I’m excited to start talking about something new a group of us are working on, that being a coworking space here in Guelph. It’s barely in it’s infancy so we’ll be announcing more as we get rolling with events, new members etc.
Help us spread the word and find new members who want to be part of this. We have no idea what we’re doing but we’re going to have fun and figure it out. Hell, we have a beer tap so what could go wrong?
The date is set for DemoCampGuelph16 so spread the word and join us Feb 9. As always, http://next.DemoCampGuelph.com is where you can sign up to attend.
While you’re here, I wanted to clarify what DemoCampGuelph is about, while making a pitch for demos. I often find myself in conversations where someone explains to me why DemoCamp doesn’t apply to them. Typically it’s because they’re in services based work, not startups or products.
I’m biased but, in my opinion, if you work anywhere near technology in the Guelph area then DemoCampGuelph has something for you. Ultimately it’s a chance to mingle with like minded folks and strengthen our connections, ie do more bidness together!
Now to the startup stuff. DemoCampGuelph is not startup focused or a pitch event. StartupCamp is startup focused. While we certainly have events where the demo’s are predominately startups, that isn’t our focus. When we select who gets to demo, the main qualification is benefit to our crowd. We want tools, frameworks, interesting applications, hacks etc. So we want to see a demo showing me why I should root this crappy android phone. We want to see why we should be writing code with emacs. We want to see that new plugin that writes our code for us in firefox.
While it’s certainly interesting to see that fancy new app you’ve built that allows me to track my golf score without even needing to golf, we love learning that we can apply tomorrow and use to work better, faster, smarter. So, as always, spread the word, let’s get lot’s of great applications for our limited demo spots at 16!
I realized last night as I pitched this idea once again that I’ve been pitching it privately for years but never in public. This is completely made this up so I have no idea if it’s practical and could be pulled off. So part of posting this is to seek out examples of anything similar we can learn from.
The inspiration for this idea came from various places:
One issue most businesses, especially small, struggle with is what size of space to have. Most don’t have the capital to have larger spaces they can grow into. On the other side, taking just the right sized space can put you into an endless cycle of relocating, which is itself expensive and distracting.
What if you built a distributed coworking network? Or has anyone already built it? The benefit to a business being they can subsidize their office space by making some of it available for coworking. In doing so, they’re paid $x per square foot or $x per desk. Now as a business you can move into a larger space, knowing you can keep the costs down while having space to grow into when you need it.
On the coworking side, you now have individuals handling the non-trivial community work of cross pollination. You could have an individual literally working out of the offices of many different companies each week. As well, some spaces are more suited to particular tasks than others, so you may want to use Brainpark‘s boardroom today but well.ca‘s next week. Or maybe one boardroom isn’t available at the time you need but another is.
As well, in my opinion coworking works best when a space has a core tenant. It brings stability as you know people will be there working everyday. In this scenario, each space clearly has a core tenant.
Ideas? Thoughts? Feedback? Has this been attempted anywhere before?
I dabble in home renovations and low end woodworking when I’m not stuck at a keyboard. The commonality being that I seem to enjoy building stuff, whether the raw materials be 1’s and 0’s or pine.
One of the skills both require is developing the wisdom to recognize when you need to build a factory and how much to invest in a particular factory. In this context, factory refers to a setup to allow you to repeat a particular task well several times.
In a woodworking context we’re talking about tweaking your workbench or building a full-on jig or template. A recent example that comes to mind are some built-in dressers I made for our bedroom. There were 10 shelves to be built so taking some time to setup a system to easily build 10 of the same thing was worth it. I wasn’t building 100 but 10 is enough to spend some time. In other cases I’ve built jigs for projects I’ve only created one of because there was simply no other way to do it well.
In the programming sense, we’re talking about all the supporting tools around your tasks such as an IDE, build tools, scripts, unit tests, plugins etc. In both cases, you need to assess the time required to build the factory balanced against how long that factory will exist and the time it will save you over the life of the task.
Developing and honing your judgment as to when you should be spending more time building a factory can increase both your productivity and the quality of your work. It’s also a very valuable skill to have in a team lead and mentor.
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about coworking here. If you’re not sure what coworking is, Dusty has a great post on redefining it here:
“Coworking is two or more individuals working independently or collaboratively who are socially interacting while they work.”
For various reasons I’m back considering the demand for a coworking space here in Guelph. The space I’m considering is the current Brainpark offices at 349 Woolwich St. We have a core tenant in Brainpark and already have a few friends sharing the space with us. What I’m curious about is if Guelph needs a coworking/incubation space? A place for independents and small startups collaborating to help each other be more successful.
