Breaking the Echo Chamber: Honest Conversations About Flex Spaces

You may have noticed that’s not the usual picture of Camille at the top of this article.

Who am I?

I’ll be taking over the NCG posts here on Brave Ideas, so I’m taking this opportunity to let you know what to expect.

You may have already seen me speaking about the state of the flexible office market on LinkedIn or a panel (keep an eye out for upcoming events). I’ve got 20+ years of flex experience under my belt and a strong opinion on most things, so I prefer to talk about things plainly, from experience, and leave sugar-coating to a minimum.

I have watched the flex market evolve from an obscure niche to an established and credible alternative to conventional commercial real estate models. When most people think about flex, it’s easy to only consider its growth over the past couple of years, but it goes back a lot further than that.

When I first started out, serviced offices were the only option, but now flex has fragmented into so many product tranches that it’s sometimes hard to keep track of exactly what “flex” is—or is becoming.

My journey so far has taken me from being a broker/intermediary to the flex sector, to an independent consultant in the flex marketplace, and now to NCG—where exposure to how infrastructure and tech benefit the built environment gives me a true 360-degree understanding of how this complex ecosystem operates.

So, what should you expect?

There is much to be positive about in flexible office space, and the future is indeed bright.

But there is also plenty to improve on. Regardless of how avant-garde we think the sector might be, it is still a relatively new industry. Many are still learning how to position and optimise their operations. It’s important that we learn together and from each other.

So, I’ll look to explore the customer journey in flex, question our sometimes self-imposed echo chamber of positivity, look under the bonnet of how sales and operations processes can be improved... and a host of other topics as time goes by.

I’ve been both fortunate and unfortunate to be a “jack-of-all-trades” in this sector, so hopefully, I can keep everyone on their toes with a mix of topics.

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