Coworking Values Podcast

“Community is a really irritating word to me right now. We ask it to carry too much. Everything’s a community.” Rose Radtke Tired of running yourself into the ground? Then stop running alone. On February 24th, the London Coworking Assembly presents Unreasonable Connection Goes Live!—a one-day working session for the people running London’s most vital neighbourhood spaces and the public sector allies working to help them thrive. It’s a day to share the load, find real solutions, and build a new playbook, together. Rose Radtke is a brand strategist, writer, and community manager. She positions herself as a “smart connector”—someone who finds the links between brand, community, and marketing. Six years deep in community building, she’s watched the word “community” stretch thinner each year. Everything became a community. Discord servers. Email lists. Substack comments. The word stopped meaning anything specific. Rose makes a distinction that matters. Audience, community, and village are not the same thing. One lets you lurk. One expects participation. One demands mutual care. Bernie and Rose unpack the framework. They move from COVID’s online community boom to the messy reality of engineering community in coworking spaces. Rose is watching 2026’s trends closely. Coworking spaces struggling to meet rent. Pricing strategies getting flexible—day blocks, modular memberships. The lines between workspace and third space blurring. Pop-up markets in coworking spaces. Coworking desks in bookshops and gyms. And she’s asking a question that hospitality venues should be terrified of: Why don’t they have community managers? This episode is for operators tired of using “community” to mean everything and nothing. It’s for anyone trying to work out whether they’re building an audience, a community, or a village—and what the difference actually means for the people who show up. Timeline Highlights [01:51] Rose describes herself: “I’m actually a bit of an octopus. I am a brand strategist, I am a writer, and I’m a community manager.” [02:12] What she wants to be known for: “Being a real connector, being someone that’s really smart and that connects people up in interesting ways.” [03:04] The frustration: “We ask it to carry too much. Everything’s a community. We want everything to be a community, and it just carries an awful, awful lot.” [04:49] The distinction: “Participation is optional. You can either be a lurker... but then you can fluidly move into being a participant.” [06:46] Village versus community: “In a village, there’s an expectation of care. You extend to each other and everyone has their part to play.” [08:49] COVID’s turning point: “Communities were lifelines for people in COVID. Most of those communities were online.” [11:31] Engineering community: “Your branding and your marketing and your community have to work as one for it to work.” [13:34] Bernie on his favourite spaces: “Started by people who are scratching their own edge.” [16:25] Rose on 2026 struggles: “Coworking spaces seem to be struggling a bit more this year... a shift towards more flexible memberships.” [19:46] The blurred lines: “The lines becoming blurred between work space and third space in coworking spaces.” [21:27] Multi-use strategy: “I want to create reasons for people to stay beyond their work day... and ways to make additional revenue.” [22:53] Hospitality insight: “I’m really interested in whether or why hospitality venues don’t have community managers. I feel like that’s madness.” [24:19] Multi-use excitement: “Really make it multi-use. That’s a really interesting and exciting space at the moment.” [26:38] The future is now: “Lines are being blurred in lots of areas, and I think spatially, that’s the case as well.” The Three-Type Framework Rose has been working in community for six years. She started through branding—branding communities, finding the work fascinating. Then the word stretched. “Over the last 6-8 years, we ask it to carry too much. Everything’s a community. We want everything to be a community, and it just carries an awful, awful lot.” She’s right. The word “community” used to mean something specific. Now it means anything a brand wants it to mean. Rose thinks we need to go back to basics. Stop calling everything a community. Work out what you’re actually running. An audience is passive. They consume what you produce. They might engage, but they don’t expect to be part of the thing. A community is fluid. Participation is optional. You can lurk. You can absorb what you’re reading, overhear conversations, eye things up. Then you can fluidly move into being a participant when you’re ready. No pressure. No expectation. A village is different. Everyone’s participation is needed. Everyone has a role. There’s an expectation of care. You extend care to each other. Even if your role is just taking your rubbish out on the right day, you have to participate. Rose thinks coworking sits somewhere between community and village, depending on how the space is designed. Some members want to get out of their house. Leave behind the mess and the half-eaten Rice Krispies. Work somewhere clean and tidy. Get their head down. Leave at the end of the day. Go home. That’s valid. Other people want to network. They want to go to a place where people know their name. They want to be part of the programme, learn stuff, be all in. That’s valid too. Both are community. But they’re not the same kind of community. Calling them both “community” without distinction makes the word useless. COVID Broke the Word COVID was a huge turning point. Community went online. It had to. Online communities became lifelines for people. They were essential, not optional. “We piled a lot on the word community during COVID,” Rose says. “That is where it all became a bit stretched and misshapen.” She’s not wrong. The word community used to imply something physical, something local, something you could walk to. COVID made it mean “any group of people who talk to each other online.” Online communities are just as important and valid as in-person communities. But they’re very different. The expectations are different. The rhythms are different. The care structures are different. We’ve never quite come back from that. The word “community” now has to work for both. It has to mean your local pub and your Discord server. Your coworking space and your Substack comments section. No wonder it’s irritating. Engineering Community in Coworking Rose makes a distinction that matters. Some coworking spaces start because someone needed a place to work. They had extra space. They built something around what they were doing. The Skiff in Brighton. Coworking Lisboa in Lisbon. Indy Hall. Other spaces start as a brand first. Someone decides to start a coworking space. They build the brand, then they build the community. Both can work. But they’re different. When you start as a brand, you have to engineer the community. Your branding, your marketing, and your community have to work as one. Otherwise, your community just isn’t going to happen. Rose thinks that’s fine. “Things change, times change, people change. If we just accept that that is what community is now in coworking, cool, that’s fine.” I’m not sure I agree. I think my favourite coworking spaces have been started by people who were scratching their own edge. People who needed something, so they built it. The community formed around their intention. But Rose is right that engineering community can work. It just requires a different kind of discipline. You can’t fake it. You can’t market your way into authentic connection. You have to build the conditions for it. Your space has to attract the people you want. Your brand has to signal clearly who this is for. Your community manager (if you have one) has to facilitate without forcing. The 2026 Pricing Puzzle Rose has noticed something. Coworking spaces seem to be struggling a bit more this year. There are indicators. More spaces offering flexibility. Lower hour memberships. Modular memberships. Day blocks instead of monthly commitments. Maybe it’s because people want more flexibility in their lives. They don’t want to be tied down. Or maybe spaces are struggling to make rent and they’re trying anything that might bring people through the door. Tom Ball at Desk Lodge has nailed the pricing. You can buy a block of days. If you go over those days, you can get a better deal on more days. It’s flexible, but it’s simple. Most spaces haven’t worked this out yet. They’ve got 57 different pricing options on their website. That exhausts the buyer. It exhausts the accounting system. It exhausts the space operator trying to manage it all. Rose thinks the trend is hybrid work meeting economic pressure. People work from home some days, coworking some days, client offices other days. Fixed monthly memberships don’t fit that pattern anymore. The spaces that survive will be the ones that make flexibility simple. The Blurred Lines Between Workspace and Third Space Rose is watching a trend that excites her. The lines are blurring between workspace and third space in coworking spaces. Spaces are becoming multi-use. At the weekend, they become a pop-up market or a supper club. They have a café open to the public. They host community events that draw people who aren’t members. Kemp Town Bookshop in Brighton just added a coworking option. You can pay for a desk for the day. You’re sitting in the café, surrounded by books. People come to a vintage flea market on Saturday and discover that the space also offers coworking. Boom, new member. David Lloyd gyms have been doing this for years. You can go to the gym, pay for two hours of childcare in their crèche, do some work upstairs, then have lunch i