IndyHall Member Profiles: Mike Nicholaides

Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, coworkers, In The News, Independents Hall

Today I got the chance to sit down with Mike Nicholaides, a full time member of the IndyHall family. Mike, like a number of other coworkers at IndyHall, spends his days crafting line after line of code.

“I developed an academic coaching application to help students working on their thesis stay motivated.”

Where were you while I was a full time student, semi-professional procrastinator, Mike?

Now, as an aspiring champion of logic, I thought that putting lots of coders into one space would create serious competition when it came time to find work. Mike assured me this simply isn’t the case.

“Intuitively you’d think this situation would create a lot of competition, but it’s not the case. It turns out that the people you meet are more likely to help you find a creative solution to your problem than to try and take your work.”

Like many inhabitants of the Hall, Mike sticks around because of the valuable connections he’s made since becoming a member.

“I knew after a few days I couldn’t go back to working at home. It’s really about the connections, these people who are expanding my view, my ability to do things.”

It’s not uncommon for people to take interest in Indy Hall initially because they see the potential to find collaborative work in the community. For some, it happens right away and other times, it takes awhile. In the end, they end up finding value in places they never sought it.

“I haven’t gotten any work yet through being here, even though that was the primary reason I came here. Even then, it’s been totally worth it.”

Really? No work yet? I didn’t buy it. Then Mike admitted,

“Well, Bula talked to me today about doing a mock up for an app he’s developing and Bill wants me to do some JavaScript for him.”

There, was that so hard?

Thanks for your time, Mike, it’s a pleasure having you as a member of IndyHall.

Looking forward to meeting Bula, Bill, and more? You will…just keep an eye on our bi-weekly newsletter (subscribe over on the left) or subscribe to this blog!


New Year = New Desk Arrangement at IndyHall

Filed under: Announcements, Independents Hall

3159435163_74bdb62593

For the last 8 months or so, we’ve had a layout on the main floor of the IndyHall workspace that somewhat segregated full time members from basic and lite/dropin desks. The full timers were all along the wall, while the loose desks were clustered around some structural poles.

This morning, to welcome the new year, we’ve arranged in a new layout that is designed to mix things up: full time desks and loose desks are now integrated and mixed up! We hope that this gives our less frequent members a chance to interact more with full time members, and vice versa. Can desk arrangements encourage collaboration? We think so at IndyHall!

Come join us and help with the experiment. Whether you’re already a member or not, use our reservation system to set aside a desk sometime this month and come hang out with the IndyHall coworking crew.

And Happy New Year!