Transcript: Why Flex Work is the Next Normal

Hello, hello. Happy International Women's Day. Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to be here with you all. Can you imagine? Like, this is a stellar week if you guys did not know it.

It's Women's in Construction Week. It is Women's History Month, like all about the ladies. OK? And I am super excited because I have an amazing guest with me that you guys are going to find super valuable. I'm going to be interviewing Wendy Springberg.

She is the president and founder of Yes, Your Exceptional Space. And she's a flexible workplace strategist. We're going to be talking about some juicy subjects today. So you guys need to listen in and type in the chat any questions that you have. What I would love for you guys to do is just if you can say hello and let me know that you're celebrating International Women's Day today, too.

Just put a little note in there to let me know you're celebrating. And that would be awesome. All right. So I'm going to go ahead and bring Wendy up. Hey, everyone.

Hi, Wendy. Welcome. Awesome intro. Boy, I'm honored, really honored to be here for Women's International Women's Day, let alone Women's Month. I think it's great.

Exactly. Who knew we would have this fun opportunity to just hang out like this on this day? When we were selecting the day, I didn't ever realize that it was International Women's Day. I wasn't thinking about it either. See how serendipitous it becomes and planets align and all good things come together.

Exactly. Let us hop into our discussion. Well, I would love to let the audience know that this is not the first time that I'm interviewing Wendy. We have spoken and can you believe it? We spoke last when we did this interview, we spoke in 2016.

Can you imagine, Wendy? Unbelievable. It's a lifetime ago, a lifetime ago. And so much time has passed, right? So many things have taken place as a result.

But we had some really great podcasts, audio only, because that's what we were doing back in the day. And we talked about co-working. We talked about what does it take to be a successful co-working host? What does that right business model look like to coffee or not to coffee? And what does that furniture optionality look like?

So you took some time, obviously evaluating the market and viewing trends. And you pivoted a little bit in 2019. So what I wanted to ask you was, what were those drivers that caused you to pivot and what did you pivot to at that time? Well, we wound up being on a long term project. We actually started this project ironically in 2016.

And then we gravitated off. It was a project that we had fulfilled our obligation. We helped people start, flex, work, co-working spaces. And we'd gotten to the point where we took off the training wheels and the owner was ready to keep moving forward. So we took a pivot.

We had a different business name entirely. And a bit of a different focus. So we changed our branding to, yes, you're exceptional space. Our tagline is creating experience, not just space, which you and I have talked about the human experience. So it's so exciting that we resonate together on that topic.

And the pivot was caused by the idea that here were all sorts of landlords, developers really getting into the flex work, co-working back in the day. Now we're calling it flex work because it has a negative connotation. But now everybody's jumping on board and saying, how do I get involved in this? What do I do? And then, of course, brilliant strategy.

Twenty twenty happened for all of us. Exactly. Yeah. So the pivot was to truly, truly capture landlords and developers who were saying, you know, I like this flex work idea and I think I'd like to get in on it. But I don't know the first thing about how to do it.

So that's what we did. OK, so you had a lot of that approach when you were, you know, initially talking with people who might want to start a co-working space and were looking for your advice and consulting. But it was more around flex space, hybrid, maybe a little bit more traditional. You know, talking to developers, right, kind of going back to who are corporate real estate partners that we could kind of educate because they have space already. Was that is that?

Well, that's the pivot to where we are now. What we were doing before was really more entrepreneurs who kind of were in the startup world and saying, you know, I love the idea of co-working. I watched WeWork do it. Unfortunately, they flamed out thinking I'm going to get, you know, six thousand square feet open my own. So that was the model that we were experiencing before.

And we decided to take this pivot because of the fact that landlords and developers have a lot more square footage. We know from our vast experience, we've been doing this under the auspices of a different brand since 2001. So we've been doing this a long time, Vancouver to Puerto Rico. And we know based on all of our experience and industry justification from data points that it's about a ten thousand to twelve thousand square foot minimum that really is a sustainable business model. If you tend if you intend to do this as an actual business, as opposed to say, we like to say a hobby, that's your side gig of having, say, six thousand square feet, where you're going to share it with friends and colleagues and that kind of thing.

