Hey IndyHall!
I feel like my emails tend to get crazy-long, but I hope you stick with me
through this one. TONS of important stuff!!
First and foremost, please take <5 minutes and hit this 10 question survey.
5 of the questions ask you to rank importance on a scale of 1-5, and the
others are a bit more specific. Finally, there's an optional fieldfor your
name and email, as well as a spot for additional thoughts that the survey
might stir up.
http://indyhall.wufoo.com/forms/independents-hall-member-survey/
Please, and pass it around to others who might be interested and for some
reason arent on this list!
There's a really important reason I'm sending out this survey: we're close.
Oh boy, are we close. At yesterday's Cream Cheese Session, which was
graciously hosted by Bart Mroz and had more new
attendees<http://flickr.com/photos/bmweb/662490419/>(flickr)
than ever before, we spent about an hour at the end of the day talking about
the last couple of weeks of research and what we've come up with as far as
locations and memberships.
Before sharing the entire discussion, I'd like to get some basic information
from the rest of you who weren't in attendance, and when we compare that to
the conversation we had as a group, we'll get a really good feel for the
group's direction as a whole.
In the mean time, once you're done filling out the form, check out the start
of the use cases that I'm working on. I took an article on Bootstrapper as a
framework and am working from there. This document is very much alive and in
progress, but since many people asked for this kind of material to be put
down somewhere besides being in my head, I've gone ahead and done that. If
you find typos/grammatical errors, feel free to log in and edit. If you feel
you can contribute more to the cases, log in and do so. If you think of more
cases that you'd like me to elaborate on, log in and add them. This is FOR
YOU, and I plan to share this with the coworking community outside of
Philadelphia as well.
These cases can be found at:
http://wiki.independentshall.org/planning/howtousecoworking
Finally, and this is the most exciting thing I've got short of an actual
place for us to move into:
PRICING
I know, I've been promising this one for a long time and it's been
incredibly difficult for people to gauge their commitment without figures to
work from. Geoff and I have worked hard on a model that will allow the costs
and risks be distributed across the entire community and therefore be very
low for each involved individual.
The current target pricing model falls into all of the estimates that we had
originally mentioned.
http://wiki.independentshall.org/planning/membershipmodel
There are some numbers left to consider, things like non-member conference
space usage, and specific utilities (VoIP and P.O. boxes are two options for
things that we may provide, if people are interested, for nominal extra
cost). And of course, until a lease is signed and final numbers are
crunched, we can't guarantee that things won't flux BUT I'm committed to
keeping things affordable and will do anything I can to mitigate cost
increases.
FINALLY! Events!
July 12th and 13th is BlogPhiladelphia. If you haven't registered yet and
plan to attend, do it now! It's going to be awesome, and IndyHall needs to
show our presence! Because the 13th is the Friday that we'd normally do our
next Cream Cheese Session, it will be postponed until the following week,
space to be determined.
BlogPhiladelphia/Independents Hall Party! Thursday July 12th, from 8->???,
we're going to be co-sponsoring a social evening event at Triumph Brewery at
2nd and Chestnut in Old City! This is another opportunity for us to show off
and talk about what we've been up to.
Details: This event will include free pass around hors d'oeuvres being
provided by Triumph. Beers will be $5 (they are a microbrew and have a whole
slew of awesome beers), and the wine and liquor will be cash as well. BUT
THERE'S A TWIST!!!
I'm implementing the microsponsorship model that I participated in at
an impromptu
party at SXSW<http://laughingsquid.com/sxsw-2007-twittermob-spontaneous-microsponso...>
(laughingsquid.com). The way it works is that anyone can open up a tab as a
microsponsor of the event. I'll have details about the smallest contribution
allowed (I'm not sure Triumph allows pitchers) but the hope is that
individuals and businesses will make small to medium contributions for the
purpose of keeping the party going. To kick things off,
WeKnowHTML/Independents Hall will be starting the night off with a $500 tab,
and we'll see where things go from there. I believe we have a handful of
other microsponsors lined up to keep things moving just in case, but this
should be a great time. Dress to impress, and have a great time!
Keep your eyes peeled for more Junto-related events too, I'll announce more
of those as details solidify.
That's all for now. As always, if you have questions/thoughts/ideas, don't
hesitate to talk about them here, or hit me up on AIM, skype, or my cell
phone.
Accelerating serendipity,
Alex
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Alex Hillman
web.developer.innovation.consultant
vocal: 484.597.6256
digital: a...@weknowhtml.com
visual: www.weknowhtml.com | www.dangerouslyawesome.com
local: www.independentshall.org
