2 of 22 wireframe pages for the Reservation Management application
It seems appropriate to sum up the last year with what I can only call the Understatement Of The Year: We sure have learned a lot. Which, admittedly, is a euphemism for: Holy crapola, we have encountered more obstacles and challenges than we ever imagined.
There was the location dance that cost us several months. There were the numerous gotchas as we did demolition in our space that is actually the epicenter of 5 old buildings. There were new city regulations, and periodic construction glitches. And of course there continue to be funding issues.
But perhaps our biggest challenge, has been bringing to life software of a whole new breed — something that could handle our unique reservations needs and our café side requirements. Not only that, but we wanted the solution to be gorgeous and seamless and … okay, call us over ambitious … joyful.
We hit some big walls — sometimes we joke that we’ve actually created a new kind of hardware — as in difficult-ware. Not for lack of brilliance on the inside. We employed a very mature design process. We developed personas, created use case scenarios and mapped out user flows. Tori Breitling and Marie Hwang created some of the most stunning, detailed wireframes I’ve ever seen. More than one development team has been blown away by their user interface documents, commenting that they’ve never had the opportunity to start out with such well though-out design documents.
But finding the right team that knows how to make all that work right — well, it’s been a long road, more than a little frustrating. And then, sigh of relief, enter the geniuses at Integral Concepts. We asked them to buy into this complex new model and they signed on eagerly. They totally get what we’re aiming for — not just technically but Big Picture-wise. They know how to integrate a high-touch design into all the backend functionality and they dig the concept. And right now, as you’re reading this, they’re working on something we can expand and evolve as we grow.
Oh, and did we mention they’re most excellent communicators? They check in daily, offer suggestions for improvements, and are totally, constantly on top of the game. So a big shout out to our Integral Concepts team: Scott Riggins, Chuck Guo, Sebastian Leks, and Harry Teunissen — I actually met Scott back in the 90s at Go Media when we hosted WebEdge, a Mac web developers conference. Fun to be working with him again. We can’t wait for the big launch :)
John Robb has an interesting short post over at Global Guerrillas talking about “highly decentralized hot spots of local innovation.” Say what? Allow us to translate: that’s apparently geek speak for “cool restaurant that acts as a magnet for forward thinkers who wish to gather and exchange ideas.” Robb is talking about how, in the “old days” of Silicon Valley startups, innovators and VCs could often be found congregating at one place — namely an eatery called Buck’s of Woodside. Now, he says, you can find places like this scattered all over. And he offers the example of Claire’s, a Vermont restaurant, to make his point.
But it’s the conversation the post inspires — dare we call this collaboration? — that really gets things going. In particular, commenter Duncan Kinder takes the time to school Robb on the history of innovators swapping creative juices over a plateful and a cuppa over the past umpteen centuries. He even includes helpful source links.
Kinder cites Plato’s Symposium, a philosophical dialogue written about the nature of love, which was set (as were real life symposiums) over supper and wine. And he notes the Florentine Camerata, a sort of coworking model for Renaissance musicians. And then there’s the Mermaid Club — a bunch of Elizabethan poets who gathered at a tavern regularly to throw back brew and couplets spew.
Do note Kinder has more than a passing interest in the history of folks gathering to swap ideas. As he himself points out — also with a link — he’s compiled a list on Amazon called Philosophically Correct Entertainment offering up other examples of the predecessors to that smart group thinking that informs the success of coworking.
Eli Malinsky is the Program Manager for the Centre for Social Innovation, a sort of coworking space in Toronto that offers collaborative workspace to those working to “make positive change in the world.” The Centre opened in 2004 and since then their space has expanded considerably. So they’ve had a chance to figure out what works and what doesn’t for this particular brand of coworking. Eli recently took the time to answer some questions about his organization.
Spike Gillespie:What exactly is the Centre for Social Innovation? Eli Malinsky: We do a bunch of things, but the main thing we do is provide shared work space and shared services. We have around 120 current members — 40 in offices, 40 in permanent desks, and 40 in hot desks (part-time desks). They represent nonprofits, charities, social enterprises, social purpose businesses, green businesses and are also individual social entrepreneurs, artists and activists. They reflect a variety of interests, including arts, culture, social justice, education, health, environment, technology and much, much more. They are a diverse bunch — but they are all using their energy to improve their communities and the world at large.
We also provide event spaces so we have about 1,000 people per month come in for workshops, meetings, book launches, press conferences etc. And finally, we act as an incubator, helping promising social change projects get off the ground.
Spike:How did y’all come up with the idea? Eli: We know that the majority of social change projects start off small — one or two people small. And it’s these folks who are most likely to work in isolation and in substandard facilities. It’s also these folks who have the most difficult time with administration, because they don’t have staff support. When you are a one-person organization and the internet connection goes down, you are the only who can deal with it.
We imagined the Centre as a place where a diverse cross-section of people and organizations would come together with two common motivations: to reduce costs through economies of scale and shared administrative support, and to build community across sectors and interests.
We started with 5,000 square feet and 14 tenant organizations. Within two years we had a waiting list of 40 organizations. We’re now at 20,000 square feet and it was only in the past two years that we really invested in desk space and shared desk space as opposed to offices. We’ve also broadened our focus beyond nonprofit organizations to include all types of organizations working for social change.
Spike:What you’re doing sounds very much like what the coworking movement is doing, only with an emphasis on non-profit work. Can you give me an example or two of how pooling resources has resulted in success/improvements for the groups at the Centre? Eli: Yep that’s exactly what it is. Coworking for ’social mission’ organizations and individuals. Everyone wants to know the big story — how two groups collaborated and created change in a way that wouldn’t have been possible without the Centre for Social Innovation. And that does happen. But the real magic is in the more pervasive and diffuse collaboration that occurs through natural day-to-day exchange. Members are constantly sharing tips, feedback, resources, connections and expertise in a way that simply wouldn’t be possible without a shared space. And a lot of genuinely great friendships form too!
Spike:Some examples of the groups at the Centre? Eli: See the bottom of the web site. There are a ton! From the African Canadian Social Development Council to EcoSchools — our members run the full spectrum….
Spike:Are you at full capacity? Eli: All of our permanent space is full with a waiting list. But we have space for about 80 part-time people, so our goal is to double current numbers by March 2009.
Spike:How, exactly, has it worked — does a group apply for use of space? Do they pay rent or are they funded by the Centre? Eli: We are a nonprofit social enterprise — we have no funding except for what we get from our tenants (although we do get grants for special projects). So we can only survive in the marketplace if we generate enough revenue from rent. All tenants pay rent for their space, based on size and any special features (windows, exposed brick, etc.). The part-time members select among a series of packages based on a set allotment of hours.
All members must apply and must be approved for tenancy. We have an application form and take very seriously our responsibility to select the best possible tenants. We are ‘curators’ of the shared environment — and this is critical to our success. Spike:You’ve been open for 4 years now — how have things changed and what have you learned in the process? Eli: We have learned a ton since we opened our doors. There are three main discoveries/lessons that really influence our unique approach: The first is diversity. A good coworking space is a diverse coworking space. For us, this means a mix of permanent and part-time members. It also means a variety of organizational forms: charities, nonprofits, social purpose businesses, social enterprises, consultants, grassroots community groups and individual social entrepreneurs, innovators and activists. Finally, diversity means a mix of areas of interest and focus: social justice, health, education, arts, environment, technology, business, and professional services. It is only by connecting with others outside of our own familiar spheres that we can take our ideas to the next level and develop systemic solutions to the problems that face us.
The second is physical design. The physical design of the space plays a massive role in its success a space for work and for collaboration. A coworking space must be functional: it must manage noise, provide sufficient meeting rooms, include a variety of standard office amenities and allow people to be efficient and productive in pursuit of their missions.
But it must also be designed with community in mind. For us, this means using glass walls wherever possible — so you can get a real sense of the dynamism of the space. Glass also reflects core values of transparency, openness and collaboration. We also make sure that we have large kitchens and unstructured spaces for social interaction, including casual and comfortable furniture. People are more likely to share ideas and spark a connection if they are just ‘hanging out’. We’ve come to realize how important it is to provide such spaces to really foster the development of community.
Finally, we’ve learned that our coworking community needs animation as much as it needs administration. But it must not be heavy-handed — it should be with a light touch. We focus on three levels of animation: physical, social and technological. Physically, we put up message walls, maps and photo walls that allow people to learn who’s in the space and what they’re doing, and which foster communication among members. Socially, we have quarterly formal events (and many informal events throughout the year) that allow members to kick back and get to know each other without focusing on work. We have had picnics, sailing trips, and the annual Cookie & Cocktail Smackdown. Technologically, we have an internal e-mail list that allows members to get in touch with each other, share leads and find support, as well as website profiles that feature the members and allow everyone to learn more about each other’s work.
The vertical panels for our custom desks are in place, and man are they stunning! Here’s a quickie 32-second video showing them off. LaunchPad coworking is really taking shape :)
Over at her blog, The Medium, at NYT, Virginia Heffernan recently reminded us about cybercafes. Not really a predecessor to coworking spaces, these were places early adopter geeks could go and do their private virtual whatever in a public space. It wasn’t about collaboration or networking. It was about emailing in one another’s presence.
