As we enter 2021, we reflect on such a historical past year for many families, communities, and businesses. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, HanaHaus has remained closed since March 21st, 2020, but this adversity has opened up so many amazing opportunities for changes and innovation within our business. As the world around us adapted to the “new normal”, our team came together to make use of these times to expand our community beyond our space.
by Bryan Le
Going Digital - Virtual Events
When looking towards digitizing our event experience, we saw an opportunity to reach far beyond our space capacity. Our events were no longer limited to amount of space or to our specific locations. Within two months of closure, we had developed a system to host three to four virtual events every week featuring renowned speakers from all over the world. From April 2020 to November 2020, we hosted 20 virtual events and attracted more than 4000 attendees. Because of this digital transformation, our audience became global. Our mission was to continue to provide these events at no cost to inspire our audience through the voices of our speakers and unique topics. We ended the year with four event series: SAP Speaker Series, Cafe Scientifique, Design Bites, and Business Bites.
SAP Speaker Series - SAP Speaker Series is brought to you by SAP Labs Bay Area. We invite renowned leaders from all over the world to speak to our audience. We cover topics from design, venture capital, machine learning, AI, entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology.
Cafe Scientifique - Café Scientifique provides a forum for everyone to debate science issues outside of the traditional academic context. We are committed to promoting public engagement with no admission charge to attend so anyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology.
Stem Cell Therapies: What Works & What Doesn't
Design Bites - Design Bites is an engaging session covering various topics surrounding design-thinking. You do not need any previous knowledge to join this series. Just a healthy curiosity and a willingness to be nudged to action.
The COVID-19 Edition
About a Bot
Data Viz!
Business Bites - An original webinar series brought to you by HanaHaus in close collaboration with ON ITS AXIS. Enjoy 1-hour livestream episodes featuring renowned thought leaders and notable speakers from various industries.
Digital Optimization - Website Redesign
In addition to digitalizing our events, our team completely redesigned the HanaHaus website for a more seamless user experience. We saw the opportunity to temporarily put our website under maintenance because of our closure, and this gave us the flexibility we needed to accomplish our goal. We conducted user interviews, developed a website flow mockup, and gather data analytics. Within two months, our website had been completely redesigned with easier navigation and optimized search options.
Two Locations, One Team
Transition to Remote Work
When the pandemic began, HanaHaus main priority was to ensure that our staff was safe and to continue to employ everyone. We adjusted some roles to meet the new business requirements and keep everyone on board. We give a big thank you to SAP for making this possible. Our team transitioned to remote working for the coming months and soon saw a rise of work-from-home burnout in addition to isolation distress. Emphasizing clear boundaries between work and home became so important as well as making sure our team felt connected.
Prioritizing Well-Being & Connections
HanaHaus empowered our employees to take breaks away from the screen and made sure to keep our employees’ well-being top priority. In a way, the digital transformation of work brought our two teams from Palo Alto and Newport Beach closer than ever before. Instead of location-specific Happy Hour calls, we created joint Happy Hour calls where we got to meet, laugh, and connect with each other. As a team, we successfully ran digital campaigns to involve our friends and community as our workspace remained closed.
Tour de Cure
In the week of October 10, 2020, our team participated in the Tour de Cure: Building Things that Matter virtual fundraiser by American Diabetes Association. Each member of the HanaHaus team participated by setting a goal to either walk, run, or bike to spread awareness and raise money for life-saving research for those affected by diabetes. Each team member was encouraged to take time away from the computer to enjoy the outdoors for this amazing cause. This was a great virtual team bonding activity and we raised $385 with our communities and friends.
A Week of Thanks
With the changing culture of the future of work, it was undeniable that many of our customers reached out to see when we will reopen. We made a difficult decision in October to remain closed for the rest of 2020 to ensure the safety and well-being of our staff and customers. Since our closure, our friends and community continue to support us as we digitized our experiences. For the week of Thanksgiving, our team put together a Thank You video to our speakers, Blue Bottle Coffee Team, and community for all of their love and support for making the difficult decision.
Moving Forward to 2021
As we return from the holidays and welcome the new year, we have the same question, “when will we reopen"? As COVID-19 infections continue to rise, our workspace will remain closed to help stop the spread of the virus and give our healthcare workers the support that they need. Rest assured that HanaHaus is striving to create a reopening plan that prioritizes the safety of staff and customers through innovative changes and structure. Without a doubt, our coworking space is needed to help people and communities have a place to work as remote work become a normal structure. The year of 2020 may be over, but the lessons and opportunities will continue to push our team to improve HanaHaus. Every year will be a year of growth and we have big plans for 2021.
