October 17th, 2011 | by dball | Category: Education, Partnerships, Services
Besides coffee, it’s technology that keeps our members humming. If the Wi-Fi is on the blink, or if a laptop is down, it’s an emergency.
That’s why we’re pleased to announce a partnership The Foundation, a company that is known for providing comprehensive IT support to creative businesses. Now they’ll be bringing concierge IT services to CoCo members.
The Foundation works with both Macs and PCs and all manner of networks and data storage. But what’s noteworthy is that as an Apple Value Added Seller, The Foundation is able to provide warranty repair services on all Apple products. What’s more, their repair depot is only minutes away. So, if your machine bites the dust, you don’t have to chase out to the Apple store. The Foundation comes to you.
In fact, The Foundation has gone so far as to create an outpost at CoCo Minneapolis. You’ll find them at the campsite nearest the front desk. Just look for the distinctive orange banners. On many days, you’ll see Matt Woestehoff and other Foundation crew members hanging out in the space. Matt is available for any tech questions free of charge, so feel free to approach him.
In addition to tech support, The Foundation is planning a series of educational classes, focused on personal and business technology, to CoCo. Look for class and workshop announcements soon!
October 9th, 2011 | by dball | Category: Coworking
According to Deskmag’s 1st Global Coworking Survey, which surveyed 661 coworking members in 24 countries:
- 85% of coworkers said they are more motivated
- 90% report having better interaction with other people
- 42% report earning a higher income
October 1st, 2011 | by dball | Category: Entrepreneurs, Event recap, Minneapolis, Women
Update: This event was well attended and was by all accounts a great success. Thanks to everyone who came. Thanks to those of you who gave us constructive feedback. We definitely hope to put on an even better event in the future!
See candid photos from the event.
Browse some of the participants’ quotes and ideas that were captured at the event.
A meetup just for women entrepreneurs
Wednesday, October 19, 6 to 9 p.m.
Image courtesy of TechCocktail.com
Are you on the list? The list of women entrepreneurs in Minnesota, that is. This meetup is for everyone on that list, whether your business is high-tech or high-touch.
We have only one item on the agenda: to give you a chance to meet other entrepreneurs and have the conversations you want to have.
So, meet us at CoCo Minneapolis, a place entrepreneurs create the future every day…
- There will be cocktails! (It’ll be a cash bar, unless we can get a drink sponsor!)
- Snacks will be provided by Chow Girls catering.
- Liz Tupper, co-founder and COO of SieEnt, will help us inaugurate a new conversational format called “Ten Tables.”
Image courtesy of TechCocktail.com
Thank you to our sponsors:
September 16th, 2011 | by dball | Category: Coworking Librarian, Member benefits, Minneapolis, Programming
“Knowledgeable experts standing behind a bar, answering your questions for free. What a novel idea! We’ll call it Genius Bar. What’s that? The name is taken? Alright, Mr. Lawyer-pants, we’ll find a different name.”
And thus the Smart Bar was born.
Smart Bar is a little thing we’ll do once a week in Minneapolis, in which CoCo members will have access to free advice from experts within and outside the CoCo community. We’ll set up some stools at the welcome desk and you’ll be free to sidle up and drink all the knowledge you can.
The Smart Bar will be open on Wednesdays from 3 to 5 p.m. If it does well, we’ll certainly consider doing it more often. You can’t have too much smarts, right?
Our coworking librarian Meg Knodl will be serving up smarts on Wed., Aug.17. Bring her any business or market research questions you might have!
Other smarties on the docket include:
September 15th, 2011 | by dball | Category: Collaboration, Community, Coworking Librarian, Innovation, Programming
Like to start fires? Enjoy provoking constructive chaos? Then you just might be an instigator.
As you probably know, CoCo draws all kinds of creative and resourceful folks from across different professions. But, save for a few outliers, we’re fairly well entrenched in the software, startup and marketing/advertising realms.
As our coworking librarian Meg Knodl has been helping us consider what it means to curate our culture, one of our realizations has been that we need to work actively to introduce “outside elements” – catalysts, flies in the ointments, irritants in the oyster, or to use one of my favorite words, instigators. The goal is to make sure that we are actively introducing new strains of thought that keep us all aware of new and different ways of looking at things.
So, we’re going to try a little experiment here. For the foreseeable future, we’re going to be inviting someone into the CoCo community as our “Instigator in Residence.” It’ll be someone who has a point of view, a line of work or a skill set that is not typical and whose presence promises to prompt some interesting conversations and insights.
Here are the rules of the game:
- As an Instigator in Residence, you’ll have free access to both CoCo locations for three months.
- We’ll ask you to observe the Woody Allen rule, which is to say that you’ll agree to being a regular presence at CoCo. But while you’re here, you’re certainly free to work on your own stuff.
- We will actively introduce you to our members and generally talk you up.
- We will ask you to staff the Smart Bar at least once during your stay.
- You’ll agree to tell members about your line of work, your POV or whatever it is that makes you an instigator.
- Finally, you’ll agree to post periodic updates to the CoCo blog about your experience.
So, what do you say?
If you think you’d make a good instigator, please drop us a line and tell us about yourself! We’re open minded and even open to trying some crazy stuff, so don’t be afraid to throw us a curve ball.
Photo by JohnGoode
