This can happen through various ways: the easiest is the "welcoming emails" and "personal welcoming" at the space, but I think this is not enough. We need to think the onboarding phase from ground up.

This guy Walter Osika created a study, in which coliving residents were following a 6-month onboarding program. The results?

(...) improved relationship quality and communication about one’s needs regarding work-non-work boundaries, especially amongst residents at the co-living space. Moreover, programme participation significantly increased perceived work-non-work boundary control, work-life balance, psychological well-being, psychological flexibility and self-compassion.

Read more here, if you dare to nerd on this!

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJHMA-09-2020-0117/full/html

Here are a few things I propose should happen in coliving spaces - or rather, would be the ideal onboarding experience:

1. Personal welcoming by the host or residents. Show the new resident the people first, not their room.

2. Personal check-in after several days and then after one week. Another check-in after a month to make sure that everything goes smoothly and the person feels at home.

3. Explaining the culture in the house. Not only making sure the new resident is a right fit, but making sure that s/he understands the hard and soft rules, and that s/he signs them beforehand.

4. Introducing the new resident to other housemates before arrival, so that they can create bonds. Potentially also having the community vet the resident-in-question, so that there is a hell-yes from both sides.

And the list goes on. But already these 4 items are barely seen.

What do you do to welcome and integrate residents in your space and community? 🧐 (just leave a comment!)

So..

Cate sent me an interesting discussion from our dear Daniel from coliving.com who posted a question on LinkedIn:

"What is NOT coliving"?

Which resulted in a very interesting exchange between him and another LinkedIn member and coliving user.

After around 8 back-and-forth comments, I decided to write my own and give my stake, which you can find here:

⚠️ click on "load more comments" to see my response!

Or, if you're too lazy to click 🤪 I can resume it this way:

1. There isn't a definition of coliving that is official.
2. Hence, every argument here is one of our own truth, which should be about creating a collective one.
3. From this, the question "what is NOT coliving" leads to statements which do not give a clear picture on why that answer comes into being, and hence
4. The question should rather be "what is the exact definition of coliving for yourself at this point of life?"

I can see there are two camps:

👉 those that define "coliving as a communal experience" first
🙌 and those that define "coliving as a space-as-a-service" experience first

Usually, everyone agrees that coliving is about a) shared spaces and b) living with others in a community. And yet, community is not defined - some say it's "people living together" while I would personally say it's "people who share a common identity" (which does not have to happen while living together under one roof).

So, I'd suggest: get onto this LinkedIn post and comment for yourself! And, comment below: