Re: another collaborative facility in Tucson

[shanna leonard]

Interesting. Thanks for the report!!!!

I had read about gangplank up in PHX. In about 3 weeks I am free (from school anyway) for the summer and interested in investigating.

By the way - please note my changed email address: s...@email.arizona.edu


On 4/8/2011 3:55 PM, Dave Bilgray wrote:

Folks,
 
fascinating morning at the Gangplank event.
 
Basically it's a variation on the Spoke collaboration idea, with a major diff. Instead of everyone sharing the cost of the facility, there's a handful of larger companies (maybe 5-15 employees), called "anchors", who pay all the costs. a lot of little companies, one or two people, come in for free, for varying amounts of time. Some every day. Some a couple days a week, depending on when they need it.
 
The anchor companies do it because of the access to skills their people don't have. cheaper than hiring a consultant. and a lot quicker.
 
The key is collaboration. The idea is that everyone is there to share. So if someone has a question, or there's something they don't know anything about, they grab someone across the room, and get the answer.
 
Sometimes that leads to paying work, as one company hires another, for a specific task. Mainly it means that they all do better work for their clients. They refer jobs back and forth, if they hear about something which is out of their area.
 
This started in Chandler, when one company had a workspace that was larger than it needed. They brought in a few individual people, for free, and it grew from there. The Chandler operation is now about 40 people, including about a dozen from the original company.
 
They do lots of public events, such as presentations about various tech stuff. That gets publicity for the whole operation.
 
The Tucson location is a little weird. on a wiggly road, in an industrial area south of I-10. Not close to where people live.  Not easy to find.  And not very bike-able, although one guy did come on a bike. 
 
The reason for the location is that the building was bought by Bookman's, whose IT group will be an anchor. They're doing web order fulfillment there. Huge building, with several large rooms. Formerly owned by the Beaudry's car dealership, before it went bankrupt. used for indoor display of RVs, and for company HQ. Before that, it was an outlet mall. The big display area will be rented for expos and various other events.  They're looking for more anchors. Someone said several companies are interested.
 
The Gangplank room looks like it's big enough for 25-30 workstations. There's more space available, if needed. There's an audio studio, which Beaudry used for producing commercials. There will also be a mechanical "hacking" room, where hardware prototypes could be built. There's a large server room, which will be only partly occupied by Bookman's.
 
Looks like interesting potential. A couple guys from AZ Tech Council were there. They're very big on the idea. 
 
here's a repeat of the links I sent the other day, if you want to check it out.
 
their website:
http://gangplankhq.com/
 
their interest in Tucson:
http://gangplankhq.com/2011/03/gangplank-tucson-and-beyond/
 
and here's an address for getting on their list.
in...@gangplankhq.com
 
Dave

-- 
Shanna Leonard
s...@email.arizona.edu
Arizona Respiratory Center
National Children's Study

[Dave Bilgray]

Folks,

A free Microsoft class about Windows Phone 7, this Saturday, April
23. It's in Chandler, but it's on a Saturday, so traffic shouldn't be bad.

http://azgroups.org/20114-wp7unleashed.aspx#

It will be at Gangplank, the collaborative org which had an
introductory event here a couple weeks ago, and is having another one
here tomorrow (Thursday) night, which Shanna posted about previously.

This is an add-on to one of Microsoft's occasional promo events,
about various .NET stuff, on the previous day, this Friday, April 22.

http://azgroups.org/2011scottguevent.aspx#

So it's two consecutive days about .NET and Windows Phone 7, both in
Chandler, on the same street, but in different locations.

I'm not a big fan of the Dark Side, but I've been on their email list
for years, and this happened to catch my attention. Interesting that
they're using the Gangplank facility for the Phone class.

fwiw.

Dave