For the last 8 months or so, we’ve had a layout on the main floor of the IndyHall workspace that somewhat segregated full time members from basic and lite/dropin desks. The full timers were all along the wall, while the loose desks were clustered around some structural poles.
This morning, to welcome the new year, we’ve arranged in a new layout that is designed to mix things up: full time desks and loose desks are now integrated and mixed up! We hope that this gives our less frequent members a chance to interact more with full time members, and vice versa. Can desk arrangements encourage collaboration? We think so at IndyHall!
Come join us and help with the experiment. Whether you’re already a member or not, use our reservation system to set aside a desk sometime this month and come hang out with the IndyHall coworking crew.
I’ve been talking with Allan Branch at LessEverything.com, and he sent the following email to for us to share as we wrap up 2008 and welcome 2009:
Dearest Alex, I hope all is well. I wish you and the rest of the Indyhall people an awesome 2009. We want you guys to rock and not waste time mucking through your financial books in the coming year. We’d like to offer any IndyHall member free access to any LessEverything product in 2009.
The Apps
http://LessAccounting.com
It’s simple accounting, we say all accounting apps suck, we just suck less.
http://LessTimeSpent.com
Punch card like time tracking and expenses tracking for projects. Export your times to LessAccounting.com
http://LessProjects.com
A project task manager, currently free in alpha testing, will be paid this year.
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Our Roadmap
LessAccounting
• Auto-Importing Bank Data, we partnered with Yodlee, who provides Mint.com with their importing and security.
• iPhone app will be out in the first week of the year.
• Twitter Integration on LessTimeSpent
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If your members want a free account, have them signup and use any of our apps. If they like the experience, let us know we’ll set their account to free for 2009.
If you have any questions let me know.
See you at SXSW!
Allan Branch
So given that the new year is usually when we all start our record keeping cycles, we thought now was the best time to switch!
Thanks to Allan and Steve for their love and sending along this holiday gift for us to share with all of you.
I encourage everyone to try out LessAccounting and let Allan know how you like it. If you’re a member, I’ll be starting a thread in our Basecamp account for free account requests that I can pass along to Allan.
Last week, I pubished a call to action, a meetup to give the proverbial ball it’s first push towards seeing what the media maker community in Philadelphia looks like. In short, we’ve experienced a huge influx of interest in the space between making and entreprenurship. IndyHall covers the high tech, interactive, and small business arenas quite effectively. The Hacktory takes “making” as literal as possible, usually to the point of taking things apart and making new things from them. Philly Startup Leaders has become the point of reference for people who are making new startups and sharing business resources.
But I don’t know a whole lot about people who make media.
I’ve been repeatedly asked two questions since making that post last week.
What do you mean by “media production studio”
What do you mean by “media”
I may have mis-stepped in calling it a studio, because that comes with a lot of connotations and expectations. At this stage, I don’t have any of those. I’ve got dreams, I’ve got vision, but that’s not what we’re here for. For the time being, I know that Geoff and I share a lot of interest in shared space, the idea of “clubhouses”, and exploring other communities in Philadelphia. So for the time being, I’m going to make it a point to replace the term “studio” with “clubhouse” until we have a better idea of what that clubhouse might provide.
As far as media, I’m interested in keeping that broad for the time being as well. The obvious categories are audio and video, but being unfamiliar with the facets of this community, we’re back to square one.
That’s right, we’re going old school. Back to basics. And that’s where last night’s meetup got interesting.
Discovering the “We”
It ended up being surprisingly challenging to keep the group focused away from discussing what the space could be. It’s easy to get excited about the prospect of the space, and a space technically can provide almost anything we want it to.
14 people braved the Philadelphia cold last night to join us at National Mechanics and many stayed afterward to continue talking. The group in attendance was split between old faces and new faces, which was exciting to have some crossover while introducing new blood to a community of leaders. The folks who came were from a diverse set of backgrounds as well, which is great to see this early on. Approximately 1/3rd of the attendees were female, which is also a promising ratio for gender representation compared to the boys club that IndyHall was at the onset and continues to improve on. The discussion went down the path of things like equipment rental, equipment co-ops, new media gallery space, workshop/educational space, and many combination of the components. The brainstorm was great, and it was really fantastic to see people get motivated and excited.
What was difficult was to sidestep the space and it’s resources, for a minute, to figure out who the we was.
But I’m pleased to report that’s where we’re starting. (this is where things start to feel so familiar)
We left knowing that there’s collective interest in discovering who represents the community of professional media makers in Philadelphia. Wegathered up email addresses, to form a google group, temporarily named “PhillyMediaMakers”. And we left with a commitment to use that google group to continue to share information as we collectively discover what’s already going on in Philly. The goal put forth was to share at least one connection or resource with the group, and make at least one new connection to invite to the next meetup which will be taking place in mid-January. Mission #1 is to “discover the we”.
One of the attendees (Greg Wilder, who is also a member of PSL. Isn’t cross pollination beautiful?) has already started to “pass the mic” in the form of a thread for people to introduce themselves, their resources, and their ideas. If you couldn’t make the first meetup, no worries! We’ll be regrouping very soon in 2009. In the mean time, get involved in the google group and introduce yourself.
