Cowording Blog Competition Winner!

Thanks for participating in the Blog Competition, guys!  We’re super excited by the ideas and the inspiration.  And without further ado, here is our runner up, and our Blog Competition Winner!

Runner Up: My ideal workplace and co-working community

Andy Maddocks

It’s a place where a lot of really motivated, smart people work on a lot of really interesting startups, small businesses, projects and inventions and where people strive to make a positive, productive difference for their customers and markets. The space is designed to let people find and establish their preferred styles of working, and just work on what’s important, while not getting distracted by having to manage basic infrastructure things like food, telephones, Internet, etc. The opportunities to meet insightful people with different perspectives and backgrounds sets co-working environments apart from other kinds of work spaces. it creates opportunities to have conversations that generate new perspectives, expands and diversifies your social and intergenerational connections, and incites and provokes more innovative thinking.

And, it’s motivating to know that there really are a lot of people who like to pursue cool ideas that have the potential to turn into high impact businesses, inventions or solutions to pressing social problems.

And our Winning Submission!

Blake Anneberg

My ideal workplace would be closer to nature, living plants surrounding me, lots of greenery.
I made 2 haiku explaining my ideal space in the renewed One Broadway:

1. Work among the trees, no office noises or stress, plants and I can breathe.
2. Clouds pass the windows, gardens are natures startups, nurtures co-working.

Thus, instead of a theme like “Scandinavia area” or “Football zone”, I would argue that a more powerful unifying bond to the community will be a nature theme like “The Forest” or “Sun Room” Just don’t do a “desert” theme, I have lived in one and wouldn’t recommend it.

Keep a look out for Blake’s snack of choice in the C3 Snack Station, and keep the ideas coming!  We always want to hear from you.

Cambridge Coworking Community’s Ambition

This summer C3 is taking the time to craft a Community Ambition Statement. Similar to a mission statement, an ambition statement aligns people with similar goals. However, an ambition statement takes into account individual interests and personal goals. It answers the question, “Why does this community exist, and more importantly, why am I even a part of it?” A shared ambition or shared purpose helps people stand up with confidence, together, and act to positively effect their own community. The ambition becomes a compass for community problem solving, directing decision making without dictating a solution.

What is it that inspires your feeling of ownership and responsibility? When new C3ers join our community, what do you want to tell them about our community and what kinds of things would you want them to identify with? What is it, or could it be, about your coworking community that motivates you to trade your pajamas for business clothes in the morning? What is is about being surrounded by other people who want their own business to succeed that feels so contagious?

Over the next few weeks, please feel free to share with us, your neighbor, and colleagues why C3 is for you.

Renovations and Community Updates at SoC3 May 2013

I had the pleasure of being the guest host for the State of C3 (SoC3) last week. We had a fun, interactive discussion with over 40 C3ers attending.

The Principles of the SoC3 are for C3ers to help update other C3ers about community activities and progress.

With a “community” theme, we opened with getting to know your fellow C3ers icebreaker. Everyone met two C3ers that they did not know. We then had three people give a short description of their new friend.

The business highlights of the meeting were:

• 101 Main Street renovations on the kitchen and game room are moving along well.
• Sidi showed photos of the One Broadway 5th Floor renovation progress.
• As the new 5th floor space is designed to support sub communities, the C3 staff is encouraging groups to think about forming these groups. Critical Mass was used as an example of a community that gets together from time to time, selected its space and décor and drafted operating guidelines. At least one new community (on sustainability) announced they would try to form at the meeting.
• There will be a lunch meeting on June 29th in the C3 lounge to talk more about forming sub-communities.
• The “C3” acronym is being changed to now stand for the Cambridge CoWorking Community to reflect the community focus.
• C3 is holding a blogging contest. The prize is your favorite snack stocked in the kitchen for a week. Sign up here in order to participate.

Announcements and Milestones:

•  Car Care Check, Continuus Pharmaceuticals, Viral Gains and Waveguide were announced as four of the 128 Mass Challenge Finalists for this year.

•   Bosco Products just reached their one year anniversary with Walmart as a customer.

