Independents Hall
IndyHall is PROUD of two of the products to come out of organic team collaboration in the last several weeks.
This 4th of July weekend, we celebrate iSepta: created by Randy Schmidt, Chris Conley, and Jason Tremblay, as well as Ripit: created by Jason Allum, Johnny Bilotta, Dave Martorana, and Dave Speers.
In the spirit of celebrating our successes, IndyHall is inviting everyone to join us for frosty cold beverages at our favorite watering hole, National Mechanics. And we can’t remember a bad time at National Mechanics!
We’re gathering at 7pm on Thursday, July 3rd (right before your holiday weekend begins!) so there’s no excuse for missing it, unless you’re going out of town. And if you’re going out of town, you might want to reconsider!
RSVP is requested so we can get a head count. Your choice, Upcoming or Facebook.
We hope this is the first of many celebrations of team success!
The only thing better than a night at National Mechanics is a FREE night at National Mechanics!
We’re hoping to make these launch parties a regular event, and so with this first one we want to open up the opportunity for you to sponsor the event.
We’re designating 3 levels of sponsorship to make this event happen:
- Fan : $25 sponsorship
- Super-fan : $100 sponsorship
- Sugar-daddy : $500 sponsorship
We REALLY want to support more innovation like this, and we’d love for you to show your love for these teams hard work. All sponsorship dollars will go directly towards an open tab and passed appetizers.
As a sponsor your name and link will be added to a thank-you page on our site, as well as announced during the party.
All payments can be made with paypal, or you can drop off a check at IndyHall any time before the party. We thank you in advance for your support and generosity!
Thanks to our sponsors!
Anonymous Contributions
$25
$25 Fan Contributions
Kara LaFleur
Stan Schwartz
Lisa Schwartz
Haveboard
MediaComponents
Alex Sutherland
Roz Duffy
Duran Goodyear
Tony Green
Kevin Lee
Bill Bratun
J Marziani
Ross Lieberman
Marisa McClellan
$100 Super-fan Contributions
Night Kitchen Interactive
Sealworks, Inc.
Reed Gustow
WebThere
Round3Media
PhillyPreneurs ($50)/BridgeMarketingGroup($50)
Seer Interactive
30Points
P’unk Ave
Annie Heckenberger
Scott McNulty
$500 Sugar Daddy Contributions
ümlatte
uwishunu
Weblinc
Tags: iSepta,RipIt.app
To help the Philadelphia Phillies kick off their “Red Goes Green” Campaign RecycleNOW will be volunteering to collect recyclables with the Phillie’s Ballgirls!
For the 1st - 7th innings RecycleNOW and the Phillies Ballgirls will be collecting recyclables and answering questions. And IndyHall is going to be joining them!
We’ve been talking about a ballgame for a while now, and since we’re into making the world a better place, this seems like the perfect opportunity. Bonus: if you volunteer, the game is free, so are food and drinks!
Volunteer requirements:
Arrive 1 hour prior to the start of the game, 6pm. We will be sending you information on where to meet us at Citizen’s Bank Park.
Must be of age to stand alone in a designated section without adult supervision
Collect recyclable plastic and aluminum bottles from the seating bowl through the 7th inning
If you would like to go, please RSVP on the volunteer page to ensure a spot.
Also, if you RSVP with RecycleNOW, leave a comment here so we know who to look out for. Johnny Bilotta is taking this one by the reins, so he’ll be watching this space.
Go Phils!
Tags: green,indyhall,phillies,recycleNOW
If you’re in Philly this Wednesday evening and have plans, cancel them. That is, of course, unless those plans are already to attend the first Ignite Philly.
Ignite is a format popularized by O’Reilly publishing, and it’s dead simple: presenters from a wide range of background and interest get on stage with 5 minutes and 20 slides that rotate automatically every 15 seconds.
The result? Fast paced, high quality content that hits the hot points of interesting, educational, entertaining, and inspirational. It’s also a great opportunity to spend time with some of Philly’s brightest minds and sharpest leaders.
Speakers include: The iSepta guys; Kristin Thompson of the Future of Music Coalition; NO CARRIER; 100K house; Pete Tridish of the Prometheus Radio Project; Alex Hillman (THATS ME!!) of Indy Hall; and several more.
