IndyHall Turns Two Guys On Beer, Megaparty on September 1st
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Independents Hall, coworking
Mix
- Two Year birthday of our beloved Philadelphia coworking space
- The release of the 100 episode of the duo of beer guys that share their knowledge and tasting notes with you 5 days a week.
Stir in
- Our awesome community
- Free beer
- Great music
Thats right, it’s been TWO YEARS since we moved into the 32 Strawberry Street location, the first home, the first clubhouse, for IndyHall. Since then, we’ve accomplished so much together, not the least of which is growing to a size that demanded a new office almost 3 times the size of 32 Strawberry. We’re nearly 100 members strong, and that’s just the people who pay monthly memberships. Dozens more use desks, many while traveling to Philadelphia from all around the world. Our community is much larger, and we’re so proud of that. Our goal of putting Philly on the map for tech, creative, and independent workers is certainly being achieved every day.
It’s also been nearly a year and a half since the first episode of Two Guys on Beer went live on the internet. I wont link to it, because Johnny and Dave will kill me. Lets just say that they’ve become a LOT more comfortable behind the camera, and the show has matured substantially.
The show, not Johnny and Dave.
But I digress. The Two Guys on Beer show has matured and grown enough to gain recognition through the region, from the invited participation in Philly Beer Week, notable appearances at popular beer events, tastings, and tappings around the city, to the most recent announcement of the placement on Philly.com’s beer page! Every day, Two Guys becomes more of a fixture in the Philly beer scene, which is awesome because this is one RAD city to drink beer in!
These two milestones are so exciting, we couldn’t contain ourselves and decided to jam them together and celebrate all at once!
This is where it all begins. Join us at National Mechanics on Tuesday, September 1st. Festivities begin at 7pm.
RSVP now for updates and reminders.
What’s in store? Well, you can be sure of two things: there will be geeks, and there will be beer.
What else do you REALLY need?
We’ve got some more really fun stuff in the works that we’ll be announcing over the next couple of weeks leading up to the event, but now’s the time to RSVP.
And as always, on behalf of IndyHall and Two Guys on Beer, a HUGE thank you to our hosts National Mechanics. No other bar would let us get away with what you do, and we don’t think you’d have us any other way.
Sponsorship Opportunities
Our friends to the south, the Flying Dog Brewery, have agreed to help us out and are helping us get a selection of their beer for the night. We’re working out the details, but we’re still looking for some financial contributions to help make this party awesome.
Contact me (alex@indyhall.org) if you’re interested in sponsorship of this event, which includes the Two Guys on Beer show and it’s thousands of monthly viewers!
IndyHall & Mashable <3 Our Party Sponsors
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Events, Independents Hall, coworking
We’re just 2 weeks away from the big Mashable/IndyHall party!! As has been demonstrated in the past, social media and social lubrication go hand in hand and this event is no exception.
We’ve had great response already from a number of local companies interested in supporting the event to make sure that everyone can enjoy themselves. We kept the sponsorship levels approachable because we thought it was important to highlight as many local companies as possible during the event, and we’re really happy that our model fit so many companies.
Just a quick reminder about the details:
When, where, how?
Date: Friday, May 1st, 2009
Time: 8:00 pm Till Close (that’s 2:00 am for the out-of towners, or the non-party-goers)
Location: Cavanaugh’s River Deck, 417 N Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19123 (map)
Tickets: Open Admission, 21+ Only Please, but please register yourself on one of our Socialize Pages, so we know you’re coming
Socialize: Facebook , Meetup , Upcoming
And without further adieu, IndyHall’s first batch of “BarTabCamp” sponsors!
“Zivtech is an Open Source Web Development and Support shop. We love building robust and cutting edge online applications (mostly using the Content Management System Drupal), creating and empowering communities, and working within and taking part in the Open Source Software movement.”
Bloblive’s are open mic notes for business ideas. Check out bloblive.com for a schedule of events and join us for an evening of offline crowdsourcing, and invaluable networking. Bloblive is the offline component of ideablob.com, our interactive marketplace where one idea each month wins $10,000.
With an intuitive interface and design, Newsberry makes it easy to create, send and track email campaigns. Their focus on segmentation and targeting allows you to send relevant emails to only those subscribers who are interested, maximizing the results of each campaign. Newsberry offers affordable monthly and pay-as-you-go plans.
