Blog

The past few months have been impactful for our whole planet and the collective of members and friends we have at the Hub.

The news changes each day and we are watching the State and City’s leadership for guidance on when we can open. In the meantime we’re making changes to the space to keep our members and team as safe as possible. Currently, members with Unlimited Memberships, Offices and Dedicated Desks can access the space and members with part time memberships who self select as an essential business can contact us for M-F, 9am-5pm access. We are really excited to welcome our Hub ‘ohana back into our space and will continue to ensure the safety of everyone that comes through our doors remains a top priority. Please see our updated operations policies for the Hub here.

During this break in regular services, we’ve also spent time reflecting on the ways that COVID-19 has changed our personal lives and our business. As a team, we’ve listened to our members about the challenges they’ve been facing and have begun to proactively brainstorm some solutions. We invite anyone to send us their ideas on how the Hub can safely support the community and how the Hub can innovate to stay at the forefront of the services it provides. You can email us here.

Our team has definitely missed the collective energy that our members bring: as we’ve often said, the Hub is so much more than the walls that we share – it’s the people that make it a great place to come to work.

For some, the past 6 weeks of shelter-in-place has been a great opportunity to discover the benefits of working from home, and many have found that it suits some of their needs quite well. It has taught some of us new skills (I’m thinking about leading virtual meetings and brainstorms) and allowed us to get creative on how we work. Perhaps it has even given more time to lead a balanced work schedule.

On the other hand, others have had a difficult time trying to adjust and work from home (WFH). As many of us have experienced, WFH has a unique set of challenges, whether that’s unreliable internet, too hot or too cold, a heap of laundry, a lack of space for functional work habits, a loud household filled with family or roommates, child care, or perhaps a few small, unruly ‘coworkers’ that want to join your meetings.

For me personally, I like to have my options and I’m reminded how important a flexible workspace was for me before the Hub existed, and we are reminded why we started the Hub in the first place. The Hub’s flexible membership plans mean that you can join, cancel, and/or change at any time. You can join for just a few days a month even. If you’re like some people and you can’t wait to get out of the house, we’re still open 24/7 for Unlimited Memberships so that you can find the focus time that you need at a desk or in a private office. And you can work with us to host virtual or small meetings, without housemates or kids around to interrupt. Whatever balance of home-work or office-work that is best for you, we want to make it easy for you when we can reopen because things will be different for everyone.

When you are able to come back, the Hub is going to look a bit different – we’re changing the physical spaces with ‘team areas’ and physical dividers to aid in social distancing, and we’ll have updated meeting room protocols. We have revamped our cleaning and sanitizing procedures for those that enter the Hub, and we’ll be sharing the new protocols soon. We want to remind you, that as a current or former member, you’re welcome back as soon as we get permission from our local and state government that it’s okay to open. We really look forward to seeing all of you soon – with your masks on, of course! And don’t worry, we brought the coffee back!

Hub Coworking is fortunate to partner with select local businesses to help make a bigger impact in our community.

These companies have demonstrated their support for the growing entrepreneurial and small business community in Honolulu. All Impact Partners are dedicated to bettering Hawaii through their thoughtful business actions.

Our Impact Partner Circle serves as a valuable advisory council that provides sponsorship of events and memberships, strategic insights, and thought leadership for the community. We are proud to announce continued partnership with the following organizations:

American Savings Bank

American Savings Bank is one of the primary financial institutions in the state of Hawaii, and have been serving Hawaii’s businesses and communities since 1925. ASB provides a full range of financial products and services, including business and consumer banking, home loans, insurance and investments.

ASB’s work supports the following SDGs:

Hawaii Investment Ready

Hawaii Investment Ready (HIR) is an accelerator program designed to help Hawaii businesses thrive. Their statewide peer-to-peer learning program has been created to support the sustainability of island social enterprises so that they can scale their businesses in Hawaii and beyond.

HIR’s work supports the following SDGs:

simplicityHR by Altres

ALTRES Staffing is Hawaii’s largest staffing and recruiting company, with seven offices across the state, and simplicityHR by ALTRES serves as the human resources “back office” for more than 2,200 local businesses. For nearly 50 years, they have been Hawaii’s #1 HR outsourcing company and is ranked as one of Hawaii’s Best Places to Work.

