Episode Summary

“We seem to be out front with this when it comes to, I suppose, government support at a national level of coworking as an industry.”

Graham Clarke

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.

Graham Clarke didn’t set out to wire an entire country for coworking.

He was a community manager in a space in Ireland, burnt out from running events just to hit KPIs, when the Western Development Commission approached Baseworx with a question: Could a single booking system connect over 100 rural hubs?

That was 2018. Now it’s 407 locations. For-profit, not-for-profit, social enterprises, and major operators—all on one platform.

You can land at Dublin Airport, hit “near me,” book a hot desk in Skibbereen, and get a pin code sent to your phone before you leave the terminal. If the hub has integrated access control, you can walk in and start working without speaking to anyone.

But the real story isn’t the technology.

It’s what happened when hub managers across Ireland started talking to each other once a month. When they realised they could pool their buying power to negotiate better deals on EV chargers. When a digital nomad could extend their holiday because they found a desk 30 minutes from the beach.

Graham has seen both sides: the operator trying to keep the lights on, and the software builder trying to automate the boring bits so operators can focus on the human work. In this conversation with Bernie, they explore the economics of who pays for coworking (the bootstrapper vs. the corporate remote worker), the “golf clubification” thesis (what if coworking memberships were curated like BNI chapters?), and why the best thing software can do is act as “guard rails” to prevent community manager burnout.

This episode is for anyone who thinks coworking is just about desks and WiFi. Graham and Bernie talk about Ireland’s post-crash entrepreneurial mindset, the housing crisis threatening the “brain gain” success, and why proximity still matters when your members could work from anywhere.

Timeline Highlights

[02:55] Bernie asks Graham to explain Connected Hubs: “That’s revolutionary”

[03:24] Graham on Ireland’s lead: “We seem to be out front with this when it comes to, I suppose, government support at a national level of coworking as an industry.”

[04:58] The three pillars of Connected Hubs: “A team to run it... capital funding to upgrade... a standardised booking engine.”

[06:23] Graham on the national event calendar and economic impact: “I think it’s after contributing, as of last year, 1.6 billion to the economy in its current structure.”

[09:58] The collaborative culture: “Once a month, there’s an open call, and they have a dedicated community manager who gets all the hub managers together.”

[10:23] Group buying power in action: “They were able to sit down and compare notes, and actually collaborate and say, Right, if we wait 10 of them off you, what can you do as a deal on?”

[14:28] Ireland’s startup support system: “Every county council has its own local enterprise office.”

[16:00] The runway advantage: “If you’re a startup that can do business globally and you don’t need to be paying Dublin rent, then that absolutely has an effect on your runway as well.”

[20:56] Graham’s “golf clubification” thesis: “Is there an opportunity to have a coworking space where you have one person from one space or one industry... it’s, I don’t want to say exclusive, but it is like you’re voted in”

[24:23] Bernie on intentional business groups: “When you sit down with a group of fellow business people with intention and vulnerability and openness and trust, it all moves faster.”

[26:56] The directory solution: “That’s why I think it’s important to have a directory anyway in your coworking space.”

[29:14] The demographic shift: “I would contest that that may not be the same today because the audience and the user type of coworking space has shifted, where you have more employees of larger businesses now.”

[33:09] The critical hire: “One of the most important people you can have in your coworking business is a good community manager.”

[34:42] Software as protection: “If you can get all that stuff automated and worked out, you can leave them in the community management place.”

Connected Hubs: When Booking Becomes Infrastructure

Bernie called it revolutionary. He’s right.

But to understand why, you have to understand what the Western Development Commission was actually solving for.

The West Coast of Ireland wasn’t just losing young people to Dublin. It was experiencing decades of structural abandonment—the legacy of an economy that concentrated wealth and opportunity in urban centres whilst rural areas managed decline. When the 2008 crash hit, multinationals laid off skilled workers who would have historically emigrated to London or Boston.

This time, the Irish government tried something different.

The WDC identified over 200 spaces suitable for knowledge workers. Enterprise centres. Community halls. Dated business centres that needed upgrading but had good bones.

Their research said you need three things:

A team to run it. Capital funding to bring spaces up to modern standards. A standardised booking system.

Baseworx became that third pillar.

Now there are 407 locations. Graham clarifies: “All of the different, I suppose, entity types and for-profit, not-for-profit, social enterprises, and even some of the larger well-known operators, all on one system.”

This isn’t just Airbnb for coworking. It’s post-austerity infrastructure. It’s what happens when a government treats remote work as a regional development policy, not a tech perk.

You can book a hot desk, a meeting room, or an office. Depending on the hub’s access control setup, you might receive a QR code or a PIN on your phone. You sell the service yourself.

But the system also powers community infrastructure: event calendars, blogs, a collaborative news board. By default, Ireland now has a national coworking event calendar. You can see what’s happening in every corner of the country.

The economic case is measurable: independent economists estimated the project contributed €1.6 billion to the Irish economy as of 2024.

Graham talks about the human side, though. Extended holidays. Working near home. Choosing to stay in the village instead of moving to the city.

The Collaborative Culture That Makes It Work

Picture this: It’s a Tuesday morning. You’re a hub manager in rural Ireland. Your WiFi’s been dodgy. Your biggest member just left. You’re trying to decide whether to invest in an EV charger but you’ve never bought one before and the quotes you’re getting range from €3,000 to €12,000.

You’re alone with this.

Except you’re not.

Most coworking networks are competitive. Connected Hubs is collaborative.

Once a month, an open call brings hub managers together. They share what’s working. They talk about what failed. They compare notes.

Graham tells the EV charger story.

EV chargers were ...