So that's the pivot that we took, because landlords are and certainly now. Here we are in 2021. Landlords landlords have a lot of space that is under sublease and they have to figure out how do I activate this? How do I survive what's going on right now? So that's why we also thought that's a big opportunity for us to look at the suburbs for one, even back in 2019, looking at the suburbs and seeing where there might be underserved communities in the suburbs.

Or and we'll get to this in a bit. I'd like to share with you what our thoughts on expanding into the city as we get post covid. Nice, nice. So, I mean, there's lots of things on the horizon. What do you think the biggest fears are?

I mean, other than. Not getting tenants or not maintaining tenants, what do you think the biggest fears are right now for developers and and property owners? Well, as I referenced earlier, there's a lot of sublease space. If I just look at Chicago, the stats came out a couple of weeks ago from CBRE saying there's something like five point nine million square feet in downtown Chicago that is up for sublease, or I should say the broader Chicago market itself. But the suburbs are also catching up to that in that corporations have been downsizing based on people pushing people to work from home.

We've been thrown into this experiment, right? Forced into what we thought was, you know, I kind of would like to work from home. Well, guess what? Now you are working from home for the most part. Most of us, except for our lovely essential workers that are out there supporting us in all sorts of ways.

But the idea of working from home now are actually I think there's a lot of zoom fatigue. I think there's a lot of socialization starvation, right? That we'd love to go back to the office. But our our awareness now is I'm not going to that do that commute five days a week. That's not happening.

I am not going there. So I think employers are going to be forced into continuing this smaller footprint, which is going to affect landlords, developers. Right. But there's an obvious pivot to can you create create flex work? And by that, I mean, there are many animals out there in terms of flex work.

And you mentioned hybrid. So more individual offices, but also some open plan when we get post covid, because people are still still going to want to hang out at a cafe and lift up their head and chit chat with someone after they've been doing their focus work in an office. But then there's the flex opportunity of doing spec suites, right? Smaller spec suites when people outgrow that, you know, 200 square foot space with three of their colleagues. Now they have five to 10 people.

Can they do just the next step up? And the landlord doesn't have to create, you know, seven thousand square feet for a 10 person company. They can create the next level, which may be twenty five hundred square feet. So there's a stepped process. And then they keep the tenant in the building.

And the operator of the flex space itself, the coworking type of space, can still manage the flex space for them. These are sort of the solutions that are being driven by management contracts. So operators who create management contracts instead of leases with landlords and the landlord gets the upside on all of the revenue because it generates more revenue because you're offering more services and amenities. Yeah. So there was a lot there that I want to kind of dig into if you don't mind.

Sure. And. So. I would start with these contracts, right? There's there's not only the service contracts, but there's also the contracts for leases.

How are how are those being managed from your purview and or adjusted in order to accommodate now people going into these more. Backsweet like spaces or co-working like spaces, if they're shifting to those models, what are you seeing? What are you seeing as obstacles? I think the obstacles are the length of the lease that someone wants to sign. Clearly, Flex Office also includes term, right?

That's what we're really finding. It's been the truth for flex work, coworking that they offer short term. But if someone really wants to do this with the landlord directly in a spec suite, the most a landlord can really ask for right now is really 12 months. And I think it's still premature for them to be able to ask for that. We have to get to post covid, maybe 2022.

I'm sorry to say, folks, 2022, where it's the the landlord can develop a plan for flex space. They can say, hey, we'll we'll agree to a 12 month agreement and see where it goes from there. OK, that's interesting. Yeah, because I mean, obviously, there there there long term leases that a lot of people enter into, and they're having to kind of adjust that that language in order to make it something that's suitable. But also you can't change to something that is going to lock you in to your point about 12 months or it could be six months, whatever the case might be.

And it's hard to determine what could be realistic as a result of what's going on right now. Really interesting stuff. Yeah. So another thing that I wanted to dig into is what do landlords but should they be planning on including in their their spec suites in order to accommodate this kind of flex area? I mean, you mentioned a little bit earlier about moving away from open plan.

