Coworking Is Dead.....

Part of the Coworking Confidential Series: Saying the parts unknown out loud

Building community on a foundation of sand

Coworking is dead.

Not because the spaces are empty, they’re not.
Not because demand has dried up, it’s higher than ever.

It’s dead because the word doesn’t mean shit anymore.

The rot set in when Adam Neumann made it sexy.
Overnight, every landlord with a tired office block and millennial grey carpet tiles decided they were running a coworking space.

Slap in a beer tap nobody touches, a ping-pong table abandoned after the launch night, and a kitchen table with a plug socket passed off as “hot desks.” Suddenly they’re pioneers. The word got butchered, gutted, left twitching on the floor.

Now it’s a zombie industry staggering around in borrowed clothes.

• “Community events” that feel like purgatory for sins committed in a past life.

• Forced networking over room-temperature Peroni.

• NPS scores bribed with cheap pizza in the communal kitchen.

• A neon “Good Vibes Only” sign glowing above a half-dead spider plant.

That isn’t coworking.

That’s real estate with a thinly veiled layer of service, like Oz behind the curtain.

What’s alive and thriving?

Real coworking.

Real coworking…the dangerous, unruly, worth-giving-a-shit-about version, was never about square footage.

It was about friction.
The grind of people colliding and building something real.
The designer sat next to the lawyer.
The recruiter overhearing a pitch and pulling someone in.
The kind of noise you can’t choreograph.

Messy, awkward, electric.

You can’t spreadsheet that.
You can’t fake it with slogans or an idea pulled from a Pinterest mood board.

You can’t buy community wholesale from a furniture catalogue
and call it culture.

I’ve seen spaces where the barista knows every name before reception does. Where deals happen in corners nobody planned for.
Where you feel something when you walk in, not because it’s pretty but because it’s alive.

THAT’S coworking.
The rest is branding for people who’ve forgotten what they’re selling.

Coworking as a label is finished, but the thing it was meant to stand for still exists.

It’s still out there, in the rooms run by people who actually care.
The ones who treat hospitality like gospel.
The ones who build spaces that feel more like clubs than offices.
The ones who know the desk is just bait, the real hook is belonging.

The rest can keep flogging buzzwords, chasing likes, and throwing community pizza nights nobody wants to attend.

Let them.

Coworking is dead.
Long live coworking.

I’ll be at GCUC UK this year — if youre there , please come say Hi

Along with Sam Shea, I’ll be hosting the Future Leaders of Coworking (FLOC) Luncheon, bringing together early and mid-career professionals who care about the direction our industry is heading.

If you’re interested in the next chapter of coworking — or just want to meet others who are — it’d be great to see you there.

James Panepinto is General Manager for Clockwise Offices Manchester, England and UK Chair / Ambassador for FLOC (Future Leader of Coworking)