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:

Below are some images that our guests captured at the party…

…as well as a video produced by the Minnov8 podcast gang. (Please forgive the cheesy preview image!)

What follows are some quick highlights – essentially my reconstituted notes – from the conference. I’d certainly recommend GigaOm’s own recaps of the event, starting with Simon Mackie’s recap and then this directory of live blog coverage.

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One of the first noteworthy statistics we heard is that the average mobile worker is 46 years old and lives outside Silicon Valley. This is underscores the need to better understand workers and the scenarios

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In a discussion about how and why people adopt new technology, Sameer Patel, managing director of The Sovos Group used the example of his mother, who when he left India didn’t have computer. Two years later she was happily Skyping. The lesson: people (and employees) won’t and shouldn’t be expected to adopt technology for its own sake. Adoption, however, will naturally follow if new technology offers benefits that end-users can clearly see for themselves.

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Sococo software that gives a virtual company a Second Life type environment in which its workers can collaborate, IM and Web conference. Essentially, what you see is the floor plan of a metaphorical office with many different rooms that have different purposes. And you can choose what room you want to hang out in. It feels like a heavy metaphor, but I suspect that this (and perhaps other metaphors) might be just the crutch that is needed in order for some teams to transition to the cloud.

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Allen Delattre, Global Mng Dir, Technology Practice for Korn/Ferry was the first to call out what became a recurring theme at the conference: that moving to the cloud was no longer a technological issue, but a leadership issue. How do leaders effectively manage and motivate a dispersed and virtual work team?

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One of the highlights for me was a chat with John Seely Brown and John Hagel, from Deloitte’s Center for the Edge. I wasn’t familiar with their concept of the “edge” but it appears they’ve built a whole consulting practice around it. They talked about how in the past companies have tried to innovate by bringing the edge into the center (i.e., developing new tech and then institutionalizing it). They propose that it might make more sense nowadays to try to bring the center out to the edge. One example of this would be a “reverse mentorship,” in which, say, the CEO would be paired with a 20-something who has more access to (and naturally makes more use of) so-called “power tools” than people within the core of the org!

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Some folks were making the case for the “mobilocracy”. Evan Caplan, CEO of iPass said that according to a study they did of 2.5 million users, mobile workers put in 240 more hours per year.

He also discussed what his company refers to as the “device stack,” which is the triumvirate of the laptop, pad and smartphone. The thinking is that this threesome will become the standard mobile worker arsenal in pretty short order. The relationship between each of these items will be come an important consideration for solution designers.

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Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff discussed their new Chatter social collaboration product. In the process, he dropped some neologisms, including “chatterlytics” and “chatterati” (how he refers to heavy Chatter users within the company).

He suggested the very real possibility that future compensation could be based one’s internal social standing (e.g., an internal Klout score).

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Another great term somebody used to describe the mobile worker lifestyle: “live/work arbitrage.”

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Now, the main reason we went to the conference wasn’t to hear about software, but to attend a panel on coworking, which featured owners from New Work City, PariSoma and NextSpace, as well as the founder of Loosecubes, a web site that lets you find an open meeting or work space anywhere in the world.

What became clear in the panel discussion is that coworking is growing up. It has served independent workers and entrepreneurs very well, but the panelists agreed that coworking might be relevant to a larger audience and to bigger organizations.

There definitely is a lot of curiosity about coworking from bigger organizations and people who don’t necessarily work in coworking spaces but are champions of entrepreneurship and innovation. Om Malik himself  has been a vocal proponent of coworking (which is evidenced by inclusion of a coworking breakout at his otherwise tech-oriented conference).

Of course, the verdict is out on how the burgeoning coworking movement will intersect the trend of worker mobilit and cloud computing, but we are optimistic that some future incarnation of the “office” will have its roots in the humble coworking space.

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Creative commons photo credit: rsmith179

See the gallery

On Friday (2.5.10) an amazing group of freelancers met at CoCo to discuss what problems keep them awake at night. This is the second in a series of meetings that we will host here at CoCo in the effort to build broader collaboration amongst freelancers across disciplines. These sessions will be followed by an educational series for freelancers to help them solve and work together on making their individual businesses more effective, and at the same time expand their role in the broader community.

The first session had the following all-star cast:

• Deborah Vajda, writer
• Jenn Barnett, photographer
• Betsy Kershaw, marketing diva
• Janis Olson, writer
• Ketan Kakkad, founder of TheSmallWorld & co-owner of CurryUp
• Arun Batchu, programmer & owner of CurryUp
• Valerie Rigsbee, web designer & Broadway expert

In addition to great conversation and ideation, we enjoyed phenomenal curry food from CurryUp and Eric TremperTremble at Comfy Chair Consulting. You definitely do not want to miss any future curry potlucks – after all you only live once!

During our discussion, the group identified the following top issues:

1. Finding first users for a new product or service
2. How to sell
3. Connecting, and staying connected, with other freelancers
4. How to serve multiple businesses during the startup mode (wearing two or more hats)
5. Finding enough time to do all that needs to be done
6. Finding work
7. Networking
8. How to make your passion a business, and make money at it
9. Balancing family and work- creating realistic boundaries
10. How to attract larger projects – balancing the project portfolio with small & large projects
11. Finding time to actually do the work that has been sold
12. Protecting Intellectual Property (IP)
13. Promotion of services
14. Pricing of services – balancing value & price
15. Having enough money to invest into equipment or needing equipment before the money is there

I think all freelancers can relate to one or more of the issues listed above. At times the isolation of being a freelancer can cause doubt, fear, and loneliness. At the same time, everyone in the group said they are doing doing the work they’ve always wanted.

At the end of the event, we are all a little wiser. We also experienced what can happen when diverse backgrounds join in a conversation sharing concerns and ideas in an open collaborative environment. Friends are made, ventures are born, and value is created!

During our conversation Arun Batchu recommended the book “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything”. Arun inspired each of us with his holistic view of contribution.

We are looking forward to future discussions, and a series where freelancers can collectively build on the wisdom of the crowd along with some guidance of individuals how have been there and done that…. Stay tuned!

More pics here

Photo by Lauren Melcher (@lgmelcher)