Carrboro Creative Coworking

Today I'd like to announce the Corporate Coworker package. Its $300 a month for four people. Basically its a Part Time Coworker for groups of people who all work at the same company. Plus this group can use Conference Room B for three hours a month at no extra charge.

So if you work at a office and have the ability to work away from it once in a while ask your boss to purchase one of these. You can share it with your colleagues and even use it together. Get a productivity boost by changing your atmosphere.

Here are a few points to help you pitch it to your company:

• If you live near CCC short commutes save gas and is better for the environment.
• Finding a new space to meet and collaborate will help you get more done.
• Lots of talented people at CCC who could be your next star employee/consultant.
• Find the next paying project for your company by doing some networking.
• Cheap conference room time with high end presentation gear.

For me coworking is physical evidence of a serious work trend. Freelancers and other workers thrive on variety in their work environment. So its fun to read about a very successful young person who works this way.

From a Washington Post article about Jon Favreau, the 27 year old senior speech writer for President Elect Barack Obama.

[Jon] Favreau believes he will transition well if he focuses exclusively on writing, which is why he has buried himself in the inaugural address. He moves while he writes to avoid becoming stale -- from the Starbucks, to his windowless transition office, to his new, one-bedroom condo, where the only furniture in place is a blow-up mattress on the hardwood floor. He sometimes writes until 2 or 3 a.m., fueled by double espresso shots and Red Bull. When deadline nears, a speech consumes him until he works 16-hour days and forgets to call home, do his laundry or pay his bills. He calls it "crashing."

In part its this unconventional work style that helped create the amazing speech Obama gave on Race last year.

One Saturday night in March, Obama called Favreau and said he wanted to immediately deliver a speech about race. He dictated his unscripted thoughts to Favreau over the phone for 30 minutes -- "It would have been a great speech right then," Favreau said -- and then asked him to clean it up and write a draft. Favreau put it together, and Obama spent two nights retooling before delivering the address in Philadelphia the following Tuesday.

"So," Obama told Favreau afterward. "I think that worked."

Lots of different factors lead to this accomplishment. Yes Obama's mind has something to do with it. But the fact that young people like Favreau are rising to such positions of influences proves it. We've seen the future of work and its Coworking! (or something related to it) :)

In one of my past work lives I was a print designer. I still enjoy it but don't have time to do it very much. So recently I was asked by our local Chamber of Commerce for some print material for CCC. That way they could hand it to someone when telling them about us. Yes all you techies folks, people still want stuff on paper. Big thanks to everyone who helped me edit it and provided feedback. Please download it and share it with someone.
CCC Three Fold Brochure

This Friday December 19 at 7pm we'll be playing some Nintendo Wii and drinking beverages. Join us here at Carrboro Creative Coworking to make music, drive go-karts, and play table tennis. (Bring you're favorite games. Lots of choices for fun.) Subscribe to our calendar for all our events.

We've got to play hard to work hard. Right? :)

Henry Copeland emailed me to ask if I knew anyone who would make a good candidate for a job opening at Blog Ads. Blog Ads is one of the cool tech companies here in Carrboro. Here's the low down:

Please send a resume, salary history and brief cover letter explaining your fit to nicole [at] blogads [dot] com.
Craigslist Job entry

Have a job opening? Would you like to reach talented, skilled, and hard working candidates? Send me you're job descriptions and I'll post them here.

Friday December 19 at 7pm is Wii Video Game night here at CCC. So bring over your favorite games. We should have Wii Music, Wii Sports, and Garage Band! Come show us your skills. Wayne Sutton seems to think he can beat anyone at Mario Kart. :)

Registration is now open for Hands-On Erlang a course by Kevin Smith. Learn how to use Erlang, the robust and highly-concurrent functional programming language, to build scalable applications in a hands-on two-day workshop. It's being held February 6 and 7 here at 205 Lloyd Street in Carrboro. Sign up here.

On the top navigation menu you'll see a new tab called Trainings. The Trainings page is where you'll find a list of the courses we'll be offering. Hands-On Erlang is the first of many paid trainings to be held here at the space. Come get new skills you can use to jump start your career.

Check out this graph from indeed.com on trends in jobs asking for java, perl, php, ruby, and rails. By this measurement its pretty obvious which programing languages you need to learn for the jobs of the future. So keep your ear to the ground and learn new stuff.

java, perl, erlang, php, ruby, rails Job Trends

java jobs - perl jobs - erlang jobs - php jobs - ruby jobs - rails jobs

If you're an expert in something and can show others how to do it in a fun way let us know. Your expertise could be in programing languages, advanced software, multimedia, life skills, or super hacks. We're in the process of developing other courses to be offered soon. Establish your reputation for expertise by training others and feel good doing it.

Why First Then Who - Identifying Your Target Market
TONIGHT at 6:30pm here at CCC
Session number three of the Aberdium Toolkit for Startups. Its facilitated by Rob Danzman who is owner and founder of aberdium consulting, the first marketing and growth firm using psychology, marketing, business, and sociology to increase profits without selling clients' souls.

The past two sessions have been well attended and very informative. As a small business owner I've learned a lot. Come take advantage of this FREE event.

On December 4 CCC is hosting the local Drupal meetup group.

"This is a great chance to meet other Drupal developers and to hear about some of the cool Drupal projects people are working on in the area. No matter what level of Drupaler you are - pro or newbie - come on out to meet others in the community."

http://groups.drupal.org/north-carolina
http://drupal.meetup.com/19/
http://drupalnorthcarolina.org/

Subscribe to our calendar to get the latest info on the cool events happening here.

A few weeks ago I started a every other Friday at 12:30pm lunch meetup. Its called the Brown Bag Lunch. Original right? :) Since then we've had a few small lunch meetups with great conversations. One day Raines Cohen the Coworking Coach from Berkeley, California was in town. Awesome discussion about doing things together (Coworking, cohousing, etc.) and the state of things here in North Carolina.

To jump start these informal lunches I'm inviting special guests. My hope is you'll get excited about attending and meeting these cool people. Plus I'm jazzed about showing off our community.

So far we have two special guests scheduled. On December 12 Paul Jones the Director of Ibiblio.org and a teacher at UNC-Chapel Hill will be joining us. On January 9, 2009 Nathaniel Talbott local Ruby guru and founder of Terralien, Inc. will be here. I'll remind you when these dates get closer.

Is there a special guest you'd like to meet over lunch? Please send me your suggestions and potential guests contact information.