IndyHall 201: Communities of Trust
Filed under: FAQs, Independents Hall, IndyHall 201, Kudos, Movies, Videos, coworking
We’re back with another IndyHall 201 video. This time, we’re talking about the importance of establishing trust as an important community value in your coworking space.
A few weeks back, I gave a professional development seminar at the Comcast Interactive Media group, and this topic came up indirectly. The question was asked, “what makes a coworking space such a hotbed of innovation?” While the diversity of talent is certainly one of the aspects, even diversity provides little value without a network of trusted between the talent that works together.
Proximity helps too, but the most important thing you can do is lead by example. More on that topic coming up soon.
In the mean time, enjoy our video on building communities of trust!
Blood Drive Success!
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Independents Hall, Movies
The blood drive that we helped coordinate with National Mechanics and The American Red Cross earlier this week was a HUGE success. We blew our goal of 40 donors out of the water by 25%: we ended up with over 50 donors by the end of the day! That’s more than double last year’s drive.
The event wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the help of National Mechanics, The Red Cross, all of you…and a very special thank you to Reed Gustow for really carrying the torch on this event and helping us coordinate with the Red Cross. Reed also put together a great video talking to myself, Jason Hill from National Mechanics, and a number of the donors. Give it a watch, and again, many thanks to everybody!
IndyHall 201: The Iterative Process
Filed under: FAQs, Independents Hall, IndyHall 201, Kudos, Movies, Videos, coworking
A couple of weeks back, we posted a rather long “FAQs” style video that Geoff and I shot while in Austin for SXSW. We’ve gotten quite a bit of positive feedback from that post, so we’re glad to continue that effort.
Only this time, we’re not asking you for nearly an hour of your time. We’re going to keep these under 10 minutes.
We’ve started a series that we’ll call “IndyHall 201″ for the time being. These are some of the things that we consider important fundamentals, but are a little bit higher level than the usual line of questioning we get, hence the “201″ class level. Get it? Good. Moving on.
One of the first topics we wanted to cover was one that we take for granted, but people outside of the software world don’t necessarily have exposure to:“The Iterative Process”. In this video, Geoff and I spend a few minutes talking about Agile as a software development methodology, as well as decision making skills that we’ve employed along the way while developing IndyHall.
A whole lot of digging into localized trends happens on the Coworking google group, usually to appease an investor.
One of my favorite quotes is from Josh Kopelman (Philly/SF Venture Capitalist, founder of Half.com):
“I’d much rather fund an entrepreneur that can adapt to change than someone who claims they can predict the future.”
http://twitter.com/alexknowshtml/statuses/783133234
Rather than asking what our (or any coworking space’s) membership, growth, square footage, expense numbers look like, why not ask what things we attribute to changes in our numbers, and how we operate around those changes?
Nobody ever asks us those questions.
The answers to those questions are the ones that provide insight into how to iterate, and grow your coworking space and community, without trying to predict the future. They’re going to make you a stronger entrepreneur, and a happier person in general. How’s that for Kool-aide.
We hope you enjoy this installment, and be on the lookout for more to come! Feel free to post questions here or in the video time line.
Coworking 201: The Iterative Process
SXSW, Coworking, And A Video about some Frequently Asked Questions
Filed under: FAQs, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, Movies, coworking
Geoff and I got back at the end of last week from SXSW Interactive, where thousands of geeks from around the world converged to discuss topics of design, technology, business, community, marketing, social media, etc.
Not only did we attend, but we were presenters: I ran a core conversation that was not only well attended, but included representation from around the world and from all different walks of coworking life. Additionally, Geoff was on a panel about “Building Regional Whuffie” and attracting innovation to your city with some other coworking space founders: Susan Evans from Office Nomads in Seattle, Julie Duryea from Souk in Portland, Matthew Wettergreen from Caroline Collective in Houston, and moderation by Tony Bacigalupo from New Work City in Manhattan.
