Guest Post by Dave Troy of Beehive Baltimore Coworking
Filed under: Community Support, Education/Workshops, Events, coworking
On January 22nd, a delegation from Beehive Baltimore visited IndyHall — a trip we called “A Tale of Two Cities.” Baltimore and Philadelphia share many common characteristics: an amazing, eclectic workforce and arts community, a prominent position in the east coast corridor, and also many of the problems that plague many of our urban areas.
The idea for the trip came after I visited with Alex back in October and I wished I could “bottle” the energy and ideas behind IndyHall to share with my peers in Baltimore. Of course, I had already done this in one way; in 2008 my chance meeting of Alex Hillman at a wedding of a mutual friend is what led directly to the creation of Beehive Baltimore, our coworking community in Baltimore.
But I wanted to do more: to connect the members of our coworking community directly with like-minds in Philadelphia, to inoculate them with the knowledge that our two communities are linked by common values and also to raise the idea that coworking is a very powerful seed for urban renewal and economic growth. The founders of Beehive share something very important in common with Geoff and Alex: we want to change our cities for the better, and not just a little bit.
At first the trip was going to be a small carpool affair with 8-10 people. Pretty soon it turned into a bus trip with over 30 people registered. When we showed up on the doorstep at IndyHall, Alex and Geoff were a little surprised at the size of the crowd. But here’s the thing: show people a better way, a path forward that has room for hope in it, and people will rush to understand and be a part of it.
Our delegation was eager to learn what made the IndyHall community tick, and to compare notes from experiences in Baltimore. Some were our regular members, others were members of our community that want to drive change here. While we arguably gained a lot from a generous Q&A with Geoff and Alex, the real fun came in the Show & Tell and the extended lunch at National Mechanics. Many good new connections were made between the Baltimore and Philadelphia communities.
But, perhaps most importantly, the trip did one thing: show that we’re here for one another. Philadelphia and Baltimore both face staggering challenges in the years ahead. I, for one, am comforted by the knowledge that there are likeminded souls in a nearby city who will be working to understand these challenges alongside us, and I hope you feel the same way. We invite you to make a similar trip here to Baltimore sometime soon. Thanks for sharing with us. We all truly appreciate it and will be looking for ways to keep our communities growing together.
IgnitePhilly is TONIGHT!
Filed under: Announcements, Education/Workshops, Events
I know that not everybody is tuned in to the same channels for news and events, and while it’s been on the IndyHall Calendar, IgnitePhilly doesn’t have much description or meaning to lots of the newer folks.
Tonight is the 4th IgnitePhilly, an event co-organized by a number of awesome community members (including our own Geoff DiMasi).
What is Ignite? It’s a fast paced presentation format. In Philly, it’s REALLY fast. Rock show fast. Ignite takes over Johnny Brenda’s at Front and Gerard and have presenters from all corners of Philadelphia’s most exciting projects and gives them 5 minutes to share something special…without self-promoting.
5 minutes and 20 slides later, your mind has been blown. Go grab yourself another beer. There’s another presentation coming up.
I’m a huge fan of the quote from Brian James Kirk:
“Perhaps the most interesting thing about the evening was that these important players in Philly’s advancing creative communities didn’t get on stage to show off their resume and reel. They used the forum to talk about what others are doing to make a difference…The fundamental takeaway from IgnitePhilly is that that the ability to change the world is more real than ever.”
If you’ve never attended an Ignite, I highly encourage you to make it tonight. Presentations start at 8 but doors are at 7, and you REALLY need to get there early. We’ve sold out a 300+ person room every single time this has happened.
If you want to lock down your spot, there are still some $5 pre-sale tickets available.
All proceeds are going to the Philadelphia Food Trust, so Ignite doesn’t make a dime. Ignite has already raised over $500 in ticket pre-sales so far.
I hope to see lots of new faces tonight, the presenters list is full of some of the smartest people I’ve met, and plenty I can’t wait to meet.
IndyHall joins the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours for their 10th year
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, Events, Independents Hall
Philadelphia Open Studio Tours allows visitors to “Follow Art to the Source” by organizing & promoting artists (and now Indies) to open their spaces, show, and sell their work in a unique setting – their own. POST, now celebrating it’s 10th year as the largest annual tour of artist studios in Philadelphia features hundreds of artists during the first two weekends in October:
- East of Broad October 3-4
- West of Broad October 10-11.
This year, Indy Hall is participating in POST, a grassroots city wide event, as a Community Partner defined as “a way to build coalitions between professional artists, local businesses, community institutions, and arts organizations”. During the first weekend of October Indy Hall will showcase it’s space for the Artistic Community of Philadelphia, while introducing the Indy Community to fellow creatives and their colleagues.
A few ideas instantly came to mind, such as using the Front Conference room as a portfolio / gallery space, and potentially having workshops or demos in different areas of the Hall, but this is your time to shine. Bring us your best ideas for utilizing the space. Think of it as a Show and Tell on a larger scale. This is an open call for participation. Show us what you’ve got.
This is also an opportunity for people that can’t otherwise come to Indy Hall during the week to see the new space we moved into in May It’s an opportunity for you to show your friends & family what you do and where you do it. It is also a great opportunity to form professional relationships & possible collaborations with artists, creatives, and the people who support them. All kinds of people go on the tours, and this is a great way to reach out beyond the artistic community as well.
So come hang out for the first weekend of POST. It’s pretty much a guaranteed good time, with an excellent group of people, and of course snacks and beer, but that goes without saying. As an added bonus – Indy Hall is offering a Free Day Pass for October 3-4, just reserve your spot using the online reservation form to guarantee your space for the weekend.
IndyHall Welcomes Scott Bellware’s TDD and Web Testing Workshops, June 2nd and 3rd
Filed under: Announcements, Education/Workshops, Events, From the Business Side, Independents Hall, IndyHall U
If you’ve set foot in IndyHall over the last 2 years, you have likely noticed an abundance of Apple computers. That’s not because we’re Mac exclusive, it’s just what most of the members had chosen. Some months back, our local Microsoft evangelist (and IndyHall member) Dani Diaz asked when IndyHall Labs would be doing any Windows ports of our apps. I told him “when windows developers started hanging out at IndyHall!”
I got a chance to do something proactive about the lack of MS Platform developers at IndyHall when another of our new basic members (and a long time colleague of mine) Brian Donahue tweeted about a potential Alt.Net class coming up that would be looking for space, being put on by prominent Alt.Net developer Scott Bellware.
I’m happy to announce that we’ll be hosting two of Scott’s popular classes during the first week of June: “Good Test, Better Code” and “Web Application Testing with Selenium and RSpec for Developers, Testers, and Teams”.
Both workshops are single-day, high-impact workshops geared to creating a maximum amount of learning with a minimum time away from work. They will be hosted at our 32 Strawberry Street location, “IndyHall Classic”.
Each workshop is $300. Folks attending both workshops receive a $50 discount on each!
Good Test, Better Code
On June 2nd Scott will be be teaching “Good Test, Better Code”, a workshop about test-driven and behavior-driven development and design in .NET taught in the context of Lean and agile development and developer productivity.
Web Application Testing with Selenium and RSpec for Developers, Testers, and Teams
On June 3nd Scott will be teaching “Web Application Testing with Selenium and RSpec for Developers, Testers, and Teams”. This workshop introduces developers and testers to using context specification style TDD for web applications. The basics of Lean software development are taught, showing how to use web application testing and specification to work to drive teamwork, development, and communication.
These workshops do have a limited capacity, so I encourage you to register soon! And thanks to Scott and Brian for a chance to get the IndyHall community and the Alt.Net communities working together!
Important! – Membership Drive for Monday March 9th: IndyHall v2.0
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, From the Business Side, Independents Hall
As you may have heard by now, we’re considering moving IndyHall into a new, larger office on the other side of Market Street, 20-22 N. 3rd St and will be discovering some alternative uses for the community better suited for the space we will continue to occupy at 32 Strawberry Street.
Geoff and I called a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, and had lots of positive response.
If you haven’t seen yet, some of those responses are posted online:
http://www.indyhall.org/2009/03/04/the-state-of-indyhall-march-3rd-2009/
http://technicallyphilly.com/news/indy-hall-to-expand-add-educational-element/
http://www.imouttaherethebook.com/2009/03/big-changes-coming-indyhall-raises-the-bar-again/
Now What?
What we need now is commitment from the community that we embrace, encourage, empower, and completely love.
Much like the membership drive we held in August of 2007 to open 32 Strawberry Street, we’re looking for member commitment to help us verify the sustainability of a move into this new office.
We’re turning to three core audiences:
- Our Current Membership
- Our Waiting List
- The Extended IndyHall Community
We’ve already contacted our current membership, and are working with our waiting list to manage upgrades and new members that have been waiting patiently for news about our expansion.
We’re looking to the phenomenal community of businesses, entrepreneurs, creatives, freelancers, startups, telecommuters and remote workers in Philadelphia, the people we consider the extended IndyHall Community, for their interest as well.
Open Membership
In fact, membership is re-opening at all levels immediately, and will become active on May 1st.
Now, what we need from you.
We’re looking for folks who haven’t had a chance to come meet the IndyHall community and experience our work environment now. If you’ve never worked at IndyHall, we’re certain that working here for a day will help you determine if this alternative office is the right thing for you. Normally, its $25/day for non-members to work here. For a limited time, we’ll be offering free dropin days for visitors who sign up for multiple months at any level of membership.
Space is limited, so you must reserve a desk in order to take advantage of this offer. You can contact us for information on how to make a reservation.
Not familiar with how IndyHall works? This website is admittedly outdated and needs a refresh. Our bad. More on that coming.
In the mean time, Full Time IndyHall member Jonny Goldstein put together this excellent video to explain who we are, what we do, and how it works.
Please don’t hurt yourselves
What we’re NOT looking for is for you to overextend yourself. Our decision is based on how sustainable this move is, so if your upgraded membership is not sustainable, it’s misrepresentative of the entire goal.
At the same time, if you have the ability to pre-pay for any number of months beyond the usual month-to-month commitment we offer to IndyHall, that will also help us plan for this move and have some cash in the bank to work with. While we haven’t decided to raise our membership rates, if you have the ability to pay ahead, we’ll honor that rate for the duration of your pre-payment.
Whatever upgrades we’re taking will go into effect on May 1st, which is our proposed move-in day for the new office.
Deadlines. Comin’ up fast.
This is going to happen very, very quickly:
Geoff and I are going to be making our decisions based on how many commitments are made between now and End of Day on Monday, March 9th.
Yes. That’s this upcoming Monday.
Finally, and maybe most importantly: you are our front lines recruiters. Nearly everyone who works at IndyHall was referred by somebody other than myself, which is what makes this community so strong. If you have friends, colleagues, business partners, etc that you think would benefit from working at IndyHall, let them know that we’re looking for new members to join our community. Encourage them to come work at IndyHall soon for a day and see if they like it. If you’ve got questions about how to go about this, please drop us a line. Share Jonny’s video above. Let them know about the free drop in days (and that they have to reserve!).
Thanks for enduring this lengthy post, and for your ongoing support of IndyHall. If you have questions, or simply want to let us know what you’d like to do, our door is open and so is our inbox.
Thank you so, so much. This is so much excitement, we don’t know what to do with ourselves.
Night Shift Begins Wednesdays!
Filed under: Announcements, Community Support, From the Business Side, Independents Hall
Uploaded by PhillyPenn on 15 May 08, 10.12PM EST.
A couple of weeks ago we announced our plans to introduce Night Shifts at IndyHall. Starting this week, February 11th, we’ll be begin night-shift coworking. This is a trial run, starting with a single night per week. Based on feedback from these initial sessions, we’ll add more shifts, and possibly a weekend slot as well. But to make things easy on everyone, we’re allowing people to pre-purchase night-shift passes in blocks of 5.
Here’s how it will work:
Night shifts are available for $15/session for non-members, and only in blocks of 5. A night shift card can be purchased for $75 that will be punched/initialed by the member-on-duty when you arrive.
If you’re already a basic member, night shifts are reduced to $10/session. Your existing $25/month membership still gets you all of the usual goodies (a free drop-in day, discount a-la carte dropin days, and access to our member hub) as well. A night-shift card can be purchased for $50 that will be punched/initialed by the member-on-duty when you arrive.
Sessions will run from 6-10pm (potentially later if the member-on-duty is staying later themselves). Thanks to Jason Allum and David Martorana for volunteering to be our first pair of night shift leaders. Be nice to them.
We’re going to start by offering Wednesday nights, and pending feedback and use, add additional evenings.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? You know the drill! Leave ‘em below.
We’ll be adding a page about this to the “pricing” page shortly. Gosh, that page needs a refresh. This whole site needs a refresh…
-Alex & Geoff
Cream Cheese Session 7/8 – Milkboy Cafe in Ardmore
Filed under: Announcements, Events, Independents Hall
Tomorrow, Tuesday 7/8, our faithful cream cheese leaders Jason Tremblay and Lauren Galanter have organized a casual coworking session at Milkboy Cafe. This is a new venue for us, so we’re hoping to get some folks from out in the ‘burbs to join.
If you’re coming from the city, Milkboy is just a block away from the Ardmore station on Septa’s R5 Regional Rail line Check Schedule on iSepta.
From Love Comes Paine – Buy Tickets to Paine’s World at IndyHall
Filed under: Community Support, Events, In The News, Kudos, Library, coworking
This Saturday will be a celebration of a new movement, and as you all know, we’re big supporters of movement in Philadelphia.
As part of an initiative to re-inspire the skate movement after skating in Love Park was banned six years ago, the Paines Park Project is working to rally support for an important part of the urban culture that has since dissipated to other cities. Paine’s Park is planned to be not just a skate park, but a skate environment. An environment that can, much like IndyHall has become for us, become an icon for a community.
We’re huge supporters of projects that help retain talent across industries and cultures. This opportunity is no exception.
So join us, along with artists, performers, and a number of other iconic brands from the Philadelphia area including Space 1026, Nocturnal Skate Shop, Urban Outfitters, Tastykake, and Johnny’s favorite: Pabst. Along with food and beer, there will be live performances from musicians and skate professionals at the Urban Outfitters Navy Yard HQ.
This is a 21+ event (we’re checking IDs to purchase, and they’ll be checking at the gate as well) to support Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund in its mission to build the 2.5 acre skatepark in Center City Philadelphia. Transportation options will be available, details are on the website.
You can buy tickets at a number of locations around the city. They’re $22 online, or $20 if you come to IndyHall and pick them up. They are also available at Red Tettemer, Urban Outfitters in University City and Center City, and Nocturnal Skate Shop.
See everyone Saturday, Skate on!
Pre-Ignite Cream Cheese Session
Filed under: Community Support, Events
Leading up to Ignite, there will be a special Cream Cheese session (our own version of the Jelly coworking event) at Euphoria Cafe, 3 blocks from Johnny Brenda’s, led by Jason Tremblay and Lauren Galanter. Swing by to casually cowork and co-inspire anytime after 8:30am. We’ll all head over to Ignite afterwards to continue the day’s awesomeness.
I’m really, really glad that Jason and Lauren have taken control of this event and are working hard to get it back into some sort of regular schedule. Coworking should work for lots of different types of workers, and we know that IndyHall isn’t the perfect fit for everyone. Cream Cheese sessions open up the doors to coworking for a whole new audience. Enjoy!
For future Cream Cheese announcements, follow @creamcheese, @alertmybanjos, @laureng, and @thehacktory. And of course, you’re already following @indyhall, right?