•   A number of companies were introduced as being new to C3, including Evelo Electric Bicycles, Excelsoft Technologies, and Fritzify
• The C3 staff asked for any volunteers to run / moderate the next SoC3.

Many of the attendees stayed to continue the discussion over drinks and snacks.

I wish everyone a productive and successful summer.

State of c3 may 2013 from kwiant

Regards,

Kevin

Cowording: Cambridge Coworking Blog Competition!

Cambridge Coworking is growing and changing, and we want to hear from you!  Get get inspired for the new space, help us define our community, and have a chance to win one week of a snack of your choice, (within reason: think twinkies, not caviar) stocked in the 15th floor Snack Station.  In under 100 words, answer the following question:

If you were at a party talking to someone you just met,  how would you describe your ideal workplace and coworking community?

Sorry, Competition is Closed.  Click here to see the winning submission!

Free Words on Wednesdays

Need help finding the right words for your website, pitch deck or food truck menu?

I’d like to help — for free. In the spirit of C3 sharing, I’m starting Free Words on Wednesdays: a one-on-one writing help desk from 2:00-4:00 pm. It’s first-come, first-served, and we can tackle anything you need, from polishing website text and marketing copy to writing emails, slogans, resumes or love letters.

Who am I to help? I’m an Emmy-winning animation writer who switched to high tech in the 1990s. I spent five years on the Google writing team and have written for clients like Eventbrite, Intuit, Ooyala and SessionM. (Learn more about me at Fritzify.com.) I’m a professional freelancer, yes, but these sessions are strictly free and no-strings-attached. It’s a way for me to help out, meet people and give a little back to the C3 community.

The first Free Words on Wednesdays session will be May 29th at the kitchen tables on the 15th floor of 101 Main.  Look for the table with the skinny little sign between 2:00 and 4:00.  See you then!

Friday Field Days- Licks and Markets

This Summer while the weather is getting nicer, we are taking C3 into Boston!  Each Friday we are inviting C3ers to Boston/Cambridge areas to use free Wifi, stretch their legs, and experience coworking in fresh environments.  For the first #FridayFieldDay we adventured out to JP Licks, and this week we went to the Hay Market and Quincy Market.  We had wonderful outings the last couple weeks, and we encourage even more people to come out and get involved!  This means: bring your dog, bring your friend, bring your significant other, or bring a big sandwich…we would love to meet other communities and enjoy the Summer sun together.  Please share with us any places you think would be great for our next Friday Field Days.

C3 Spotlight – Subhankar Ray

Name: Subhankar Ray

Company name: Boston Predictive Analytics Inc.

Education: BS & MS in electrical engineering

Hometown: Kolkata, India

Typically sits: in CriticalMass

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What are you working on? – We are a bunch of Statisticians and Computer geeks who are good at machine learning and predictive analytics. We created an open platform where developers can build applications bypassing the learning curve associated with machine learning (excuse the pun). Our open crawler, and clustering tools are empowering app. developers with competitive advantage at a low cost. Access to our API with a few hours of support start from as low as $99 a month.

How do you get your music? – Youtube.

What’s your favorite thing about working in C3? – The place is magical with so many talents around us. Access to technological, managerial and leadership talents make C3 my favorite. Venture cafe, and regular seminars (from TCN, Angel groups and others) are also very useful.

Are there any C3 related projects you would like to help out with or see happen? – We have an interesting algorithm to do demand analysis. I would like to apply it and see if we can improve the efficiency at the CIC kitchens so that you never run out of my favorite foods without wasting any 🙂

Favorite CIC kitchen food?  – Fruit Snacks.

What’s something every entrepreneur should know before starting a business? – Reading a few good books about how to sell, and how to lead.
My two favorite books are both by Stephen Covey:
1. 7 habits of highly effective people
2. Principle-Centered Leadership

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Half the team is in Romania… Lessons in outsourcing effectively

1st of May – 12 pm in the lounge Area , 15th Floor 101 main street

Sharalike has been a startup resident in C3 since early 2013. We wanted to build up a team really quickly and struggled to find the resources in Boston within our timeframe and budget. So despite some warnings, we decided to outsource all the backend development ( Java, SQL, MangoDB)  to Romania.