What is that trend that you've been seeing? Why? You know, that's no longer potentially working. What what are the adjustments that should be thought about when landlords are updating their spaces? Well, I think there are a couple of things going on.

So I think, of course, people from sanitation, you know, as long as nobody else is having access to my office, I feel comfortable coming in and out of it. It's also you have to think about a touchless environment. So landlord has to think about, you know, what are all the touch points? Even entering not just the elevator, right, and the building, but entering the the flex space, but the individual office. So everything has to be touchless.

You have to be able to access it through your mobile phone. So that's one aspect of of individual offices and going to that direction as well. And the sanitation protocols that are still required. So some of the other things that we're seeing and even beyond spec suites, if we go back and say these are people who might be graduating from a co-working environment or more of a flex work where it's a single floor into their own space, something that a landlord should consider is to still offer an amenity that could be a common area to the building.

But again, post covid, because we're a little still a little leery of sharing. But podcast studios and video studios, just like we're doing today. You know, how can we maximize the value in the amenity space? And I would say this, think about people who are working from home, who might have little ones or even kids at home and family at home or roommates and simply cannot do a professional video or podcast from their home. So they have to offer that as a sort of a drop in option to not just members of the space, but you might offer it to the public as well.

Yeah. So for those who are just chiming in, I wanted to just do a recap. We are talking with Wendy Springberg, flexible workplace strategist, and she is sharing with us a little bit about the changes that are taking place in our workplaces and how to adopt hybrid flex. However, whatever you want to call it, co-working, right? Like there's so many names for it out there.

Into our spaces. And she's been doing this for 20 years now. She's been kind of following the trends. She understands what's going on and even how this pandemic has really been shifting what people, especially landlords and people in corporate real estate should be thinking about as they continue to think about how they can be successful within this business model. So that being said, if anybody's out there and wants to chime in and ask a question, I do want to let you know that we're open to questions in the chat.

Feel free to post something there. Also make sure to shout us out if you're celebrating International Women's Day. We are so excited that it is an opportunity. Women! It's a W, people.

Just want to say that's what that means. It's the W. I'll do it that way. W, Women's Fun! I know.

It's awesome. That being said, let's hop into our next question here with Wendy. There is so much to consider from a standpoint when you are a lesser. And entering into these agreements, we talked a little bit about the perspective of a landlord or somebody who's owning a piece of corporate real estate. What are your thoughts from the perspective of the lesser?

What should they be considering as they look for space, as they're thinking about how they might expect for their employees to interact within these spaces? What are your recommendations around that? I'm going to tackle it from two different perspectives. One of which is certainly if you have a team with you, you're bringing employees back. I think one of the things that I've observed in my example, pardon me, my example is my health club.

I know it sounds a little scary like who's going to the health club right now. But when all of this transpired, I just was so impressed that they were very communicative, over communication about what new policies and procedures are. That's what you want to look for from your landlord is that they're constantly communicating any changes, any standards that they have, any updates from say the CDC or recommendations from the CDC and the protocols that they must follow. You also want to make sure that they have a policy as part of the documentation of any agreement that you're going to sign with them, that it absolutely contains those protocols.

So I think from that standpoint on the bringing back a team, that's what I would recommend is taking a look at that. I'm going to grab a sip of water. Please. There's I mean there's just so much to consider because we have the vaccine vaccines that are readily coming available. We just had the announcement what earlier last week, right?

Like we should have pretty much a vaccine is available for every citizen in the United States. Right? So it's something to consider that is just definitely a changing trajectory here. We even heard today, I think I saw a notification on Twitter that if you've gotten the vaccine, you no longer have to wear a mask. That's something that the CDC is saying that they're okay with.

So even with those changing trends, I mean obviously there is a consideration of plan for now, immediate return to office, right? Returning to what spaces were or what this new kind of weird transition time is versus that long term. So what would you recommend for tenants that might be coming back or people that own spaces and are thinking about coming back in this interim phase versus the long term? The interim I think honestly is looking at all of that. Sorry folks.

