Coworking: How are you out of 10?
Talk Club, Blue Garage on the telly, and what you listened to last year.
How are you, out of 10?
We ran Unreasonable Connection at Blue Garage in February, and Ewan, who runs Contingent Works in Bromley, stood up and told us about the Talk Club he runs there. Men are crap at talking about their mental health, he said, so his club gives them five words to start: "How are you, out of ten?"
Ollie Tiramuragan Collard
Forty hours on the mic
Look at the fun these people were having. Oliver Collard did a 40-hour marathon podcast to break the world record, sitting in the Films at 59 studio fighting off hallucinations and running on two and a half hours' sleep.
Every conversation was about letting founders speak honestly. Building a business is lonely, and everyone asks how the company is performing while few ask how the human behind it is coping.
What you listened to in 2025
This is the same thing you told us in January. I looked at the Coworking Values Podcast analytics from 2025 and saw which episodes you'd listened to most.
Not brand partnerships. Not enterprise strategy. Money trauma, burnout, people filling gaps the state left open.
Bernie J Mitchell
Williamz Omope appears twice on that list, running job clubs in East London because job centres can't keep up, and bringing NHS workers in to do health checks because the system is overwhelmed. Two of your most-listened-to episodes are the same man, filling the same gap.
Blue Garage on the telly
💙Garage was on ITV News this week!
Blue Garage was on ITV News last night. The Bakerloo line extension got a specific mention in the Budget, and ITV wanted to see what it could mean for businesses in Lewisham.
So they came to Blue Garage, the disused building Michael Korn has turned into an innovation hub for nearly 40 companies.
That's a big deal, a local coworking space on the telly making the case for its whole borough. It shows what happens when the talent is already there:
Ben at nodum makes home charging kits for electric cars, and he told ITV it would put Lewisham on the map, because people think about London based on the tube map.
Ged Equi ⚡️
Michael's line sums the whole thing up: keep the talent, grow the borough. Better transport only lands when the businesses and the people are already in place to absorb it.
This is why you keep emailing your MP and inviting them in. Get on their radar, so they understand how a space like Blue Garage serves its community, and what a difference it makes when the money and the connections stay local.
Francesca and Eddie built Whoeverly
Francesca Dixon has spent over a decade in virtual offices and is a certified anti-money laundering specialist. Eddie Whittingham runs Ministry of Work, his own coworking space in Greater Manchester, and before that he was a police officer and a solicitor.
Eddie built the tool he needed. Francesca knew the compliance inside out. Between them they've made Whoeverly, because nobody was making it for independent operators, so they made it themselves.
We're big fans of the virtual office conversation, and our series from last year is here.
Francesca Dixon
Belonging, all November
Last week Graham and Cat talked about belonging and coworking. Watch out for our four-part series in November on coworking, belonging, and living in London.
- Save the date. Online edition of Coworking Canada, 18th November.
- London Coworking Assembly gathers at Workspace Design Show London - February 2027.
- ✅ Join the Unreasonable Connection waitlist