Orlando - Recap by Don VanDemark
The Orlando Co-Working group met at Urban Rethink, a non-profit coworking/creative event space in downtown Orlando. While everyone came to work on their own projects, we also had some running discussions summarizing DrupalCon (as well as discuss the benefits of ham-and-cheese bagels for breakfast). We had a variety of people join us: three of us were from MediaCurrent, three others were from local companies and two were freelancers.
“Every storefront is filled. There are people on the street,” he said. “We’ve reached a critical mass.”
In addition to the city’s new technology center, South Bethlehem also is home to business incubator Ben Franklin Technology Partners. SoBeCoWorks will be geared at people in the early stage of conceiving a business, Rivera said.
“It’s kind of like an elementary school for entrepreneurs,” he said.
Ask any successful entrepreneur or freelance worker, and they will tell you the most important element of small business ownership is networking with other like-minded business owners. Sharing ideas, getting feedback and even venting to someone who really gets what you are going through can make the difference between success or failure.
That’s where coworking comes in. Coworking is by nature social and collaborative. For as little as $75 a month, you can have a desk with high-speed Internet, access to a printer, access to a conference room, a real business address and even free coffee.
o-sponsor a Jelly (free, informal coworking open to the public) that meets every two weeks and rotates across 7 different coworking spaces in Prague.
Participate in a "Coworking in Prague visa program" (inspired by the international Coworking Visa) that allows members of any one of 5 coworking spaces in Prague use the other spaces for free for up to 25% of one's membership time.
Share a common website and Facebook group (please join it, we just started up) for promoting the idea of coworking and communicating options for coworking in Prague to the public and to the media.
Help organize cross-s
inside a three-story-high, gymnasium-sized room shared with dozens of freelancers and entrepreneurs, giving the space a pulse that would be hard to replicate in a standalone office for ten people. It was once the trading floor of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange; today, people call it the "brain exchange." Officially, it's the CoCo Coworking and Collaborative Space, which has fast become a social and networking hub for Twin Cities entrepreneurs and freelancers
Cuppow, a plastic to-go lid designed specifically for mason jars, turning them into portable travel mugs. While the two are very talented (and might I add, funny) guys, their skillset had limitations. Instead of outsourcing their operations though, all Panone had to do was swivel his chair.
Fringe, a 4,400 square foot converted warehouse space in Somerville’s Union Square, serves as a powerhouse coworking space for designers, engineers, photographers, developers and the like.