We want to share that experience with you, and tell you what went well and what was more difficult.

•        How did we choose Pentalog and Romania?
•        What is the day to day for Cambridge based Product manager and Front End engineer?
•        Lessons learned after 4 months of development
•        Factors for outsourcing development successfully

Speakers

Etienne Leroy, CPO/CMO Sharalike

Aymeric Vigneras, CEO Sharalike, former CTO of Betclic Everest Group ( 1200 employee)

Frederic Lasnier, CEO Pentalog

Alonso Holmes, Front End Engineer Sharalike

Our partner Frederic from http://www.pentalog.com is kindly offering Pizza, so please confirm so that we can plan accordingly,

Register here

See you soon

Etienne

http://www.sharalike.com

Camp C3

During my interview for CIC, I was asked quite a few questions about my experience at camp: camper, counselor, and director. I’m starting to understand the connection more and more…

I grew up going to a sleep-away camp on the eastern shore of Maryland. My first summer at Camp Tockwogh brought a ton of challenges and loads of fun. It began when I walked up to my cabin for my very first time and Jenny V. sprinted through the front screen door to give me a hug and introduce herself as my bunkmate. I felt like I won the jackpot that summer. We made up our own rules, cleaning schedules, and bedtimes, and best of all I could eat as many grilled cheeses and cups of bug juice as I wanted! I picked the activities I was excited to participate in, and felt comfortable facing new challenges because we did it together. I tried horseback riding, sailing, and archery for my first time ever. And despite falling off the horse, ripping my bathing suit in front of the most dreamy counselor, not having a notable skill for the talent show, and being absolutely horrible at shooting an arrow, I still get a huge toothy grin when I think and talk about that summer.

My parents recently sent me a box of old letters and memorabilia they found when cleaning out their attic. One of the letters in the box was from that first summer at camp. I couldn’t wait to read my first hand perspective of all the fun I had those two weeks. Instead I found horribly spelled sentence fragments: “Plese com get me, I got so emberesed today”, “I had to go to the sick lodge and the nurse wasn’t very nice”, “I cry every nite when I get in bed”, “Com get me, I am home sik”. WHAAAAT? I loved this place, that summer, and the friends I made! I couldn’t believe what I was reading!! As an adult, I couldn’t imagine or remember anything except fun that hot and buggy summer.

After being here for the better part of a year, I’ve realized the C3 Community is very much like the community I found that first year at summer camp. You have new friends from the first time you walk through the elevator doors, you make up your own rules, you clean up your messes, you stay up all night if you want to, you try new things at will, share your talents with each other, and while the bug juice is now coffee, you really drink as much of it as you want! Despite the day to day email memorabilia C3ers might send about operational frustrations, every time I’ve asked a C3er about their C3 story, a smile breaks across their face and an inspirational story emerges.

As the summer approaches, take a moment to think about how we, the C3 Community, can make this the best summer yet!

C3 Newbie

For those of you who have not met me, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alex Cheung, and I just graduated from Vassar College last May. After which, I spent 4 months traveling Asia and Europe before coming back and finding this position on the C3 Team at CIC. My interests have been diverse, from cooking, to robotics, to synchronized figure skating, to gamification. Thus, it has been a challenge for me to find an environment that will allow me to continue to explore a new potpourri of activities and fields that stimulate me. TADA! CIC was exactly the space I was looking for. I have only been here for a little over a month, but each day I am introduced to fascinating people who are working on projects that make a difference in the world; it is truly inspiring. Moreover, the thing I felt I was lacking most after finishing college was the community. I missed seeing familiar faces while walking around the quad, chatting with professors and fellow students, and simply being in a space full of driven people working on diverse yet intriguing things. Fortunately, this is what I found at the Cambridge Innovation Center: a cultivation of companies in a cohesive community. The ambiance fosters open conversations and collaboration, and it is only made possible by amazing people in the CIC community.