Furthermore, the now annual Coworking meetup at the Hotel San Jose organized by Julie Gomoll from Launchpad Coworking once again fused the global coworking community for an evening of drinks and conversation, hugs and inspirations. It’s one of my favorite evenings of the year, as it seems like the Coworking Google Group descends on Austin Texas and we all get to share meatspace for a few hours.
And finally, but certainly not to be overlooked, was the first time we got to visit Conjunctured, Austin’s first coworking space that opened up shortly after it’s founders spent time discussing their concerns and hesitations with Geoff at last year’s SXSW Interactive. They’ve done a phenomenal job, and it was really great to attend a “Jelly Talk” in their coworking space. It was also great to finally meet Amit Gupta in the flesh. After many near brushes with each other over the last 2 years (and plenty of conversations online and on the phone), we finally got to shake hands.
I’m sure I’m leaving out some coworking highlights (like high fives with the crew from Beehive Baltimore, brilliant chats with our coworking friends in Paris, and being called a “Paragon”), but they aren’t the point of this post anyway.
Last year seemed to be a breakout year for Coworking in regards to SXSW as a focal point. Through the year, Tony B and myself had a number of calls with Hugh Forrest, the main organizer of SXSW Interactive about the conference’s influence on Coworking, and the potential for coworking’s influence on the conference. Hugh remains supportive, though I understand where he’s stretched thin. More on that later.
Geoff and I began to notice that this year, Coworking had certainly matured. The number of spaces has increased. Many are beginning to stabilize, and communities are really beginning to galvanize and do great things for their local communities. Those are the spaces that are at the same or similar levels of evolution to IndyHall, and continuing to exchange and dialogue with those communities excites us.
But as the movement continues to grow, the same basic questions continue to be asked by new groups entering into the fold. This isn’t a bad thing by any stretch, but it’s not sustainable for us to keep answering the same questions over and over (or anyone, for that matter).
We’re in the process of formalizing some of our thoughts and processes, but in the mean time, wanted to share some of our content with the coworking world.
We took an afternoon and sat down at the Hotel Saint Cecelia and propped up my Flip cam, and produced a 50 minute video answering 15+ of the questions we get asked the most about IndyHall and coworking. Despite some noisy conditions (produced by an unexpected landscaping crew), the video turned out well and we’re excited to share it.
We just posted that video live at a new page on the IndyHall website, specially designed for this new venture. Our number one goal here is to allow us to point people to this website (and we encourage others to do the same) when these questions get asked. This will free us up to continue evolving IndyHall, and working with other coworking communities who are evolving past the fundamentals as well.
We’ve licensed the video Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-alike to encourage people to take this content and reproduce and republish it in the ways that they see valuable, so long as attribution remains. You can even download the original .mov source if you like.
This is the first (and the longest) of the installments that we’ve created and will continue to create. If you have specific topics that you’d like to see us cover, leave a comment here or tweet the question to us (I’m @alexknowshtml on Twitter, Geoff is @geoffd) and we’ll be sure to cover it in a future episode.
Oh, and to tie this all back to SXSW, we’ve got some ideas on how coworking principals can help SXSW continue to grow without consuming itself. Would anybody be interested in hearing an episode covering that topic?
Lucky 13 – An Independent Exposure Screening
Filed under: Events, Independents Hall, Movies
Independent Exposure is an international independent film curatorial program. Each year hundreds of international artists submit short films to be judged and put into one of a few programs Independent Exposure puts out. The films are shown in alternative venues through out the world. IndyHall is a new stop for these incredible films! We will be showing “Lucky 13″. In honor of their 13th anniversary. This program features 19 short films with a total run time of 66 minutes. A list of the films and more information can be found at http://www.independentexposure.com
We will of course have cupcakes, but we encourage snack/drink donations!
All are invited but we do have limited room so please RSVP on Upcoming or Facebook.