What I’m not interested in is just offering cheap office space. This would be participatory where we’re working with each other at some level. The goal being that our various projects and companies are better because of this space. My personal goal will be to have our members some day saying that they were successful in part because they worked in our space with us. Kumbaya!
What would the space include?
What I need to move forward on something like this?
This would be a private venture and no one’s offered to lower my risk by bank rolling a couple of years of operation so I need to know there’s demand. If I knew there were 30+ people in Guelph who would commit tomorrow, ie we’d have a waiting list, then it’d be a no brainer. So, are you interested, or know of someone who may be? If so, please contact me asap or just comment on this post. As well, what’s this worth to you? What would you pay monthly for the above offering here in Guelph?
These days, the use of mobile phones has greatly created a huge hype in the modern civilization. Most of us, businessmen, and personal individuals have, at least, one mobile gadget in their pockets, bringing them wherever they go. But really, what made these mobile gadgets extremely popular? These days, most high end phones are complete with different applications that can be enjoyed on a regular computer.
With the increased popularity and admiration towards mobile devices, several organizations now start creating different Smartphone applications which can be done also by manufacturers. As a result, it has also created a huge turning point which attracts millions of different people all over the globe.
In our modern society, mobile phones do not only act as a device which is used to receive or make calls. This kind of technology has brought a lot of improvements. This can be seen as more and more high end apps and features come in with new and various designs. This, as a result, has encouraged people to search for the most personalized and advanced mobile gadgets of their choice. These gadgets may come in different prices.
When searching online, it is possible to see different models of gadgets that will perfectly match your preferences. Features such as Bluetooth options, Internet, Wi-Fi connectivity, camera, as well as other as other applications and games can make our lives easier.
You may wonder why mobile gadgets are widely used all around. The answer to this lies in the hand of competition. Different organizations existing these days do their best in order to promote their products and services in a global scale. With the use of highly advanced mobile applications, it is possible to easily reach out to potential clients with no worries of being hassled by unidentifiable factors.
For instance, in the world of online gambling, several sites compete for the attention of potential service users. However, some sites simply put an edge over the others, simply because they placed importance on convenience. Because of this, they make sure that new lottery games are available online, as well as with mobile devices. As a result, more people would choose using the services from their mobile gadgets since they know that aside from convenience, they can also enjoy a special kind of experience with their mobile devices.
I was lucky enough to speak at Ignite Waterloo about a week ago. If you haven’t been to one, make sure to attend one of these events soon. They’re highly approachable and entertaining events that move along quickly. If you don’t like the topic, wait less than 5 minutes and they’ll be a new one.
I spoke about my recent journey to change the world. They shot video of the event which I’ve included here. Enjoy and let me know what you think?!
On behalf of DemoCampGuelph, I applied for, and managed to win, the use of the City of Guelph‘s suite for a Guelph Storm hockey game. The game is November 27th and unfortunately I’m out of town so I miss out on the fun. After offering tickets to people who help organize the event, I still have 12 tickets left.
Here’s my plan. I’d like to share these tickets with the people who make our events happen by demo’ing at them. If you’ve ever demo’d at a DemoCampGuelph and want to attend this game, then contact me immediately. I’ll give the tickets out on a first come, first served basis until they’re gone.
It should be a fun night and a chance to catch a hockey game in style with some fellow DCG groupies. I wish I could be there myself.
It’s been moved once, we’ve had to swap out speakers last minute, the fifteenth installment of DemoCampGuelph has faced adversity like no other DCG before it. Yet it triumphs, it perseveres, it is alive!
Ok, here’s hoping I clean up my act before someone puts a mic in my hand tonight. We’re on tonight, remind people, spread the words and the loves and we’ll see you all tonight! I’m excited to have Ilya Grigorik joining us as our invited speaker this evening. Make sure to arrive on time as we open with our speaker and then get into the demos. We’ll make sure there are pints around early so show up and meet some other folks in town you may not know.
If you haven’t already, sign up so we have a feel for numbers tonight.
Earlier this fall I asked if anyone wanted to share our offices here at Brainpark. We’re very lucky to have had some great folks take us up on the offer. We’ve managed to grow our tribe here with little added expense. I’m not sure they know but we’re not paying them a cent.
Andrew wrote today about a similar effort at Jet Cooper. I encourage you to think of ways you can grow your tribe and our community. While we certainly need bigger scale, longer term plans with projects like the hub and accelerator centre, there are loads of smaller simple things we can do today.
It doesn’t have to be formal, it need not be complicated, you don’t need a formal program. If you have a business, office, or just a project, open your doors. Invite people in to work in your space, share your fancy boardroom, host a happy hour. Really, most of us don’t bite and who knows, maybe we can help?