I do think that in the immediacy, I'm a person personally, I'm conservative about the mask thing and I'm not dictating to anybody. But I think being a person that might be part of your team population, you want to respect that there'll be all sorts of different responses to this, right? So you'll have a mix of your team wearing masks and not wearing masks. And so I think it's important that you create guidelines for yourself and say, you know, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable? Also, I think you're still going to have to deal with people who are going to be really concerned about coming back to the office who may still say, look, I'm not ready to come back.

You know, near term I'm not ready. So being able to create that flex environment for them and how is that going to work? How are they going to be treated and managed? Do you have someone who's actually going to manage the culture around having a disparate workforce? Some who are in the office and some who are not.

Are you going to create a hybrid schedule? You know, a schedule where you have team members on site and some who are not on site. And are you going to rotate their schedules as well? Like two days a week for each group and then a group everybody comes together on a Wednesday, for example. I just think that's going to be true moving forward in the near term.

Once we get all the vaccines and people are starting to come back to work. Excellent. I'm just trying to get both of us back here up on the screen so everybody can see both of us. Technology. You love it.

There we go. I do think long term. That was the other part of your question. I think on a long term you're still going to have to have those policies in place. I think it's going to take us a long time to get back to feeling comfortable with where we are.

Remember, I think in some cases, I'll use again friends of mine who are working in corporate America is that they know when things go back to going back into the office, they're going to need a little bit of priming the pump if you will. We're going to have to get back to oh my gosh, I've got to commute again. Even if it's only occasionally. How do I drive? How do I take public transportation?

Do I take public transportation? All of those interesting things. Just incredible. Things that we're going to have to get back to thinking oh, that's how I used to do it and I'm still going to have to do it that way. Some things are not going to change.

You're just going to return to them. It's going to seem foreign again because we haven't been doing it for a while. Absolutely. Oh man. I liked your recommendations about making sure you have policies in place.

Setting out some expectations for people to really just get back into the swing of things and also know how to behave in order for them to maintain safety in the interim. But also this long term. You're going to have to be doing some of quote unquote change management for that long term. Just getting people back to an understanding of how do we function in this space. Which is something that's super normal for when people were doing this huge transition with these open plan workplaces.

It's a consideration that we have to do it all over again with just how we're working in this flex work space. Well think about this. Think about how you're talking with people. We're now of course remote and we're talking remotely so we don't have masks on. We may return to a workplace that has a little bit of masking depending on who's been vaccinated and who hasn't been.

How do you do facial expressions when you have a mask? How do you interpret body language? Body language will be helpful because we'll be live. But how do you communicate with your colleagues when you're the one wearing the mask and the best you can do is this. Your eyes and those types of expressions.

And the other thing is I think there will be a certain point where we won't be standing as close together. There'll be a bit of a you know six feet and then you realize okay I don't have to do that anymore. They're all of those things and how do we transition back as humans into what's going to be real next. Time around. Isn't that funny?

Yeah it's so interesting to think about but we're all experiencing it too. You know in in weird ways at various degrees. Very varying degrees. You know I've been working from home since March last year and I mean for the most part most people have have been too but I've had no need to go into the office like at all. Now some of my team members have been going in because they have various construction projects that they're working on.

Obviously facilities, maintenance, all of that. That makes complete sense why they've been going in. But there's going to be varying degrees of normalcy when each level of transition takes place. I think it's again it's the same thing that we were talking about that we've been. And I don't mean just us but I think us as a population on the planet of having compassion.

Just allow room for transition whatever that looks like. And realize there are multiple ways to transition back. I think having those guidelines and I would say protocols and policies and procedures but also kind of as guidelines as opposed to hard and fast rules because it's got to be fluid. Yep yep absolutely. And I think that's the part that we've all gotten really used to.

A certain level of uncertainty. Yeah. Bit of agility right? Yeah. We hope so.

Oh my goodness. So you talked about compassion. So I would love for us to kind of touch on this topic. I mean you mentioned a little bit earlier about accommodating more flex work spaces in residential areas, in suburban areas, even in the city. And you know we've had so much realization over the past year that there is the socioeconomic disparity in areas where there are people of color and they just do not have access to spaces of work, offices even within their own homes or their buildings.