Heffernan mentions @cafe as an example—a place in Manhattan where I was once booked—in 1995!— by Prodigy Services (anybody remember Prodigy?!) to do a reading. (It was Prodigy’s hope, at the time, to launch a cyber-celeb into the world. Such heady times!) Well @cafe is long shuttered. But Heffernan reports that cyber cafes still exist out there and have morphed some.
Now, when I think of such places, I think of traveling far away without a laptop, and tracking down a badly carpeted drab room where I rent a beat up, buggy computer for too much per minute to check my email. Or feeling some small sense of comfort if my son is traipsing around Europe, knowing he’ll have ample access to cybercafes to send back reports of how “pretty” Amsterdam is. These images I have of cybercafes aren’t inaccurate. However, they don’t paint the full picture.
Here’s a bit from Heffernan’s blog, within which is a quote from 1998, pointing out why cybercafes should, logically, be obsolete by now:
“The notion of a cybercafe — a place for Net surfers to socialize on a tide of gourmet coffee — is at odds with how most people want to use computers, even in their leisure time,” Michel Marriott observed that year [1998] in The New York Times. “Those who Web surf, read e-mail, write or program or do just about anything else on a computer often do so in solitude.” Today, with superpowered handhelds, we imagine digital life as something that no longer requires devoted surfaces, mouse pads or uninterrupted stretches of time.
And yet, still some gather in cybercafes. Heffernan tells the tale of Web2Zone, near the campus of NYU, where more than half of the space is dedicated to gamers. Technically, these gamers have no real need to come and play amongst each other — unless they’re having a hardware crisis at home. But the café’s owner has a number of theories why they do choose to congregate. Heffernan has ideas of her own, too:
Participants in social networks and any kind of massive-multiplayer-online existence often feel suspended between total isolation at their screens and howling online crowds. The next incarnation of the cybercafe should take into account that people will pay not only for coffee and online minutes but also for the reassurance that in their cyberjourneys they might find traveling companions whose faces — in line for a Red Bull or a margarita? — they might even see.
A few days ago, I posted about how it’s likely Obama will have to give up his Blackberry. This came to my attention in a New York Times article. Well, the Times did a related post looking at past presidents and noting how some of them had access to cutting edge innovations before the public at large.
For example:
Yet there was a time when the White House was a veritable house of the future. The sitting president enjoyed running water and central heat long before most Americans. Telegraph machines were introduced in 1866 by President Andrew Johnson (a year before his impeachment on technical — not technological — grounds), and electricity has been coursing through presidential wires since 1891.
Also noted in the article: Harry Truman got the honor of being the first president to broadcast over TV (in 1947). And Jimmy Carter installed solar panels in the ’70s. (Less forward-thinking Ronald Reagan had these ripped out when it was his turn to sit in the head honcho seat).
A website dedicated to the history of the White House offers some other notable improvements in the lives of presidents throughout history.
1801 — Thomas Jefferson does away with the outhouses and installs two indoor water closets. These did not feature running water, though.
1809 — James Madison puts in a heating system — “the gravity-based Pettibone furnace.”
1833 — Running water is installed. Initially this was to supply drinking water and protect against fire (the White House was torched by the Brits in 1814 and then rebuilt so the precaution had a catalyst). Flowing H2O soon inspired another change:
“Very soon, a ‘bathing room’ was established in the east wing to take advantage of the fine water supply. The room featured a cold bath, a shower, and a hot bath heated by coal fires under large copper boilers.”
1860s — “a new spring-bell system enabled Lincoln to signal the reception room and his secretaries without leaving his desk.”
1879 — Rutherford B. Hayes installs the first telephone. However, since hardly anyone has a phone, hardly anyone calls. And — this is great — his phone number was: 1. Yes, that’s it. Just 1.
1880 — The White House gets its first typewriter.
1881 — The first air conditioner of sorts is installed to bring comfort to the dying Garfield. “The device forced air through a box with screens that were kept wet with cold ice water and cooled the president.”
1881 — First elevator!
1891 — Electricity. “President and Mrs. Harrison refused to operate the switches because they feared being shocked and left the operation of the electric lights to the domestic staff.”
1912 — Now we’re talking — culinary improvements thanks to Mrs. Taft: A ‘Forty-quart Peerless Ice Cream Freezer,’ with a direct current motor and a twelve-foot long Imperial French Coal Range were added to the large kitchen.”
1920s — Vacuum cleaners and radio make the neighbors jealous.