Just remember, at this point, our #1 operative is to uncover as many existing resources and connections as we can, and survey the land to see what’s already going on, and see how we can begin to band together towards shared goals.
It’s been a while since I waxed philosophic or daydreamed out loud on the IndyHall blog, and as I’m looking back on 2008 and into 2009, I thought it was a good opportunity to empty my brain a bit.
Growth IndyHall has seen exceptional growth and stability over the last year. While we were operationally break even quickly (before the end of 2007, in fact), we didn’t have a lot of working capital and we did have a little bit of debt. And while we also had a really robust and active community all along, our desk usage and membership has seen tremendous growth as well, with all 12 of our full time desks occupied since August 2008, a paying membership roster in excess of 50 members at various levels, and very exciting activity from our non-permanent memberships.
Specificity and Specialization One of the things that I’ve prided IndyHall on has always been zero exclusion. Unlike incubators, we don’t require you to have a “business model”. Unlike associations, we don’t require a you to be a member of a specific industry. If you can work from anywhere, we believe you SHOULD be working from a place like IndyHall.
That diversity is important to the ethos of our coworking space. I wouldn’t change that for the world.
But I remain curious what happens when a specific set of under served needs get specific attention, and how diversity can be approached in a new way.
The plot thickens One of the smaller, but still certainly present, demographics at IndyHall (and many other coworking spaces) is media production. Audio/video editors, producers, photographers, videographers, podcasters, so on and so forth. I admittedly know very little about this industry from a production standpoint, what the roles are and how they inter operate. However the limited knowledge I do have suggests something that is really intriguing to me: could a coworking space designed for independent media producers thrive? I think the answer is yes.
One of the biggest reasons I find that media folks tend to not be the best fit for IndyHall is the difficulty in being mobile. Even with field equipment becoming smaller and more accessible, that’s only one piece of the equipment equation. As great as a Macbook Pro can be, it doesnt come close to a Mac Pro for video work, and a number of potential IndyHall coworkers have expressed that if it wasn’t for the thought of lugging their rig across the city, they’d be all over coworking. We’d either need to provide some machines as part of membership, or be a bit more geared towards full time members and less for migrant workers. Most likely some combination of the two approaches would be ideal.
The other side of the equipment fence that could be approached, though it comes with its own set of complications, is equipment rental. As we’ve done with IndyHall, making an office in Old City with a conference room available for $275/month or less is only possible when a bunch of people are sharing the resources. High end, otherwise unapproachably expensive equipment could be shared in a similar fashion. Again, this comes with a whole set of liability questions to be answered (the cost of replacing and maintaining office equipment is much less than high end A/V equipment). But that’s a technical problem with a solution, I’m sure.
Diversity within Specialization Thinking further about the types of people who might use this space: even though they are a more focused group than the “types” of workers who hang at IndyHall, there’s still a good deal of diversity in workers, process, etc. The way I think about it is there are writers who don’t like to direct. Directors who don’t like to edit. Editors who aren’t as good at digital effects and prefer working directly with footage (and of course the other way around). Basically, at every step of the production process there’s the opportunity for a handoff if someone more specialized is available. A similar “stick to what you’re good at and find complimentary partners” strategy as is employed often in software and web at IndyHall can apply to media production, making everyone’s end product supremely higher quality. At the risk of sounding trite, it’s like a production company without the company. The powerful “small pieces loosely joined” model strikes again.
I’ve admittedly thought about and talked through a lot of this model already, but have my mind open to how it will best serve this community. My ultimate goal is to enable the independent media creators in Philadelphia to up their game and produce even better content for themselves and their clients. I need you, those independent media creators, to tell me what’s missing.
So, whaddya say? Are you an independent or remote media producer who’s looking for comradery, business development opportunities, opportunities to learn new skills from peers, and above all, put on some pants and get out of your house? In Philly, and interested? I’m going to follow my own roadmap and host a meetup to talk about this idea, and I’d like to do it before 2009 is here.
ACTION ACTION!
Let’s meet at National Mechanics Next Monday, December 22nd. 6:30pm.RSVP on Upcoming, or heck, just show up. Tell your friends. Invite anyone who might be interested. It will be an open forum discussion with the goal of having actionable next steps to walk away with. Maybe identify some new leaders in this community. Let’s rock and roll into 2009.
Our initial attemt at IndyHall Show and Tell was foiled by a power outage. Bummer!
We’re trying again, TOMORROW, December 18th. Come by IndyHall from 12pm to 1pm to see and share some of the things that IndyHall coworkers have been working on or have learned/discovered recently.
We’ll be hosting 4 or 5 ten minute presentations, including Chris Jurney giving us a sneak peek at Dawn of War 2, the not-yet-released new title from Relic Entertainment he’s a senior programmer on.
Bring a bag lunch or grab a sandwich from Campos on your way over. It’s also cupcake thursday, and you should know how that works by now.
We’ll be doing these at least monthly, on cupcake thursdays, more often if the interest is there.