It's been. Internet access. Internet access. Huge considerations to understand how to make sure that there's a workforce ready and able to continue working with your companies. And we've gone through a number of transitions.

I would say as many corporations. Many corporations have gone through many transitions trying to figure out how to accommodate their workforces. But in some cases it's not happened as well as it should have. So I wanted to ask you what have you thought about seeing, considered as it relates to supporting workforces that may not have internet access or offices in specific residential areas or in city areas? What are your thoughts about that?

Well one of the things that we're looking to pursue is conversations with developers. And one of the ones that I would like to reach out to, and we just haven't been successful yet, is Leon Walker of DL3 Realty here in Chicago. The reason I thought about them is Mr. Walker has actually been very principal in creating Whole Foods at 63rd and Halstead he brought to this whole development that he steered. He brought a jewel osco to Woodlawn.

So he's revitalizing underserved areas. And my gosh, get rid of the food desert. Thank goodness in those two cases. And hopefully more is coming. But that group has also talked about Revive 6300 I believe.

So he's already got a vision of creating co-working before everything kind of fell apart. But the realization for me is that I think these types of spaces really drive economic development. And if you think about it, these are people who have a dream just like everybody else. And the idea of something that is a commercial center for entrepreneurship, for development with offices, meeting rooms, again podcast and video rooms for the creatives. And not necessarily just the creatives, but those of us who want to get in there and share our knowledge.

In addition to just in Chicago, there's the Bronzeville neighborhood with Mercy Hospital being there and it's just been talked about as being great. There's a plan to move forward and redevelop the hospital. Again, a very underserved vacant acreage for such a long period of time. How can we activate that and bring these opportunities to underserved communities? They drive economic development and it enables others to see entrepreneurs.

And once you see it, you can be it. That I think is really material to be able to bring this knowledge and just again, as we've done in the past, is to help people understand how this works because it's a complex business. Give them the tools and ability to do it themselves and then take off the training wheels and guess what? It is yours. God bless.

Well, and there's an element of enabling for entrepreneurialism. There's an element of teaching people how to fish and some of it is simple as that. But there's also the need for investment in that kind of development. Coming at it from a perspective of, we need more health care in a particular area. That's clear.

You mentioned grocery stores. That's clear. There are certain things that enable a neighborhood to be almost, I was going to say self-serving, but make it a community. Make it so that resources are accessible in order for you to thrive in that environment, not just survive. I think you're hitting the nail on the head there when it comes to thinking about it as an ecosystem.

To your point, it's a community. I like that a lot. I think that if you're just thinking about workspaces as a component of it all, it really starts to round out the picture. I'll share a story with you about some of the work that we're doing now. It's in a different part of the city.

It's a person who's developing a developer who is actually building a small six-story apartment building. It's on the north side. Part of the plan is on the upper floors, the top four floors are apartments and the bottom two are going to be flex office because this person is really interested and passionate about pursuing this. We're going through the feasibility study and saying, yes, we've evaluated it and we see both from a location and market demand. And the fact that there's a captive audience upstairs is really great in two feet of snow in Chicago that we've experienced recently.

But the other side of the coin is also the fact that this is, again, retail is a really tough nut to crack, but it creates a community. You can come downstairs. You don't have to be in your one-bedroom apartment. You can come downstairs now once 2023 rolls around and this opens. You can be with other entrepreneurs, other workers, even if you're working from home two days a week and you're going downtown the rest of the week, there's still an opportunity to get away from the apartment and change it up.

So, again, it's creating its own destination point and there'll be event spaces part of the office development on the first two floors. So, there'll be events. It drives the sense of community. And as you mentioned, a whole ecosystem that goes beyond the immediacy of the four walls and out into the neighborhood and the rest of the community. Well, and then one thing we talked about in 2016 is that connectedness of not only the workspace but the small businesses that you can bring in to support those individuals who are working in those spaces throughout the day.