Duck Duck Go is a new search engine with less garbage and better results. There are a lot of things it does differently in order to get you what you want faster and with less mental effort. For example, Duck Duck Go has “zero click information” in the form of topic summaries and related topics to explore. It labels official sites. It has simpler links, using titles and descriptions that actually make sense. Duck Duck Go also omits all those spam pages you’re always coming across. And much more–try it!
Beanstalk allows web designers and developers to store source code, track changes, and collaborate with their team. Never worry about overwriting code or managing backups again, it happens automatically. With Beanstalk’s FTP deployment tools, you can even deploy to your web server in one-click.
LTLprints is an e-commerce company selling “larger than life” (up to 7 feet tall by 4.5 feet wide) customized and self-adhesive artwork. Designs are printed on a tear resistant, easy to install, removable cloth material that can be used in almost any environment or flat surface. Customers can buy ready-made designs from the online catalog, create unique prints by uploading their own pictures, or sell their own designs in the online catalog at LTLprints.com. LTLprints is also an ideal platform for designers with unique digital content allowing them to sell their own artwork to the community.
“Poptent is connecting independent and freelance creative commercial videographers with companies who need affordable branded content.”
OurShelf is a web-based platform to catalog your personal goods, and does this within a social environment. You can borrow, lend, and track your personal goods as well as socially shop or find the next hot item you’re interested in. Sign up for the early preview beta by sending an email to beta@rshelf.com or sending a DM to us on twitter (@ourshelf). Your Stuff, OurShelf
With Jimdo, you don’t need to know HTML or CSS to create a website and keep it up-to-date. In just a few minutes, you can build a personalized, professional-looking site. With powerful customization options, it’s easy as pie but NOT cookie-cutter. Whether you need a personal or business site, creating your 1st site or your 100th, Jimdo makes websites simple, accessible, and intuitive. Create a website on Jimdo for free or get your own domain and email with JimdoPro.
Laan Labs makes cool stuff for all of your favorite toys: iPhone and Android phone apps, web and desktop applications, and useful webservices for other developers. We don’t just make stuff for ourselves, we’re are available as hired guns as well. Read more about what we’ve made at labs.laan.com.
And finally, we can’t forget Mashable’s sponsor, 
, DUB “gives you a simple, smart way to exchange contact information from your mobile phone. The contact data loads directly to your existing mobile address book and updates automatically whenever your contact changes their information (phone, email, address, etc.). Create your mobile business card at www.dubmenow.com”
Wanna be a sponsor?
We’re still accepting two levels of sponsorship, $250 and $500, to go towards making sure this party is epic and the tab is kept open. Our prices are designed for local startups to be able to participate and get some great exposure, not just at the event, but on all of the event promotion properties.
At both levels, you’re listed as an event sponsor with your company name, logo, description, and link. Where does that go?
- Here (indyhall.org)
- Mashable.com
- Facebook, Upcoming, and meetup event promotion pages
Additionally, all sponsors will have their logos on our giant sponsor wall at the event thanks to LTLPrints. $250 sponsors will have a 12″ wide logo, and $500 sponsors will have a 24″ wide logo. Want to sponsor even more? Drop us a line and we’ll sort something out and make sure it’s worth your while.
If you’re interested in being a sponsor, contact us for more information!
Desk Building Party – THIS Saturday from 6-8pm
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Events, Independents Hall
Picture from Bart Mroz's Flickr
IndyHall isn’t about the desks. But it sure works better with them.
Yesterday, we coordinated with a 8 or so of our members to pick up a new batch of desks for IndyHall from Ikea. The next logical step is to put them together!
From 6-8pm on Saturday, April 18th, we’ll be gathering at IndyHall 2.0 at 22 North 3rd Street (street view in google maps). This event is BYOD! That’s Bring Your Own Drill. We’ve got 25 desks to build and teams of 2 are ideal for building these desks. There’s plenty to do for non-drill-holders, but the more drills the better. How many times did I say drill in this paragraph?
When we’re done, we’ll head right around the corner to Sugar Mom’s to celebrate Jess Victor’s birthday. If you’ve ever come to IndyHall for Cupcake Thursdays and enjoyed yourself, you should join us, as Jess is one of the trio behind OpenSourceCupcakes. Even if you’ve never had their cupcakes (which is your problem, not mine), you should still come out and have a good time with us.
All members, new and old, are encouraged to come and hang out together. Not a member but want to hang out too? OF COURSE you’re welcome! The more the merrier.
There’s a dirty rumor that Geoff DiMasi might even make an appearance at the desk building party. The only way to find out if he does is to be there. I don’t know about you, but that’s enough reason for me.