Apologies for the confusion, P’unk Ave’s Junto IS returning…but not tonight, December 4th. Instead it’s been rescheduled to Next Wednesday, December 10th. All of the other standard rules apply: starts at 6pm, discussion begins at 7pm. P’unk Ave provides beers and tomato pie, guests are invited to bring pot-luck snacks.
This months topic is Health, riffing from a great BarcampPhilly session Geoff and I both attended, as well as the upcoming HealthCampPhilly.
I hope you join us next Wednesday for the long-awaited return of The Junto!
Independent Exposure is an international independent film curatorial program. Each year hundreds of international artists submit short films to be judged and put into one of a few programs Independent Exposure puts out. The films are shown in alternative venues through out the world. IndyHall is a new stop for these incredible films! We will be showing “Lucky 13″. In honor of their 13th anniversary. This program features 19 short films with a total run time of 66 minutes. A list of the films and more information can be found at http://www.independentexposure.com
We will of course have cupcakes, but we encourage snack/drink donations!
All are invited but we do have limited room so please RSVP on Upcoming or Facebook.
Wow, what a great weekend for the Philadelphia scene! We had our first BarCamp here in Philly, thanks to Roz Duffy, JP Toto, and a hard working team of volunteers. Contratulations to everyone who attended on making this event not only one of the best events we’ve had in Philadelphia yet, but one of the best BarCamp’s I’ve attended!
At the end of the day, we had a “Philly Scene” session led by Kimberly Blessing, which involved us filling a whiteboard with places, events, and websites that are the lifeblood of everything awesome going on in our town. Once Kimberly shares her redux of the list we compiled, we’ll share it here. In the mean time, we’ve got a bunch of stuff coming up that you can get into to keep the Barcamp spirit going!
CocoaHeads Philly - Thursday, November 13th CocoaHeads is a monthly get-together of cocoa developers (not chocolate, Cocoa is Apple’s development framework) to talk about development techniques and the things that they are working on. Last month Andy Mroczkowski showed off an iPhone project he’d been working on, and since then, it’s hit the iTunes app store. Check out Wolfgang’s Vault!
This month’s meeting is on Thursday, November 13th and runs from from 7-9pm, at IndyHall.
CupCakeCamp East - Sunday November 16th BarCamp + Cupcakes = Love. Dana and Katie from OpenSourceCupcakes will be celebrating the launch of their cupcake site by having a cupcake exchange in the format of “CupcakeCamp”, pioneered in San Francisco; now we’re bringing it to Philly! Full details on the previous post about the event.
IP For Independents - Wednesday, November 19th
Frank Taney, shareholder and chair of the Information Technology Litigation Practice Group at the law firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, presents “IP for Independents.”
Frank will address a number of intellectual property (”IP”) topics with particular significance for Independents, including:
The main categories of IP and how Independents are likely to encounter them
The basic steps Independents need to take to protect their IP
“Safe” licensing, conveyance and use of IP
Identifying actionable IP infringement
Enforcement of IP rights and remedies for infringement
We tend to take pretty liberal views on IP issues here at IndyHall, so getting some varied perspective from the legal side is going to be beneficial and certainly interesting. We look forward to Frank’s lecture. Please RSVP on Upcoming!
IndyHall Show and Tell - Thursday, November 20th [lunchtime!] Who said Show and Tell was just for kids? We’re going to be hosting a lunchtime Show and Tell monthly, at least, where 4 people from the community (that’s folks who work at IndyHall AND folks who don’t) will be able to talk about and show off whatever they’ve been working on, have found interesting, learned about, etc. We’ll order some sandwiches and drinks, and if you’re able to get to Old City between 12 and 1pm on Thursday, November 20th, you should join us! Interested in showing or telling? Drop us a note. Either way, please RSVP on Upcoming since space is limited and we need to order food.
If one thing was going to bring the east coast and the west coast together, it certainly would be cupcakes!
To celebrate the launching of Open Source Cupcakes, the home of IndyHall’s now famous Cupcake Thursdays, we will be hosting Cupcake Camp East! The original Cupcake Camp was started June 2008 in San Fransisco.
Bring your favorite cupcakes! We will be eating and sharing cupcakes all afternoon. For just a few hours, IndyHall will TRUELY be the happiest place on earth!
If you’re baking, please bring copies of your recipes to share! We will be posting them on opensourcecupcakes.com.
We had a great time! The turnout was awesome, and the ratio of costumed attendees was brilliantly high. We look forward to working with Geekadelphia and Tattooed Mom again soon, and a repeat of this event next year!
Geekadelphia has shared a great video recap of the night, highlighting the costume contest results. Be sure to check it out!
Be on the lookout for our next social event, and also stay tuned for Geekadelphia’s 1 year birthday party later this month!
Independent Exposure is an international independent film curatorial program. Each year hundreds of international artists submit short films to be judged and put into one of a few programs Independent Exposure puts out. The films are shown in alternative venues through out the world. IndyHall is a new stop for these incredible films! We will be showing “Lucky 13″. In honor of their 13th anniversary. This program features 19 short films with a total run time of 66 minutes. A list of the films and more information can be found at 