I mean, we talked, like I mentioned in the beginning, to coffee or not to coffee. But there's that definite view of how do I now partner with maybe a nearby yoga studio for somebody to come in and teach a class, right? There's so many things that kind of feed into that overall consistency and that view of community that can certainly be thought about. Well, the events have to be catered by somebody. You might as well look at your neighbor down the street who has this amazing Indian restaurant or Thai restaurant or soul food restaurant, whatever the case may be.

Your favorite food, bring it in and share. It's just a great idea, great opportunity. I love the yoga studio. Yes. I love your thoughts and I love to hear what's taking place already at least in Chicago on the north side there.

I think that's really so poignant these days for us to see and hear about more people who are seeing the opportunity and taking advantage of supplying the need. Yeah. I'm grateful that I think we'll be in that situation by late 2022 or early 2023 where this will be, people will be able to exhale, if you will, right? And say, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I can go back to an office. Gosh, you guys have events.

I'd love to listen to Brittany talk about the built environment. When can she come in and talk to us about that? So I think that's a really, I'm grateful that I see that on the horizon. I am an optimist by nature, but I see that on the horizon. I'm just waiting for all of us to be able to go back and enjoy some of those things that we've lost or have put on the back burner.

So I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, me too. Well, to reset for those who are watching, we are talking with Wendy Springberg, flexible workplace strategist with Yes, Your Exceptional Space. And we are talking about what flex work means for the immediate, the long term, for suburban areas, for the city, for urban areas. How can we support with a different kind of model with workplaces than we've been thinking about before?

So we've been celebrating International Women's Day as well. It's so exciting to have this day to share these thoughts with you in the audience about workplace and what the changes might be. I did want to ask Wendy some questions about what her thoughts are around women, particularly in the workplace. One question I have for you, Wendy, is what do you think the industry needs to work on as it relates to bringing the skill sets to maybe more visibility that women are capable of and excelling at?

What do you see as opportunities? Well, I think that's something that's interesting. I reflected on this question a bit because I'm a failed architect. I took a couple of years in college and failed miserably. But I love the idea of the built environment.

So it didn't, it took me a long way to circle back into this work on my path, but I'm delighted to do it. But it's because I also had exposure. My dad was a mechanical engineer by education and HVAC contractor. And so I got exposure to the built environment. He got the HVAC contract for the John Hancock building.

So being exposed to that, I think is a big deal. And I think if we can do that, number one, even through families, I'm a big believer in the fact that we need tradespeople and not everybody needs to be going to college. There are people who love to work with their hands and undo puzzles, if you will, physical puzzles as well as intellectual puzzles. So we need to give them the opportunities. But the only way we can do that is by showing them and demonstrating.

So not just the average person, but women especially. Can we draw more women into the trades? In addition to architects and engineers, can we draw them into the trades? Because it's such an environment. We always need plumbers.

We're always going to need HVAC folks. We're always going to need electricians. How can we attract them by showing them examples? And frankly, if we can kind of push the envelope to say, guys, you need to bring more women in, we're going to have to have that conversation too and find out. I'm not as familiar with the construction community as a whole.

Because I have this very specific niche. But even in my industry, there are a lot of men who own real estate. And I'd like to see more women get into the owning of the real estate portion, not just being a tenant and a provider of this type of service. And I'm thoughtful about doing that and working with more women as well. So I'm excited about that.

The industry is coming along in that sense. So I have to rely on you. What are you seeing? Let me turn it back on you. And I think this is a really good question for us to be intentional about when thinking about it and when seeing the opportunities.

I think I am trying to figure it out myself. But there's some things that I see that are super easy to do. Recognition of what's already being done. I think something as simple as using social media, a powerful tool, to recognize people from all different backgrounds, but particularly women who excel, just to elevate them and talk about it. Women of excellence.

That's right. Just talk about it. Because I think sometimes there is a perspective of, well, you know, women are doing great jobs and they are represented in the industry, whether it be from real estate to design to construction, facilities management, whatever. But there is, when you see events and you see people who are typically requested to speak at those events, you will see the majority of people on said panels that just so happen to be white men. It's fewer women most of the time.