Altres’ work supports the following SDGs:

Ulupono

Ulupono Initiative is a local non-profit that invests in a more sustainable Hawaii. Founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidiyar. Ulupono seeks to invest in and help grow local organizations involved in clean/renewable energy, diversified agriculture, and waste-to-energy management – choosing to invest in projects that have high potential for creating large-scale social impact. They invest in companies focused on improving the local energy, food, water, and waste sectors.

Ulupono’s work supports the following SDGs:

Nathalie is a member of the hub that has two ways of reaching out to her community. The first, is that she is a realtor for NextHome KU Realty. In this, Nathalie focuses on making peoples’ experiences meaningful and positive.

Her background in psychology has opened her eyes to see that the realty process is actually a pretty emotional one for most people. Because of this, she navigates her work by putting the customer over her sale-to make sure that the client is able to transition to a place where they are happier than before they began, regardless of where they started. 

On the other hand, Nathalie is the founder of Sparked, an authentic relationship game for women. Participants usually gather in someone’s home, the Still and Moving Center on Queen St. and at the Hub. She has started to launch meetings on Zoom, where women can still engage in a meaningful online conversation, sharing their stories, and learning how to deliver their stories to other women. 

Besides Sparked, Nathalie is also involved in Womanspeak, a woman-safe space to learn and implement best practices for public speaking. While Sparked is to get you more comfortable to share your story with a group of women, Womanspeak gets you used to talking to a bigger group. Nathalie helps participants focus on their breathing, their body, and getting out of their heads. That way, women can become more accustomed to speaking about their core values and their ‘why’. She hopes to have women avoid getting stuck in that negative feedback loop of panic that stirs when someone is presented with the opportunity of public speaking, and instead be able to articulate what they want to shine and convey to their audience. 

In all of this, Nathalie finds ways to help others from a place of service. After speaking with her, I was undoubtedly met with a rush of confidence and positivity. Before ending the call, when asked what message she wants to highlight to readers, Nathalie said that she hopes to underscore the importance of being kind to one another- especially right now. 

To get in touch with Nathalie, please email nathalie@nathaliechampion.com

Meet Nathalie Champion

NextHome KU Realty

3 Questions:

1. What work do you do?

I am a residential realtor. I focus on buying, selling and investing instead of property management all over O’ahu. I have found that there are a lot of realtors, but I feel that I know and trust you will find your people. 

      2. What’s your WHY?

I love real estate because it is such a huge and daunting process. I have been blessed to have  two experiences: one, having a realtor that was awful and one that was amazing. The difference in the quality of my life during the transaction was something that made me go,  “wow this is so important that I want to come in from the service side”. I have a psychology degree and I feel that it’s important because realty is such an emotional process and for a majority of people they don’t realize that. To me, it doesn’t have such a fiduciary duty because here, it is one of the few jobs where you have to put your customer over your sales-unlike other sales positions. This is something that I take very very seriously, and I really find joy in being able to midwife someone through the transition into someplace where they fall in love or even a transition out from a place where they were unhappy. I think that this is especially important now because it is such an unprecedented time where it’s important to really be kind- because a lot of people’s lives are really being shifted out of their comfort zone. It’s remarkable how much changes and how you can make a difference for someone. 

      3. What do people not know about you?

I feel that people don’t know how much of an introvert I am. I prefer being at home reading, versus networking and putting myself out there and meeting people. It’s funny because my job is so much of that, and so it has taken a lot of creativity to navigate that. 

I think that’s why I am so active in the community. Recently, I have become a part of Sparked, an authentic relationship game for women. My role is to hold space for this game to be experienced. Traditionally we would circle up in a woman only space at someone’s house, but nowadays we will meet on Zoom, spin a spinner, land on an awesome topic like “passion”, pick a card, and then answer the question. I feel that it is an insightful opportunity to get to know each other that fosters a deeper connection to one another than normal networking which focuses on one facet of who we are as human beings. Sparked allows you to share yourself in a way that’s important, and also helps you realize that, ‘other people have just as complex and rich a life as I do,’ because you forget that sometimes.