If you can’t make it, that’s OK too. We’ll have a painting party in the next week, and plenty of other opportunities to chip in and hang out.
IMPORTANT: How do I to enter the building at 22 North 3rd?
We don’t have the keypad directory at the front door hooked up just yet, so you can call or text message the IndyHall number (215) 586-3909 when you arrive and someone will come down to let you in.
If you’re confident you will be there, let us know in the comments or send us an email so we can look out for you!
Mashable + IndyHall v2.0 = MASSIVE Philly Party, you’re invited!
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Events, Independents Hall
It’s springtime. That means it’s time to party. And we are TOTALLY stoked to be celebrating in 2009. The world isn’t perfect, but we sure have a lot to celebrate. In just a few weeks, we’ll be joining forces with Mashable to throw one of the best parties we’ve ever had.
Mashable.com, for those of you who aren’t familiar, was voted into the Top 25 best blogs of 2009 by Time Magazine and focuses on social networking, social media, and the ever elusive “web two point oh!”. I’ve had the pleasure of writing for Mashable a couple of times, not the least of which was an article I wrote about the Top 6 Reasons to Start Coworking.
Mashable’s made a name for themselves not just online, but offline, hosting parties and events all over the country. On Friday, May 1st, Mashable is coming to Philadelphia for the first time. They contacted us to partner with their events team on a Mashable Mixer Philly, which we are working together on to organize, promote, and of course the Mashable team will be attending! Their NYC-based team includes: Adam Ostrow (Editor-in-Chief), Sharon Feder (Features Editor), Adam Hirsch (Chief Operations Officer), Brett Petersel (East Coast Events Director).
It gets even better. May 1st marks the our move-in date for the new IndyHall offices on 20 North 3rd Street, and we’re using this opportunity to blow the doors off and celebrate the growth of our community, many of whom are almost as big Mashable fans as they are IndyHall fans. We’ve all worked hard and come together to make Philadelphia a better place to do the things we love. Craptastic economy be damned, our community is thriving. And most importantly, we’re having the time of our lives doing it. That, my friends, is worth celebrating.
This time, we’re trying a new venue: Cavanaugh’s Riverdeck is an awesome, open venue on Delaware Ave, just a few minutes from Old City. We picked this location for size, the possibility of an outdoor venue in the springtime, and a chance to work with a new venue. Also, we know that lots of people will want to come in from out of town, and we thought that parking in that area would probably be easier than Old City on a Friday night.
Who’s Invited?
This event is open to the entire community. You don’t need to be an IndyHall member or a Mashable reader. You just need to be a friendly face who wants to hang out with a rad group of geeks, throw back some drinks, and enjoy each others’ company!
When, where, how?
Date: Friday, May 1st, 2009
Time: 8:00 pm Till Close (that’s 2:00 am for the out-of towners, or the non-party-goers)
Location: Cavanaugh’s River Deck, 417 N Columbus Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19123 (map)
Tickets: Open Admission, 21+ Only Please, but please register yourself on one of our Socialize Pages, so we know you’re coming
Socialize: Facebook , Meetup , Upcoming
Why?: Mashable is in town for the first time, IndyHall is growing like a teenager on miracle grow, $5 drink specials (or better…see below) and it’s a Friday night!
SPONSORS!
Mashable’s sponsor, DUB, “gives you a simple, smart way to exchange contact information from your mobile phone. The contact data loads directly to your existing mobile address book and updates automatically whenever your contact changes their information (phone, email, address, etc.). Create your mobile business card at www.dubmenow.com”
Want to be a sponsor?
IndyHall is looking for a few good sponsors as well. While Cav’s Riverdeck has given us a good deal on drinks, we’d like for our guests to simply come and enjoy themselves. If you’ve been to one of our events in the past, you know that we really make sure that everyone is having the best time they can, and if your company or brand would like to be a part of that, we’d love to have you on board. We’re looking to bring on a few sponsors at $250-500 each to help with the drink tab. All sponsors names, descriptions, and logos will be posted and linked to on all of the event promotion properties (including this site and Mashable.com), as well as being provided signage at the event.
Take a look at our awesome sponsor wall from our Birthday Party in August:
For interest in sponsorship, contact us ASAP!
We can’t wait to show Mashable what Philly is made of, for our new office, and for so many more announcements coming soon!
Halloween Costume Contest
Filed under: Events, Independents Hall
We announced our Halloween party with Tattooed Mom a couple of weeks ago, and since, have been musing about what makes OUR party different (besides the obvious, built in awesomeness).