And so when you talk about and recognize women, there is a definite shift in mentality about what you're about and what you're capable of if you have somebody constantly talking about how good you are. The other piece of it is make sure you share that you think these women should be on stage or just be direct. Right. And I think sometimes as women, we're just sometimes not as direct as we need to be in order to get into the places that we should be in. And just being assertive in that way, not just for yourself as a woman, but for other women on behalf of other women.

Right. So those are a couple really simple ways. The other thing is maybe just be an advocate within the workplace. Right. Like advocate and again, elevate, celebrate, recognize.

I think I don't remember where I got this from, but over the past year or so, I was listening to a webinar about how to bridge this pay gap still. And there was a recommendation around speaking about women, elevating them when they're not in the room. Specifically when you can affect change. When you can speak well of them to speak well of them. To make sure that when there are those conversations about pay, when there are those conversations about what recognition looks like, to talk about women.

And not that you wouldn't talk about men too if they're deserving, because many times they are. Right. It's not like we're not. This is about equity though. It's about equity.

Is what we're trying to do. It's honoring them, right? It's honoring that there's a whole side that may not be in the room, as you say, that's still contributing massive amounts to the economy. I'm sure there are a zillion stats we can quote in the billions of what women contribute. I used to know the stat.

It's an old stat. So I'm not going to quote that. But what we contribute to the bottom line in some of the invisible ways, I think, is to your point. It shouldn't be invisible. We should be able to talk about it openly and get that recognition.

One of the things that I think about regularly is because I do enough, not as much in 2020, but I do enough speaking that when I am reaching out to a conference where I want to participate, I will ask who will be my co-panelists, or I'll recommend a co-panelist, male or female. But I'll try to really steer it towards I don't want to be the only female on the panel. And I need to know what the rest of your conference looks like. And I need to know that the representation is there in many different ways beyond just male, female, but that all sorts of representation is on view.

Otherwise, you're missing opportunities. And you're missing brain power. I mean, that to me is very important. Brain power. Yeah.

Brain power and diversity of thoughts. Yes. Yeah. It's so critical. So yeah, I love that perspective of just asking for, well, what, who is your audience?

Right? Like, just tell me more about you. Like, I may like your subject. I may like what your goals are that you're iterating on your page and in your messaging. But tell me about your people.

I like that a lot, Wendy. Or I look at your panel and you're saying this is the topic, and yet that's not, you're not living up to the topics title. You need a little bit more diversity on this panel to discuss all viewpoints, right? Or multiple viewpoints. Not all because they're still beyond that, but multiple viewpoints and how someone approaches it in a perspective.

Yeah, that's so good. Oh, it's just a learned behavior. I have to admit. I have to admit it took me a long time to get there, but you kind of figure it out as you go. Yeah.

I mean, even so, you know, the wisdom you get from experiences is so, so poignant. Well, do you think we need to work on? I mean, we came up with a couple of ideas together. From not even just how to incorporate more women into these spaces, but even from thinking about just the industry at large. What do we need to work on from your perspective?

I think some of the things that we need to work on, I mean, you touched on it directly, right? Just asking the question and being at the table. And just I think it's not as overt and aggressive because I think sometimes that can be tough. There are times when I've overstepped because of the way that I come across and I'm enthusiastic and I'm energetic, but it sounds a little, and then again, non compassionate. And so I'm learning more compassion about how do I come across where I can sell the idea and I can talk to someone and say, you know, this is somewhere we really need to go and how can we bring others along with us?

Or what are your thoughts on that? This is my thought. What are your thoughts? And so I think bringing more people to the table in the conversation is something that we need to all work on. And as much as I'm pontificating here, I want other people to contribute their thoughts, right?

I'm but one voice. So if we can get to that and say I'm only one voice, but I love to hear what we can do together and how I can come along, how I can add my energy to yours. I'll volunteer my energy and then that might be a starting point to say how can we move things forward? And I'm happy to hear what you think looking, what moving something forward looks like. And then I'll share my thoughts too.

