and how much they're connected to the government, the local councils and things in their area. Because like I said, local, um, councils seem to be aware that co working spaces exist. Some of them keep directories of. Oh yeah, you can, you know, if somebody approaches them, you can go and get a desk or an office at these spaces and have a list. They might go and meet somebody for coffee themselves in the co working space. But are they realizing the deeper value of them? I don't. Mhm think that they do.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I kind of equate it to like, you know, a lot of, a lot of landlords try to do coworking, right, and they figure out pretty quick that they're, they're not very good at it, that it's a very different skill set than what they're used to. And when they really do well is when they outsource it or get somebody that knows it and partners with them. Um, and I feel like the same thing with government, right? Like they, they all have these in the US anyway. They generally have a space that just has like some computers in it and nobody goes to it and nothing happens there. Like this isn't what government's good at. What they should do is outsource and partner with coworking operators who know what they're doing. Because we know how to build community, we know how to manage space and it's just uh, it's very much reminds me of the landlords. It's like, you guys can't do this. You go do government when you need help with this. Uh, these are the people you should really connect into because we've got it locked and loaded. So question for you. As you sit here looking at coworking, both as a researcher and somebody that clearly is, you know, into this sector and gets it, what is the one thing about the future of this industry that genuinely excites you? And what's one thing that we're doing that. We need to like literally drop immediately.

Speaker A: Um, I think it's just exciting watching your sector grow. Right, because you, you know, you talk about, you know, what proportion of the market you capture and it's tiny, right?

Speaker B: Tiny.

Speaker A: You're tiny, tiny. So you've got so much more potential and you know, the, the direction of travel is to more flex, more hybrid, more um, adaptable spaces. So I think you've, you've got that captured and that I think that's great. In terms of what you would drop, I don't think, I don't think you should drop anything at the M minute as far as I'm concerned. But I think there are some things you could do more of as an industry. Okay, let's help the industry grow. And for example, as, as a researcher.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Where do I find a single directory to find all the co working spaces in the uk? Right. Um, there are bits, I can find bits, but there's no one single cohesive. You know, I've literally had to go to Google, put in co working space and then scrape from there and individually check. Is this in a hotel, is this in a bar, is this a proper. So one is. One is that, you know, just simply collecting um, directories. The other thing is, um, probably a bit more geeky. What is your industry code? So you know, small companies in the UK have to register with Companies House and you put in your industry classification. But you're scattergun because depending on how you view yourself, you might be going under office space or you might be going under hospitality since that's growing. Um, you know, so in terms of being a researcher, huh, Again, how do I find you? And then in terms of again research, we normally collect several data sets together, so, so I might go to the office for national statistics, but if there isn't something I can, if there isn't a bridge with coding that I can connect you through, it's really hard to talk about co working spaces in this region contribute this much to the local gross value added. So you know, as an industry, I think, you know, coming together and doing some work on that front. Um, you know, I guess in my ideal world you would have your own subcategory within this space. Um, and potentially, you know, subcategories beyond that, depending how you specialize. Um, but yeah, you know, I think as an industry, at the beginning of your growth and it's really exciting to watch you move much faster than I can move with my research agenda. Um, but yeah, I think that would Be interesting because if you can't measure it, you can't, you can't manage it. Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, 100%. Okay, one final question. I don't know where the time goes. They always go so fast. Okay, I love this question. What question should I have asked you? But I didn't. And then of course you get to answer that question.

Speaker A: I think I kind of already did that when I said, you know, the question would be how can we grow as an industry? Mhm.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And I think, you know, it's going on at the bottom and it's percolating upwards, but.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Again, as a gigi, there are life cycles of industry growth and you know, I think at the beginning you're on this, on this growth stage. M and at some stage there's going to be an activity called what we call shakeout. Some people who haven't been able to keep up with the fast pace of growth, who haven't been able to forecast the trends, who haven't been able to build the right capabilities and.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You know, modes of working or the strength of hospitality and community in those spaces will fall out. So I think, you know, at some point you do need to come together as a industry in a more standard economic way in terms of people recognize you as an industry, particularly in the rural areas, you know, the spaces still have a problem in terms of people don't understand what co working is.

Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: You know, so what does co working mean to the industry? Because you've got such a lot of variety.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You know, I think some definitional clarity about what you are would be.

Speaker B: Oh Felicia, you have no idea. I fight the nomenclature battle every day of my life.

Speaker A: Yeah, I know. With your hyphen. We like to be together, you know, no hyphen.

Speaker B: Yep, yep, no hyphen. Um, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate the work you're doing and the passion you have for it and I think we're really lucky to have a doctor that is expensive exploring regional co working and impact. And you've given us some really good ideas and I really appreciate your time.

Speaker A: You're most welcome. And you know, for me actually I really love the communities I've talked to in my interviews. They've always been so warm and so welcoming and, and doing so much good work. So it's really easy to support you. It's really easy to be excited and want to promote you to policymakers and for other people to understand what you're doing. Uh uh, and so you know, it's. It's been a delight to be able to talk to you today and share my thoughts.

Speaker B: Oh, you're so kind. Thank you. And, you know, I think the thing is our industry attracts people who want to help people and who want to host people, and so it just attracts just lovely humans. There's just like a no jackass rule in co working and it's really kind of lovely. Yeah, makes, and I agree, it makes it really easy to want to help. And that's, I think, why coworking continues to, to grow and thrive. Even though we're tiny. We have so much, um, ahead of us. It's really exciting. And thanks to everybody that's listening to the Juicy Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to, like, follow and subscribe so you don't miss an episode on the future of coworking community and the things driving this industry forward. If you want to keep the conversation going in person, our very next Juicy event is coming up. It's Juicy UK in Manchester. That's the fourth and fifth where Felicity will be co leading her workshop and I will not be on stage, but Emily will be there and the rest of the incredible community, you should be in the room. Grab your ticket at UK GC co. Thanks for listening and we see you next time on the GC Podcast.