In times of stress, the strength and solidarity of communities are tested. After yesterday’s tragic events, it warms my heart to see members of the C3/C4 community stopping by our office to make sure our friends and loved ones are OK. Today, while the investigation continues, CIC is offering Back Bay startup refugees a free place to work. So even though I have just joined the CIC, I am already loving our compassionate and resilient community. Please let us know if you have any other ideas on how we can help those affected by the recent events; stay strong, Boston.

Please feel free to come talk to me or introduce yourself. I am looking forward to meeting everyone and finding new ways to further engage and connect our community members!

Free Lunch Talk on Apr 17 – Travel Hacking 101

Hi there!

My name is Boris – I’m a resident at CIC running an electric bike startup (EVELO).

Aside from running startups, I’m a huge fan of adventure travel and traveling without breaking the bank. On April 17th at 12.30pm, I’ll be doing a free lunch talk on Travel Hacking, which focuses on how you can fly for free almost anywhere in the world.

If you have ever said: “I’d love to travel more, but it’s too expensive!” – come to this lunch talk and learn:

• How you can get at least 2 free (excluding taxes of about ~$100) roundtrip air tickets anywhere in the world this year.
• How you can earn up to 300,000 frequent flyer miles on major airlines without flying a single mile.
• How your startup can be used to generate free travel for you – even if you’re a 1-person company.

Admit it: there is a trip in mind that you probably would love to do, but think it’s too expensive. This is especially true if you have a family with kids.

If you have a special vacation that you want to take, just want to be able to travel more often for leisure, or feel that being more mobile could help your business further, you’ll learn the basic strategies that will allow you to travel anywhere in the world for almost free (excluding ~$100 in taxes per trip).

I have learned much of the travel hacking myself through trial and error over the years. As a result, I have been able to afford some pretty interesting travel:

• Accumulated almost 500,000 frequent flyer miles over the last year alone.
• Visited over 55 countries, including North Korea, Syria and Sudan – now aiming for 100!
• Organized and completed a 27,000km overland expedition from South Africa to London in a 30-year old Land Rover (purchased sight unseen on South African “Craigslist”) – www.wegoingup.com.
• Rode 4,000 miles on an electric bike from New York to San Francisco to promote his new startup – www.transamericanelectricbiketour.com.

If you’re interested in learning more, come to the free talk on Wednesday, April 17th at 12.30pm at 101 Main St (CIC).

If you have any questions, contact me here!

Welcome to 101 Main!

Now that we’ve all had a chance to settle, I’d like to welcome you to the new space.  Though I’ve been a part of the C3 support team for only a few months, I already understand that C3 and C4 are more than just coworking spaces; they are communities in which entrepreneurs can network, collaborate, and help each others’ businesses succeed.  These communities could not flourish as they have without the support of members like yourselves.

Coworkers enjoying the cooking of Chef Cheung at our welcome to 101 Potluck.

I hope you are all enjoying the new space at 101 Main Street.  If you look through just about any window on the 15th floor, you’ll be treated to panoramic views of Cambridge, Boston, or the Charles River.  To me, the lighting and views give the space a truly professional look, which is great for hosting meetings with clients or potential investors.  It’s great to see everyone hard at work at 101 Main.  The space is already a great environment to work out of, and we at the C3 support team endeavor to make it even better!

A view of the Genzyme Center from the 15th floor. The LEED Platinum certified building uses steam from the next door cogeneration plant for heating and cooling.

While C3’s stay at 101 Main Street is only temporary, it does signify some landmark changes for both C3 and C4.  Construction of the new C3 at 1 Broadway begins today, and the design of the new space aims to enhance the community’s already vibrant atmosphere.  The next few months will also be the last time the C3 and C4 share a physical space.  This is great news because C4 will finally be able to expand into a larger community.  However, I’m sure many of us will miss the strong connections members of C3 and C4 have forged.  Please feel free to email helpmec3@cictr.com with ideas for keeping C3 and C4 connected in the future.  We’d also love to hear any other ideas for improving the space and community!

The sun setting over Kendall Square.