CoCo Member Bill Petrich, CEO of Suntava, (recently featured in the Star Tribune) will talk about his company’s breakthrough product: a natural substitute for Red Dye No. 40, made from Peruvian purple corn.

Bill will talk about the challenges he faces in trying to grow the business and ask for ideas from attendees.

We’ll even serve up some purple corn in the form of homemade “chicha” (a traditional Peruvian soft drink) and purple corn chips. Come learn about an innovative business model and offer your ideas!

This is a members-only event.

Register at Eventbite

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!

The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

Across town, Meg Knodl, a Senior Librarian in Communications and Community Engagement at Hennepin County Library, also noticed Godin’s post.

A quick aside: you may know Meg from UnSummit or Social Media Breakfast. What you may not know (and what Meg is too modest to tell you) is that she’s kind of a rockstar in the world of library science. In fact, as I write this, she’s heading to New Orleans to be recognized by the Library Journal as a 2011 Mover and Shaker.

Last month, Meg approached us with a brilliant idea: could she try to create a coworking librarian position at CoCo?

There was only one possible answer: “How soon can you start?”

So, please join us in welcoming Meg Knodl as the world’s first Coworking Librarian (as far as we know!). She will be helping us to develop a philosophy and approach toward programming, which is the professional word for all the social, cultural and educational events and activities that support our coworking community.

Meg will be coworking at both the St. Paul and Minneapolis locations on Wednesdays. (The other days of the week, she’ll still be at Hennepin County Library). If you have ideas about programs you’d like to participate in, attend or offer, please contact Meg at megknodl@gmail.com. Of course, Meg will also available for research and resource questions.

The types of questions we’ve been getting include:

• How do I position myself in a crowded market?
• How should I price my services?
• What is an appropriate margin if I subcontract work from other people?
• What items should I include in my proposals?
• Which of my client’s contract terms are acceptable?
• How do I keep programming costs from getting out of hand?
• How do I do sales?

With more and more people entering the exciting (and equally nerve-wracking) world of small business, there seems to be a huge educational need – a need to convey all the stuff that nobody ever bothers to teach you, that your competitors will never reveal, and that you usually have to learn the hard way. Not theories, but practical street smarts on how to be profitable in your freelance practice, consultancy or small agency.

We’re imagining a series of workshops that would give you an opportunity to get answers to questions like the ones above. You would learn from more experienced practitioners. You would also be able to compare notes with your peers (who, sworn to secrecy, would be encouraged to share their own successes and failures) thus allowing everyone to adopt the best practices within the group.

So, if this idea pans out, we’re thinking that we’d have four sessions, each a 1/2 day long and probably held on the same day of the week over four weeks. Topics would be:

• Positioning & pricing
• Sales & proposals
• Marketing
• Operations tools & practices
  

What else can we tell you?

• Sessions would be held at CoCo, from 9 until noon
• Instructors would include Kyle Coolbroth, Don Ball and guest experts
• Breakfast would be provided
• Attendees could spend the rest of they coworking and/or conversing
• We’d charge a reasonable fee for the whole program

So, what do you think? Would you find this valuable? What questions would you add to the list? Please post your thoughts. If there’s enough interest, we’ll start setting some dates in February!