Worried that technology is at odds with giving white glove service? Worry no more. See how The Farm SoHo uses high tech to create a high touch workspace.
Whenever a new technology hits the headlines, a flurry of naysayers will swiftly highlight how this latest breakthrough will adversely affect our lives. Robots are, apparently, going to steal your job. And social media is turning you into a screen-swiping zombie.*
We need to address this outdated reaction, as new technologies are now enabling human interactions, not stifling them.
This is particularly true in the coworking arena where a range of technologies allow spaces to interact with their members on a new level. Technology is also helping facilitate introductions and conversation between members helping everyone win more business.
For example, The Farm's Coworking Space in NYC specializes in the tech arena. We welcome a range of technical entrepreneurs and startups and, as such, we are eager to try out office automation tools that could help us better serve our community.
It is well established the one of the main benefits of coworking spaces are the community that members can form. Let’s look at some coworking software we use to create a high touch high tech experience at The Farm. We use the Kisi access control system to better manage who accesses specific areas of the space, and it also means we can give 24/7 access to certain members.
So, more people can use the space, more often. We even integrated Kisi with the Flic Smart Button to further simplify access to our space. The Greetly visitor registration app for iPad also means we don’t have to hire staff to give access to the space.
And by bringing all of these technologies into our content management system, can built our prospect database while we get powerful insights into how our members use a space.
So, we can more effectively allocate our resources and adapt our processes and the physical space to meet the needs of our coworking community.
For example, if a member is hosting an important meeting with an external party, Greetly will alert that member via their smartphone. It’s a more professional and seamless system for our members.
Within the coworking industry, technology is a social enabler. And it is the interaction of many different technical innovations that’s opening the floodgates to further human interactions. Granted, interest in coworking is growing, but the competition is also fierce. So, if you haven't already, remove the versus and think about how you can build a high touch high tech workspace.
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* Such assumptions are continually challenged. For example, research house Gartner predicts 2.3 million new jobs will be created thanks to AI, compared to the 1.8 that will be eliminated. And this is an excellent essay weighing up the positive and negative effect of social media on our human interactions. It concludes: “Essentially, the new technological landscape now connects to what it means to be human.”
I couldn’t agree more. To ignore high-touch technologies is to ignore what it is to be human in our brave, new world.
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The Farm SoHo is co-working space in the heart of SoHo NYC that will make you fall in love with work again through its warm interior, supportive community and excellent location.
Gemma Church is “the freelance writer who gets tech”, The Farm’s copywriter and a specialist science and technology journalist.
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