We’ve partnered with Geekadelphia for a costume contest, and it’s a costume contest for the geeks by the geeks. As requested, we wanted this to be the party for you to wear the costumes that you were worried about wearing out – not because they were particularly embarrassing – but because you thought your non-geeky friends might not get it. Well, we appreciate your sense of humor and creativity, so we’re supporting that with the following costume categories:
- Fan favorite (crowd voted)
- Internet celebrity
- Best hero
- Best villain
- Most obscure
- And one “top secret” category…even if you’re not trying to win, this one might be your chance!
There’s a week and a half left until the party (including a weekend) so that’s plenty of time to finish up your costume, change your mind once or twice, or rush off to the costume store.
What are you waiting for? Get going!
IndyHall-oween ’08 @ Tatooed Mom on South Street
Filed under: Announcements, Events, In The News, Independents Hall, Kudos, coworking
International “it’s OK to dress like a freak” day is coming soon: Halloween is in just a few weeks! Via twitter, I saw someone Ben Kessler mention that they’d like to have a geeky party to wear their obscure geek-culture referenced costume to and not be laughed at. Becky Clawson and I chatted about it outside of our usual haunt last week, and we brainstormed around trying out a new spot. That’s when we reached out to Robert Perry, co-owner of Tattooed Mom on South Street, with an idea.
Robert’s been pretty active in the philly geek scene, and is a bit of a self-proclaimed geek himself. He’s running one of our favorite small business twitter accounts, and has come to events including the August “Tweetup” and one of the P’unk Ave Junto‘s in the past.
Last night, Robert and I solidified plans to invite the Philly creative/geek scene to Tattooed Moms on Thursday, October 30th (the night before Halloween). We plan on starting at 9pm and going as late as they’ll have us. Drinks are always cheap at Mom’s, and Thursday night is their $1.50 Pabst 16oz cans & $1 Lionshead bottles til midnight.
The only logical name for this event? “IndyHalloween ’08!”
Over the next couple of weeks we’re going to reach out to some other folks in the community to come up with some fun games/contests for during the party. In the mean time: mark your calendars for Thursday, October 30th at 9pm, and get working on your geeky costumes now!
Please RSVP on Facebook so we have an idea of how many to expect!
Sponsorship is back open!
Filed under: Community Support, Events, Independents Hall
WOW! We’re so impressed. We know we set the bar high with our goal, but we’re still really happy to report that the sponsorship drive for the IndyHall birthday party has gone really well. To date, we’ve raised over $6000 (40% of our lofty goal), but that gives us a great night of food and drinks ahead of us!
But it’s not over!
Our ChipIn widget shut off this morning due to the deadline we had for logos being printed, however, by request we’ve opened it back up! We’ll continue accepting your contributions up until the party begins at 6pm on Sunday night, and remember, every little bit helps the night go on, and on, and on!! Unfortunately, the shirts and decals are already at the printer, so we can’t add to that, but you’re contributions will get you a mention/link on the site, as well as a HUGE shout out at the birthday party!
And don’t forget, the $10,000 sponsorship opportunity that will result in me getting the IndyHall logo as a tattoo and Geoff shaving his head is still open 
.
Strands kicks in – more people powered partying!
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Events, Independents Hall
We’re excited to announce that Strands, a people-powered discovery engine, has stepped up with our largest sponsorship so far of $3000, more than doubling our party funds!
Long time east coast tech supporter and lover of all things Philly, Drew Olanoff, recently began working with them as a community evanglist and came to us interested in working togther with Strands for our birthday party event.
Join us Saturday Night at IndyHall “StrandUp”!
In addition to participating in our party on Sunday night as a large-scale sponsor, Strands will be hosting a pre-party “StrandUp” event at IndyHall on Saturday night, from 6:30 to 7:30pm.
We’re expecting lots of people on Sunday Night, many of whom are around for the whole weekend.
After the first successful Strandup during Gomedex 8 in Seattle this past weekend, Drew is bringing the event to Philly as a mixer-style pre-party hangout. EVERYONE is invited! You don’t have to be an IndyHall member, you don’t even have to be a geek! Just come and hang out with the IndyHall/Philly crew. This is a great chance for our out-of-town guests to get acquainted. This is also a great chance to see IndyHall if you (somehow) haven’t yet!
There’s no strings attached. Only Strands! (sorry, I know that was bad).
We’ll bring the snacks (EPIC NOMS), all you need to do is bring your personality and interest in meeting a bunch of people and breaking out of the techie echo-chamber!