Plenty more happened in the ninety years since, and it’s all compiled in splendid detail at the White House History site.
One last surprising answer: Q Who automated the White House with computers? A Same president who went for solar panels — Mr. Peanut, Jimmy Carter.
Edible Austin, is a gorgeously produced free magazine spotlighting local awesome eating possibilities for Austin foodies. This week they’re sponsoring Eat Local Week with two excellent goals in mind — to help “Central Texans to explore and celebrate the abundance of local food and to raise money for Urban Roots, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as a means to transform the lives of young people and to increase the access of healthy food in Austin.”
We were psyched to find out that our great friend, Dr. Oolong, aka Jeffrey Lorien, was hosting an event as part of Eat Local Week. Dr. Oolong owns Zhi Tea along with his delightful partner, Candice Oneida. We ran a post about Dr. Oolong and his business this past summer. The man is the picture of passion when it comes to all things steeped, and he certainly gave us some fascinating tea insight when he visited us and served up flavors we had no idea existed.
Dr. Oolong and Candice threw a big, fat tea party at their rocking warehouse location on Bolm Road in East Austin. Not interested in being ferociously competitive with Austin’s other tea purveyors, the couple invited those folks to join them. As Candice put it, “We’re all here to raise the profile of tea to everybody.”
Inside the shop, attendees sat on floor cushions and enjoyed traditional Chinese Guzheng music played by a woman and a young boy. Watching and listening to them — especially seeing that little kid jam out on an old school instrument — was totally inspiring.
Meanwhile, outside, the tea was flowing and the tasty snacks were abundant. There were plenty of free samples, which we were not shy about testing out. Jesse Bloom, the chef/owner of Ecstatic Cuisine tempted us to not visit any of the other tables since he was handing out duck comfit with pomegranate syrup, hummus with sundried tomato pesto, mole chicken bites, and these gingerbread tea “sandwiches” topped with a dollop of — well, we’re not sure what it was but we are sure it was excellent. We grazed heavily and unabashedly before tearing ourselves away to check out the other booths.
Dr. Oolong and Candice have decided they are going to be instrumental in transforming Austin into “a world-class tea destination.” They certainly took a nice big step in that direction Saturday.
See the Flickr Set for the Tea Party and our visit to Boggy Creek Farms
Springwise recently called our attention to a cool project being sponsored by Swedish clothing company, Elvine. In the interest of promoting what they term Creative Social Responsibility (CSR) — a play on Corporate Social Responsibility — the company is offering creative types free, no-strings-attached accommodations in the form of a place called Creators Inn in Gothenburg.
As explained at Creators Inn:
With Creators Inn by Elvine we tried to add some creativity to the equation, labeling what we do as CSR — Creative Social Responsibility. By offering visiting creators free accommodation, we hope to remind people of a lovely little thing called hospitality. And in addition to making the visiting creators happy and Gothenburg a more interesting city because of their presence, we hope this simple idea can be exported and implemented around the globe. What a wonderful world that would result in.
Anyone is welcome to register for a chance to stay for a short visit. Foreigners and creative types get priority. They even have a guarantee — if you can find a place to stay that costs less than nothing, they will match that rate at Creators Inn.
Pretty cool way to shine a light on the clothing line while simultaneously turning outsiders on to Gothenburg and Gothenburgers on to artists they might not otherwise know about. We might have to invent the CoExcellence award and bestow our first trophy upon the folks at Elvine for coming up with such a CoZy way of bringing folks together :)
So I’ve been online since 1995 — not as early as the true pioneers but still, a little ahead of the curve. Mostly I just live, breathe, and work on the Internet, a fully immersed cyber citizen who ’t stop to gawk at surroundings that have been familiar to me for going on fourteen years. But I had one of those moments recently where, instead of just living it and being it and doing it, I stepped back and had a nanosecond glimpse of how very much this thing has changed, and continues to change our lives.
Tangent time: A long, long time ago, I was part of Austin’s poetry slam scene. And it used to chap me when people would get up and perform pieces about slam poetry. What do you call that when you write about what you write about? (And yes, I’m sure I’ve been guilty of the same — in fact, did I not just write here about how I used to write poetry? Guilty!)
Anyway, I mention that because maybe it’s just some recent case of heightened awareness on my part, but I feel like I have read about nine hundred articles in the past week about the Internet. And yes, I read them on the Internet. But the difference between reading about the net on the net and hearing poetry about poetry is that I actually find the former fascinating.
