Dean Connell shows operators how to stop hiding and find their message

Dean Connell joined the Coworking Creators Summit from London at his local time of 6:20 in the evening, bringing two decades of interior design experience and a question that made everyone sit up and pay attention: Do you really know me?

As one of the creative directors at WeWork—joining when there were about seven designers and he was employee number seventy—Dean helped propel coworking into the mainstream, launching markets from New York to Shanghai to Tokyo to India and many places between. In 2022, he created a boutique prototype product called Old Sessions House, exploring the future of work through the lens that work is actually a series of moments throughout your day.

But Dean didn't come to the summit to talk about his impressive resume and work at I Am Dean Connell. He came to share what he calls a creative framework that has helped him redesign not just spaces, but how communities authentically show up in them.

His presentation—"Our Work in Progress"—challenged operators to stop treating their spaces like commodities and start weaving their full identities into what they build. Which maps beautifully to his business name.

The fragmented you underneath the professional surface

Dean showed three images representing aspects of himself behind his career in design and coworking. He asked attendees to guess what they represented, then made his point: for twenty years, he's shown clients the tip of the iceberg—the professional designer, the impressive credentials, the polished portfolio.

But underneath, there's a lot more. A poet. A musician. A philosopher asking questions about meaning and place in life that typically had no place in client meetings.

Those interests—poetry, music, philosophy—are revealed at the bottom of the iceberg. The parts we usually hide.

Dean connected this directly to the coworking industry's current challenge. "A lot of coworking spaces come across today as a commodity," he said. "Many brands and products are following a playbook—desks, lounge, meeting rooms and basic amenities. And some of them are starting to look and feel the same and function the same."

So he turned the mirror around and asked operators:

Is your space a reflection of you? Does the space reflect your team?

He gave attendees a few moments to think through those questions and make notes about their answers. Yes or no for their own business. 

And then he asked the most important question: Why?

The questions that reveal your greatest opportunity

If you answered no to those questions (your space isn't a reflection of you, you don't think it should reflect you, and it doesn't reflect your team) Dean had a follow-up.

Are you willing to integrate the parts of you that are not currently demonstrated in your space and weave them into what you build?

If the answer is yes, he offered what he calls the tapestry principle.

The idea: weave in all the aspects of who you are into what you create, rather than hiding parts of your identity in order to target certain audience members or sell desks.

Dean showed an image from a project where the idea of tapestry meant something to him. They bought some tapestry cloth and put it up: an African woven texture. "For me, sometimes my inspiration comes from odd places," he explained. "In this case, African history or spoken word, not just Pinterest."

For operators, before you develop any look and feel or brand, you need to consider your brand identity and define who you are.

Dean presented a slide with questions organized into categories: values, expression, and offering. He told attendees to scan them and notice which category felt hardest.

"The category that feels hardest to you is probably the greatest opportunity that you have."

This work leads to an output: a summary of who you are, which is a combination of your philosophy and your viewpoint, which equals your story. If you really do the work to understand what matters to you, what drives you, how you act, how you speak, how you look—your story will strengthen. You'll become stronger.

And that leads to the "we believe" statement.

The risk of actually being yourself

The "we believe" statement is an identity you can present within your workspace, whatever type of coworking you're creating.

For example: "We play this type of music in our space."

Or: "We believe the loneliness crisis is the greatest challenge of modern times, so we're going to focus on how to bring people together."

These beliefs come from doing the work. But that creates risk.

When you really, authentically explore who you are and start to have conviction around your "we believe" statements, you risk being ostracized. You risk people not liking you.

"Are you willing to be yourself and have some people not like you, so that you can attract the people that will ultimately love you?"

That rawness of who you are will create opposites and natural tension. It's a universal principle you can't escape.

Dean showed a ten-year-old image from when WeWork was launching a space in London. They had a grand plan and decided to paint rap lyrics on the wall in one of the corridors in the first building in London. It felt like something they would do. It represented who they were—their identity.

It wasn't necessarily something they felt the community would want, because they didn't know who the community was yet. They had to build that. So they started by displaying who they were first, risking that people wouldn't like it.

And some people didn't like it. But that was the whole point.

"You have to stand for something if you want to stand out."

How to present yourself: hook and format

Dean offered a practical framework for showing up as your brand identity. It works in two parts: establishing your hook and your format.

Your hook is a specific aspect of your identity that is the main connective glue binding people to your vision. For example, you might be creating a wellness-oriented workspace. That's your hook. Or this is a workspace specifically for single mothers or single fathers. Whatever the hook may be.

Your format is an operating procedure that allows you to express aspects of that hook authentically.

Dean gave an example from Old Sessions House. He showed a room—and yes, he apologized to Dani for not having people in the photo—designed as a conversation room.

The hook: an area with no TV where people could remove their shoes. Behind the sofa on the right side, there's actually a display for slippers, inspired by Japan where you can wear slippers in public forums. The furniture was selected to be quite low, and everything was oriented around conversation.

That was the hook—suggesting the utility of conversation. Then they established a protocol with graphics in the space telling people how to behave there. People abided by it. The room became successful.

"For you, it could be music, it could be wellness, it could be smell, it could be whatever," Dean said. "But the idea is it's more than a desk in order to help community form."

Do the work, then show up consistently

Dean wrapped up the conceptual framework quickly, acknowledging he was breezing through complex ideas and hoping questions would help unpack them.

The progression goes like this: Now you know who you are. Now you know who you serve because you've developed your viewpoint and story. Now you know how to show up.

The challenging part? How consistently can you show up, even when it's uncomfortable and doesn't happen right away?

You can develop and iterate your business and format over time. But remember this, something Dean said at an event in Boston earlier in the year: iteration leads to innovation, which equals—and he added this part—a work in progress.

It's all in search of moments.

The work underneath the work

Dean's presentation was about design strategy on the surface. But underneath, it was about the fragmented person underneath the professional persona—the poet, the musician, the philosopher asking questions that typically have no place in client meetings.

Every operator has that fragmented self underneath. The parts you think you need to hide to be taken seriously, to attract members, to sell desks.

Dean's framework asks you to stop hiding those parts. Not because it will necessarily make your space more successful in conventional terms, but because spaces created from authentic identity attract the right people and repel the wrong ones.

That natural tension—the risk that some people won't like you—is what creates real community instead of commodity coworking.

The tapestry principle means weaving all those threads together. Your African history inspiration or spoken word poetry, not just Pinterest. Your specific beliefs about what matters and how people should feel when they walk into your space.

It's harder than following the playbook. It requires doing the work to understand your values, your expression, your offering. It requires having conviction about your "we believe" statements even when they make you vulnerable to criticism.

But iteration leads to innovation, which equals a work in progress. And that work in progress, consistently pursued even when uncomfortable, creates the moments that make life—and community—worth experiencing.

Your life is a series of moments. So is your members' experience of your space. The question is whether you're willing to be present enough, authentic enough, vulnerable enough to create the conditions where those moments can actually happen.