Co-working

WeWork, recently re-branded as The We Company and is once again transforming the workplace. Now the largest occupier of office space in Manhattan is revamping its app to enable its nearly 500,000 members to offer up their skills and services to others in the network.

In a series of software updates expected to be released in the coming months, the app will streamline reservation processes, enable members to connect professionally and offer their services and products to one another.

The company says the member app, which was originally designed to serve as a social networking site and reserve conference rooms and desk space, needed to do more.

?It turns out that people didn?t want just another social network,? said Andy Palmer WeWork?s vice president of digital product. ?What they were really looking for was a way of solving work-related problems.?

Improvements to the app will include the ability for members to scroll through available rooms and choose with a single tap.

?We found during our research that about 40% of members booking rooms want one immediately, and 80% want one for that day. The current app was not built to handle that effectively,? said Palmer whose team interviewed hundreds of members and used machine-learning to examine more than 100,000 posts to derive insights from which to build the app?s new features.

WeWork’s app solves workplace problems

Members also indicated that they wanted to know more about where to connect with like-minded people and get advice from experts in their fields, the new app features push notifications that send information about events based on their specific area of interest identified by members and enables them to connect to experts with relevant experience and advertise services and products.

Compared with tenant branded apps offered by commercial brokerages like CBRE and others, WeWork’s app offers a much wider range of industry experts and professionals to connect with. ?

The new features are likely to be big game-changers for entrepreneurs, freelancers and small companies that make up more than 30% of WeWork?s membership base and among a series of recent steps the company has taken to propel the base. ?

Last month, WeWork launched its first membership free co-working retail site where it now sells member merchandise and products. WeWork also announced the acquisition of Euclid, a platform which tracks workplace productivity and occupant use patterns just last week.

Although WeWork says the changes are aimed at fostering collaboration among its member community, ?they also present an opportunity to collect data from users about their work habits and lifestyle preferences.

While it remains to be seen exactly how these changes will play out in the future, one thing is clear- WeWork is well on its path towards transforming the workplace.

WeWork announced that it has acquired a San Francisco-based spatial analytics platform Euclid for an undisclosed amount yesterday.

Euclid has built a plug-and-play, proprietary analytics platform that uses Wi-Fi signals to understand how occupants use space that can be used without any additional hardware.

The co-working provider says it plans to use the platform to ?bolster insights? for its enterprise clients and will completely integrate Euclid within WeWork.

?Our goal is to help enterprises create the most efficient, effective, and engaged workplaces for their employees,? said Shiva Rajaraman, WeWork?s chief product officer. ?With Euclid now part of our organization, we will be able to provide enterprises with holistic insights around how their workplaces are used?ultimately, helping them to make more informed decisions to support their growth and company culture.?

Euclid which has been deeply focused on the understanding of how people relate to spaces and each other in the built world.

WeWork which also acquired Teem, a conference room booking software and analytics platform last year, and says it will combine insights from both platforms to enable its clients to gain real-time information around space utilization and workplace engagement.

Together the tools will provide what WeWork calls workplace insights – a software analytics package for enterprise customers interested in tracking and meeting workplace productivity and employee satisfaction goals.

According to Rajaraman, the data collected from both platforms will be in the aggregate are designed to respect the individual privacy of occupants and users. WeWork will first test the technology at its larger campuses in Shanghai, Tel Aviv, New York and San Francisco before selling it.

The move underscores the significant role that occupant data analytics is poised to play in the optimization of workplace environments.

Powered by We, WeWork?s real estate and technology offering designed for the enterprise marketplace has become one of the company?s fastest-growing business lines, making up nearly 30% of its membership base comprised of big named fortune 500 clients UBS, Sprint and others.

After rebranding as The We Company, the largest co-working provider in the United States is introducing membership-free co-working spaces in retail areas. ?

The We Company?s latest endeavor is to maximize the use of flex space in Manhattan?s Flatiron District combining co-working spaces with retail by offering food, apparel, and stationery made by its member companies? products.

The We Company describes its newest offering as a new town square center where people can come together to work, grow, support mission-driven products made by members.

Despite the jarring criticism the company received for pursuing its rebranding effort after SoftBank Group, it largest investor, drastically cut funding to $2 billion from an expected $16 billion earlier this month, the new project exemplifies one thing the co-working operator does exceptionally well- creating community. ??

?Everything we do at The We Company, from the spaces we curate to the service offerings we provide, is intended to create meaningful human connections,” said WeWork partner Julie Rice.

“Made by We was launched with a vision to connect the We community with the rest of the world, and provide people with the best on-demand workspace, services, and products, no membership required.”

Membership-free co-working pay by the minute pricing

With the new space comes expansive tables, modern sofas with 100 co-working workplace seats and private meeting rooms for larger groups which can be reserved online or by walk-in for a minimum of 30-minutes to an entire day.

The modern, bright space is equipped with racks of displays full of member merchandise and a?caf? by Bluestone Lane, an Australian-influenced hospitality brand known for its coffee and personalized experience.

The pay by minute pricing for individual workplace seats starts at $6 for the first half hour and $0.20 per minute thereafter and goes up to hefty $65 for a full day.

Terrence Kelleman founder and president of Dynomighty, a New York-based company that makes tablet, laptop and assorted pencil cases, is?among one of the member companies whose products are featured in the retail market.

?I?ve spent over a decade as an entrepreneur, and in the few years that I?ve been at WeWork, I?ve learned a lot about how to continue to grow my company, especially online, thanks to the great WeWork community and networking events,? Kellemen stated.

?I was thrilled to pitch my products to Made by We. Now I have a brick-and-mortar presence in the same community, which will continue to give me feedback and support my products throughout New York.?