Some examples are below. Granted I don’t think any of these are brand brand new, cutting edge uses of the Internet. But they are moving from the margins to the center, catching on to the point that New York Times is reporting on them. In fact, of the following, all but one came to my attention via NYT online and, though it’s the paper of note and all that, most anyone will tell you by the time they get their hands on a story, it’s probably been covered before in smaller media outlets. That is, Times coverage is often proof of arrival in the mainstream.
Transforming Art Into a More Lucrative Career Choice
This story highlights how artists, including a 14 year-old custom guitar maker, are using marketing tools — yes, a lot of Web 2.0 stuff — to actually make a living with their art.
You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?
Exciting, scary excerpt from that story: Propelled by new technologies and the Internet’s steady incursion into every nook and cranny of life, collective intelligence offers powerful capabilities, from improving the efficiency of advertising to giving community groups new ways to organize. But even its practitioners acknowledge that, if misused, collective intelligence tools could create an Orwellian future on a level Big Brother could only dream of.
Grandpa’s On the Computer Screen A whole generation of kids is now growing up with cyber grandparents — that is, they’re communicating with tools like Skype and webcams to share virtual playtime with grandparents who, in an earlier era would have to either visit in person or totally miss out.
Cyber Monday Crashes an Online-Shopping Tradition Apparently there’s an online answer to Black Friday, supposedly the biggest shopping day of the year. According to this post, online retailers slash prices on the Monday after Thanksgiving so folks returning to work resentfully after four days off will have something to do in their cubicles. But there’s a downside — crashing retailer sites galore.
Citizen Journalists Provide Glimpses of Mumbai Attacks This is an example — Hurricane Ike coverage was another recent one — of how regular people caught in crisis situations are informing the official media with instant updates. It also shows how Twitter has gone from being sort of silly to capable of being a really powerful tool in an emergency.
A Penny for My Thoughts? Maureen Dowd’s recent column about how some editor in Pasadena fired his hometown staff and is now outsourcing local news reporting to journalists (some not trained as such) in India willing to write for an nth of a percentage of what their predecessors were paid.
I could go on. There’s the story of how Turkey has banned YouTube and how Google (owner of YouTube) has to decide what to post and what to prohibit. There’s the story about how books, most of them anyway, are going away but how this might not be the most awful thing in the world for writers. (I liked that piece, of course.) And the recently settled case of the woman who used MySpace to torture her daughter’s classmate, which, it was alleged, drove the classmate to suicide.
It is, for me, so cool to be witnessing such rapid growth — some of it obviously painful and deviant but so much more of it productive — of this technology over such a short period of time. Like watching a time-lapse image of a blooming flower back in fifth grade science class.
At the risk of sounding like an old biddy, I remember when technological advances were marked by the invention of a telephone cord that could reach all the way across the room so you could simultaneously talk on the phone and cross over to the eight-track player to turn it down. Now this Internet thing? By comparison? Crazy, crazy horse of a different color.
Do you like that word — twansparency? I just coined that after reading this news story in which Twitter CEO and co-founder Ev Williams shows he has the cojones to worry aloud about where his company is heading.
Now maybe this is a case of sandbagging — maybe Williams is just pretending to worry the way a friend of mine used to pretend to read romance novels in front of her competitors right before she kicked their asses in high school debate competitions. But Evans sounds sincere enough as he talks about what Twitter is, where it’s going, and what his concerns are.
Like some other social networking sites, Twitter is more concerned (for now anyway) with building users and less concerned with finding a revenue stream. In fact, Twitter just turned down a deal offered by Facebook for $500 million (mostly in stock) to be bought out.
Not only that, but Evans says that, as Twitter works to figure out how to make money, for now the company will keep relying on investors’ cash to move forward and avoid taking on ads. That is, as they try to figure out the best way to generate revenue, they will only spend private funds rather than experiment “out loud” with revenue generating.
Also, Evans totally admits to being wildly worried that any minute now some competitor is going to launch a microblogging site that will, in his words, kick Twitter’s butt.
It’s nice to hear some real honesty out there, especially from a company that, while it only has 25 employees now, seems on the verge of exploding. And still, they have the wisdom not to let hubris get in the way. Or, to put it in Tweet format (140 characters to be precise):
Ev — thanks for telling us what you’re really thinking. Nice change esp in light of all those Wall Street clowns that BSed the world. Bravo.
But finding the right team that knows how to make all that work right — well, it’s been a long road, more than a little frustrating. And then, sigh of relief, enter the geniuses at Integral Concepts. We asked them to buy into this complex new model and they signed on eagerly. They totally get what we’re aiming for — not just technically but Big Picture-wise. They know how to integrate a high-touch design into all the backend functionality and they dig the concept. And right now, as you’re reading this, they’re working on something we can expand and evolve as we grow.