We’re so pumped that the first Ignite in Philly is taking place in one of the hippest venues, Johnny Brendas. Known for being one of the best intimate concert venues in the city, the owners of Johnny Brendas are graciously turning their stage over to us for the evening. Booze will be flowing. Ideas will be churning. The night is sure to be amazing.
The whole event kicks off at 6pm, and we recommend getting there early because it should fill up fast. There’s an RSVP on Facebook, too, which we recommend.
The organizers: IndyHall’s very own Geoff DiMasi and Alex Gilbert of P’unk Ave and Junto & Vanja Buvac and Far McKon of The Hacktory, and Make:Philly, thank you in advance. And I thank them for putting together such a brilliant event.
That’s this Wednesday, June 11th, at 6pm. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave.
Be there, or be….UnIgnited.
Tags: ignite,ignite philly,johnny brendas
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!
Tags: mural,starfish and the spider
With a cameo from coworking mentor Brad Neuberg and a guy from the “Institute of the Future”. Congrats everyone!
Tags: Brad Neuberg,CBS3,coworking
It seems it was a good weekend for press.
On Friday, Peter Key of the Philadelphia Business Journal wrote a story about three of the creative grassroots organizations in Philadelphia that are working together to make a difference, and that included The Hacktory/Make Philadelphia, Philly Startup Leaders, and of course, us! You can read the full article displayed using Vuzit’s (one of our local technology friends) handy viewer.
And then, this morning, a great piece in the Daily Candy Philadelphia highlights our office and community as an alternative workspace for, you guessed it, indies and freelancers. Thanks Daily Candy!
New visitors, welcome, enjoy our site and feel free to contact us with any questions.
Tags: daily candy,philadelphia business journal
From FarMcCon on The Hacktory’s Blog:
There is a lot of tech community growing in Philadelphia, and it’s awesome to see. But frankly, we all are a bit too serious at times. Educational events, planning and networking, oh-my! Sometimes it’s too much.
To keep us from going sane due to all this productivity, Geekadelphia, TheHacktory, and IndyHall (also known as G,H&I Party Planners) are teaming up to do a Battlestar Galactica party on May 10th, starting at 5PM.
At 5PM stop in for some LAN party action, and try out the Offical BSG game and the fan-made (and award winning) Beyoned The Red Line game. Both set in the BSG Universe. We might have a spare machine on hand, but please bring your own PC if you can! Meanwhile we’ll play episodes and hang out between rounds.
At 7:30PM we will stop the gaming for a while to watch the Best of BSG. We will pick the 3 best episodes on the spot to watch. If you haven’t been watching the show, this is your chance to see what everyone is raving about.
And while you are watching, you can chew on Cyclon raider cookies and Battlestar shaped cake. I kid you not!! Out food-scientists are hard at work planning every detail of this modern meal monstrosity. Of course the I’m sure the party will continue even after the ‘Best Of has been watched, and the ships have been consumed Glacticus style.
If you plan on snacking, we suggest you either bring some BSG themed food, or bring along $5 to chip in for pizza, drinks, and other snacks. If you want to game, please bring your own PC. If you want to help make this happen, please e-mail FarMcKon@gmail.com, with the subject BSG Party Planning. We’d love the help. Cyclon Raider cookies don’t bake themselves!
Tags: battlestar galactica,geekadelphia,hacktory,lan party
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!
This Thursday (4/10) at 6pm, we’re going to be schmoozing our usual spot but this time with a special guest!
Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of Wordpress and founder of Automattic, will be in Philly for a few days while he accepts an award at Temple University. Congrats Matt, and welcome to our city!
I’ve coordinated with the dudes (and dude-ettes) at National Mechanics to show Matt what our crew is all about: good times with good friends!
There are a LOT of Wordpress fans in our community (if by no other measure, we have enough to have our own track of Wordpress workshops).
I look forward to seeing many of them out, and a fun evening of geekery.
Tags: wordpress
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!
When:
Saturday March 29, 2008
9am-3pm
Where: IndyHall
How: register here.
Tags: american red cross, blood donation, indyhall, independents hall, giving