And hopefully we can come to a combined energy that's better than just, right, that synergy that's better than just one plus one equals two. So I think that's what we need to work on is really again, more skin in the game ourselves and really just being brave to have those conversations and step out and discuss. Yeah, I love that, Lindy. Oh my goodness. I think that your mention about having empathy and compassion, I second that 100%.

I think that if this year has taught us nothing else is that we have a little bit to learn about other people. I'm raising my hand for that. Lots to learn. Everybody, everybody, right? And so I think it's just a matter of having that, right, like mentality, that mindset of curiosity and making sure you're having that courage to speak up and have that conversation, not be afraid of the conversation.

That's so good. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So I do want to just ask you, did you have anything else you wanted to share?

Anything else you wanted to share with the audience? Oh my gosh. It has nothing to do with me personally as much as I think one of the revelations that we had is because we've been so stuck at home and my colleagues and I, we work virtually. We believe in this concept of working virtually and have done so for a long time. So I have a colleague in Austin and a colleague in New Jersey.

And we've come together really strongly as a team because we gelled so well. But I have to say, I think coming together and really being able to listen more effectively has been something that's been on our radar and getting out there. And again, and the idea of talking to other people, getting more involved with just basic outreach. It's not just business development anymore, right? It's not, I'm less about business development and more in landlord, what are your pain points?

Or even Brittany, what are your pain points and what are you seeing? And that curiosity that you mentioned is, how can we just talk to each other? Not with the idea that there's a transaction involved, but the idea of what can we learn in that curiosity with each other and what can I bring to the table that's gonna help you or a resource that's gonna help you that has nothing to do with me other than I'm the conduit. So I think that's something I've learned from 2020.

And I'm trying to get better at it, right? That's a learning I've got that I need to be better at being a conduit as opposed to just super transactional because as entrepreneurs, you are, right? That's the whole reason of being is beyond helping your client, it's to help the broader community as well. And what does that mean? It means your colleagues around you too.

Oh, I love that. I love that so much. Listening is a lesson I'm learning too. I think it's something that we can all, even if we're skilled listeners, we can continue to learn how to be better at it. It's really good.

Yeah. Well, we are talking with Wendy Springberg and we are just getting ready to wrap up the conversation but I do wanna share with you, she is a flexible workplace strategist at Yes, Your Exceptional Space. We've been having an amazing conversation about flex work and what does the future look like? She has shared quite a bit from the perspective of not only the landlord and corporate real estate owner but also from the tenants perspective, she has shared about how we might be adjusting to how we support spaces in the suburbs or even in urban areas.

And we just talked about women and how we might elevate women in this industry. So I appreciate you Wendy so much. This has been such a fun conversation. Oh, the honor is mine. The honor is mine and it's great to reconnect with you.

I was so excited to know that you're still going strong and doing this. You are an amazing, remarkable woman yourself. Oh, likewise. Thank you so much, Wendy. I do wanna give you the opportunity to share where might people learn more about you or get in touch with you.

Oh, thank you. Well, our website is yes-spaces.com. So you can go there and take a look at our website. But if you'd like to get in touch with me, I've put my email address as my contact info, wendy at yes-spaces.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Even if it's just a question or a statement or not even a problem, I just love to hear what's going on in your world and what are you seeing out there? I'd love to hear it. It'd be great. So thanks for the opportunity. Yeah, I'm so happy that you were able to join us on International Women's Day.

We got to celebrate together. Yay! We're doing our women's dance. Women's Day dance. That's right.

Oh, man. Well, those of you in the audience, I hope you enjoyed as well. Please know that this will be available on YouTube, on Periscope, on LinkedIn, and on Facebook after this broadcast. You will be able to connect with us after this session. But I look forward to getting in touch with you.

If you have any questions, I will quickly just throw up my contact information here too. Brittany.Brittany underscore CT. You can follow me on Twitter. And then LinkedIn is super easy. You just search for my name, Brittany Campbell Turner, or you can look for the link at the end, Brittany CT.

Awesome, Wendy. Thank you. Brittany, you're amazing. You're amazing too. Thank you so much.

All right. We'll talk soon then, Wendy. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye.