Some months back, I was approached by my friend Dana Vachon about any interest in having a mural made for one of the large, stark white walls. Of course! We’d been looking for ways to get more color and interest into the space for some time, and a full paint job was just a bit more daunting than we were ready to take on in our free time/off-hours.
Dana is a graduating senior from the Fine Arts program at The College of New Jersey. One of her final-term classes was a mural class, and since her and her project partner had to make a piece anyway, it made sense for us to help cover their materials costs and in return, have a piece of art for our hall.
Dana and her classmate Jess McGovern asked for input on any themes. Honestly, I wasn’t comfortable providing too much of a lead, because a) I’m anything but an artist but, more importantly, the space we work in doesn’t just belong to me. I wanted something that could be meaningful for all of us, and embodied some important themes of our work.
After shooting down an Alex Hillman portrait in the style of Andy Warhol, we talked more about themes of coworking. I explained to Jess and Dana about The Starfish and the Spider, the notion of leaderless organizations, and how that tied into the coworking model as well as the coworking movement. At the same time, I felt that it was really important to keep things themed to Philly, the city we’re all so proud to represent and call our home.
What Dana and Jess came up with was much, much cooler than anything we could have asked them to do.
Following our lead with the “Philly” theme, as well as taking the Starfish’s “unstoppable power”, and depict what we all *ahem* hope is a reality in the new future: that our actions and goals take the city of Philadelphia by the tentacle and make a very REAL impact! (Of course our version of this reality, unlike the mural, does not involve ripping the roof off of Independence Hall and carrying it across Old City to the Ben Franklin Bridge).
Editor note: This thing is huge. its 5′ tall by 12′ long. We’ve yet to get a picture of it next to something to give it perspective. But seriously. Huge. Perspective? Check it out next to my 24″ iMac, on the left.
In case you’re curious, the buildings/structures from left to right include:
The Ben Franklin Bridge
The spire on top of Independence Hall
One Liberty Place
Independence Hall (minus the aforementioned spire)
Our beloved National Mechanics, the cause of and solution to, so many of our problems.
Dana and Jess have worked incredibly hard on this project, from the concept to the installation, and we can’t thank them enough. We’ve got a meaningful piece to adorn our walls that they should be proud of, because we certainly are!
We’ve recently rekindled our relationship with Philly Car Share, and will soon be resuming our movie night event that we had a blast holding last fall. Unfortunately, the date we set on our calendar for the first one this spring snuck up on us and we haven’t done a very good job putting all of the pieces together in time. For now, the event that was supposed to be this upcoming saturday will be postponed for a Saturday in the very near future.
This summer, when PCS resumes it’s Drive-In Movie event, we hope to get a big group of IndyHallers to attend together. Be sure to stay tuned for that.
Things have been very busy at IndyHall for the last few weeks. VERY busy! Here’s a quick overview:
First off, after the blood drive we took an opportunity to rearrange and clean up the office. This includes:
Our main “team floor” area has been rearranged to accommodate 8 full time desks, and 7 desks for lite and basic/drop in users. This is one additional desk more than we had before, and the room is MUCH more efficiently laid out. Come by and check it out!
Our upstairs work loft has been reassembled and will now be available as a “quiet work area”. It’s no secret that sometimes, the social aspects of coworking become overwhelming and if you need a place to be where you won’t be interrupted, we’ve now got that. The work-loft desk breakdown is still being determined, but like the downstairs we’ll be designating part of it for full time users who prefer a more heads-down environment, and the rest for the more migrant flavors of our membership. It’s currently laid out to accommodate 7 desks.
Workshops and events continue! We’re going to continue to make the majority of our programming free (stuff like this past week’s Illustrator and Wordpress workshops), but we are graciously accepting donations. This past Saturday we got some VERY generous donations from people who we can only presume got a great deal of benefit from our event. As long as you keep doing things to tell us we’re doing a good job, we’re going to keep doing those things! We’ll have a Paypal donation button up in a few days for those of you who don’t carry cash/checkbooks, and seriously…thank you!We’re also going to be opening up to hosting more external events, both social and educational. So if you’ve got an idea, feel free to drop us a line.
Faster, better internet & network! For those of you who have been here on busy days or during a workshop, you’ve felt our pain: our internet slows down, and our wireless has dropped out. Not for long! This Friday we’ve got a new commercial line coming in that gives us 8mb down and 1mb up, bursted to 16 down and 2 up! Additionally, a couple of our members are coordinating a room rewiring initiative to get hard lines to as many desks as possible. Transferring files between 2 computers in IndyHall at full gigabit speed will soon be a reality!
IndyHall Labs - the details of this one are going to remain a little sneaky while we sort some things out, but so many good ideas and so many bright minds sit in the same room these days, we can’t help but want to give them some new resources for productivity. More on that soon.
More information is in the works regarding our current membership standings, and some other exciting updates, but we’re happy to give you this Monday morning update for now!
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Location changed to 5th and Cambridge this Saturday (evidently they have too many people coming to Penn Treaty Park)
This Saturday April 5th at 10am join Indy Hall and 10,000 other enthusiastic Philadelphians as we work side by side with Mayor Nutter in giving our city some well deserved TLC
The Challenge: “During my 2007 mayoral campaign I pledged to clean up Philadelphia. As your Mayor, I am going to fulfill this promise by reducing the amount of litter and trash that plague our city’s neighborhoods, streets, parks and recreation centers. I have made litter reduction a priority in my administration and am committed to making Philadelphia one of the cleanest cities in America.” - Mayor Michael Nutter.
The Oppurtunity: We need to give our city a good Spring Cleaning! On April 5th, join thousands of your fellow citizens in neighborhoods across the city as we try to make Philadelphia a more beautiful place.
The Plan: A group of Indy Hallers and friends will meet at Penn Treaty Park, under the statue,5th and Cambridge, at 10am to get their delicate coding/design/writing/typing hands dirty making Philly cleaner. Stay as long as you can, wear your Indy Hall T-shirts and follow @davespeers on twitter for news and updates through out the day.
Thanks to everyone who played along with yesterday’s little April Fools joke. IndyHall is NOT sold to anyone. Not even close. We love our space, we love our community, and its valuable beyond measure of money.
Just to show you how ridiculously awesome this group is, 22 people from IndyHall and supporting organizations (including WebLinc and Philadelphia CityPaper) donated blood on this past Saturday. Thanks to the push from friend of IndyHal, Reed Gustow, we had a great turnout AND this awesome video documenting the experience.
HUGE thanks to everyone who came out and supported. Even the few who could not donate for various reasons, we’re so grateful for your willingness to donate. And a big thanks to the Red Cross staff who ran the event efficiently and professionally, despite the guitar hero going on in our upstairs lounge. I’m fairly confident that was a first for them.
The other huge benefit to this event is the new configuration for IndyHall. New configuration? We’re not posting pictures just yet…you’re going to have to stop by to see it yourself!
Ever since starting IndyHall, it’s been a less than silent dream of ours to grow. Not just IndyHall, not just Philadelphia, but really to take over the world with coworking. It wasn’t until recently, during the massive presence of coworking at SXSW, that we caught the attention of the perfect supporter to really take our coworking empire to the next level.
For the last 3 weeks, since our return from Austin, I’ve been in private negotiations with the global desk share provider Regus. Their widespread reach (400 cities, 70 countries, and thousands of gorgeous facilities) is perfect for our needs to grow. Moreover, we completely align with their understanding of community and their history of creating hip, desirable workspaces that encourage collaboration and creativity by giving each member their own private desk module or office. Why yell across an open loft workspace when you can stay in your office, with your door closed, and call people on your desk phone?
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve sold IndyHall (location and it’s community) for a sum which we cannot disclose at this time.
The acquisition of IndyHall itself is only step 1 of the plan. Since the coworking movement itself is widespread, global, and diverse, we’ve gone ahead and begun negotiations of using the coworking cell-network for a widespread takeover of the global workforce. With the support of the coworking google group, we’re able to leverage all of our recent press to convince the remaining majority of the global workers to leave their full time jobs for positions as independent contractors and freelancers. With everyone working as independents, every desk of every coworking and Regus facility will be utilized 100%, maximizing all of our missions for optimum freelancer opportunities.
That’s what Gary V says, anyway. But I get that you’re a little attached to your face.
But giving is definitely an important theme for all of us to remember. Luckily, there’s no easier way to give, than to give blood. No ‘face falling off’ required.
Thats why I’ve been working with the American Red Cross, with the help of Reed Gustow, to organize a Blood Drive at IndyHall. We also have the support of Marc Steel from the Citypaper to bring additional donors to the drive from his organization. We’re looking for 45-50 sign ups, between the two organizations.
The donation drive will take place on Saturday, March 29th starting at 9am and running until 3pm. We’ll be re-organizing the “production floor” at IndyHall the night before to accommodate. If you’ve never been here before, check out our “locate” page.
Please consider giving to this cause, this is one of the easiest and most generous things you can do.
You need to reserve a spot, and since this is nearly an entire month in advance, setting aside a time should not be difficult. The Red Cross makes it easy (yay! webapps!) to register and select a slot ahead of time online. You can visit our donor registration page to find out more.
I’d say “race you to the first donor spot”, but I’m already registered myself. Join me!
Before we get into what’s coming up, a quick announcement. We had a Wordpress workshop on the IndyHall calendar for this upcoming Saturday that we haven’t released details for yet because, frankly, the program isn’t quite ready. Rather than rush into this, the guys (Johnny and Jason) are going to put some more time into the curriculum we need to fill a Saturday and we’ll be posting an official date for after SXSW. Sorry for the confusion!
Speaking of SXSW…it’s in less than 10 days! Over a dozen people from the IndyHall community alone are attending, and we expect to see many more from Philadelphia joining us as well. If you’re going, drop a note in the comments, we want to make sure you’re in on the Philly-in-Austin fun!
If you’re a designer-type, be sure to check out the t-shirt contest our friends at ChoiceShirts are running (ok, ok, I’m helping with that too).
Speaking of t-shirts…I promised some IndyHall shirts, didn’t I? We didn’t forget about you, and it definitely wasn’t a bait and switch to get renewed memberships! That order is going in TODAY. Orders placed by people going to SXSW are going to come in first because we need to have them ready to show IndyHall pride in Austin, but the rest should arrive shortly thereafter. We’ve decided to go with super-comfy American Apparel shirts rather than the ones we had our first batch printed on because most people know how they fit. If you don’t know, AA provides a sizing chart. Just let us know ASAP what size you want, we’re ordering a bunch of different sizes (and womens cut) so we’ll be prepared.
Junto
This week is Junto, by the way. This Thursday a conversation will be led by our very own Dave Speers, and this month’s topic approaches how technology has made our lives better…or has it? I’m bummed to be missing this one myself, but that doesn’t mean you have to! Check it out at Junto.org, as usual things kick off around 6 at P’unk Ave. They bring the tomato pie and beer, you bring a snack (if you like) and your hunger for interesting discussion (and tomato pie).
At the end of February, IndyHall will have been open at it’s location on 32 Strawberry street for 6 months.
6 months. Wow.
We can look at that one of two ways. In one respect, it feels like only yesterday. 6 months has totally zipped by.
A little history
In another respect, the amount that this entire group has accomplished in 6 months is astonishing. Looking at growth alone, it’s mind blowing. We signed an initial 15 member agreements only days before signing the lease for our office. Those members (2 Full Time, 3 Lite, and 10 Basic). As of today, we have 44 active memberships (8 Full Time, 5 Lite, and a whopping 27 Basic Members!).
Thats 3x growth of membership in 6 months, and we’re thrilled and proud that so many people have benefited from use of IndyHall as a coworking space and as a resource for learning and exchange.
How our Basic Membership Helps
When we decided to offer the $25/month basic membership last summer, it served two purposes. One, offering it for 6 months prepaid helped us build a pot of money that helped defer our startup costs. For the bootstrap-style operation we’ve run, we think that this was a huge portion of the reason we were able to make ends meet and stabilize as quickly as we have. Second, it gave the folks in our very active community an opportunity to contribute, for a nominal fee, to make sure that we’d be able to continue what we were doing: offering highly productive environments for people to collaborate on many, many different levels. Even if they weren’t using a desk, their contribution helped the other, very important side of what goes on at IndyHall in hosting and running of events.
What’s the problem?
We’re fast approaching the end of many people’s first 6 months of prepaid basic membership. While we’ve grown to a point where our more regular members help us stabilize the operating costs, the increased interest in the educational and social events that we’ve been ramping back up this month. In order for us to keep moving in that direction, we really need and appreciate your support in renewing your basic memberships.
The Deal
To thank everyone for their support, we’re going to be offering a 6 month basic membership renewal like the first time. If you renew your membership in February, we’re tossing in the free bonus day (7 free days over 6 months, use your floater day any time you like) AND a free IndyHall t-shirt. All Lite and Full members will receive a free shirt as well. The only way for Basic members to get a shirt for free is to pre-pay for another 6 months. This time, it will be $150 since no security deposit is necessary on the renewed membership.
We’ll be selling the IndyHall shirts for $20 each for non-members.
If you’re interested in renewing, please send an email letting us know. We will be accepting Checks and Google Checkout as before. If you’re already a member, you know how to get a hold of us. And of course, nothing says renewal like stopping by IndyHall for an in-person visit!
Thank You
Thanks in advance for all of your support, and here’s to many more successful 6 month anniversaries!
It’s no secret that blogging is important. You’re reading a blog right now. Everyone has their blogging platform of choice, and a lot of us here at IndyHall have chosen Wordpress as our go-to utility…not just for blogging, but for lots of managed content sites.
Much like our recent Illustrator workshop, we’re going to be discovering the varying experience and interest levels of developing sites powered by Wordpress. Jason Tremblay and Johnny Bilotta will be leading this series of events together, and I’ll likely chime in a bit with my own experiences with building Wordpress sites that don’t look like blogs.
Whether you are a seasoned Wordpress developer or you are a newbie trying to get your feet wet, come and discuss your experiences and find out how to step up your development and creativity. Future workshops (which will be longer, and probably on the weekends) will center on Wordpress set-up, plug-in use, plug-in development, theme development, best practices, and much more. So come join us at 6:30pm Wednesday Jan. 23rd at IndyHall.
Also that night is a PANMA social meetup at Triumph Brewery, just around the corner. After the workshop (7:30-8:00) we’ll roll over to Triumph for some frosty brews.
For the last 3 weeks, since our return from Austin, I’ve been in private negotiations with the global desk share provider 