Florida Creatives – Creating a Community of Innovation

I've spent several days in November at CoLab, Orlando's first coworking space, mostly because of the $49 deal announced for November, and because of the fact that desk fees are temporarily waived for Tuesdays. Personally, I can walk there from my house, and there's lots of good coffee and food on the way, so it's all pretty nice.

Greetings Coworkers!

CoLab Orlando is our first Coworking space in Central Florida, and I believe the second one in Florida, after Brikolodge in Miami. I am sitting in the space right now as I write this post.

CoLab is laid out with a general admission area as well as some private suites for rent. I believe the anchor rate will be $250 once this gets swinging, but for November, they have announced a monthly rate of $49, which I was happy to pay.

A full list of rates and amenities should be available over at CoLabOrlando.com

We just wanted to share the news with all of you. Brikolodge, Miami's first coworking facility, got some press last night on CBS 4 News (local station). Please check it out... I hope you enjoy it! And if you are ever in the Miami area, please don't forget to stop by.

Ali & Eduardo from Brikolodge
www.Brikolodge.org

Links

• Tampa on the Coworking Wiki
• Tampa Jelly Google Group
• Jelly in Tampa Bay
• For more info contact Ken Evans @startupmonkey on twitter

Have you guys met Rachael Page yet? You may know her as David Rogers' girlfriend, or one of the folks on the advisory committee for CoLab Orlando (did anyone else notice the title of the page is "emailblast"?).

In lieu of meeting face-to-face, we have been having an email thread. I decided to get the conversation out of the back office and into the public forum.

On the setup of Florida Creatives:

A really fun quote I saw recently:

"Communities have to stop selling drinks and just build the bar."

Last year at BlogOrlando we had a session called 'The Orlando Scene'. The concept was to bring together folks for different backgrounds to talk about things like cow-orking, start-ups, etc. It's a year later, so what's changed? We gathered some of the local area leaders to talk over what's going on in Orlando.

Watch more live videos from BlogOrlando

BlogOrlando session notes by Tim Welch

groups

florida creatives

barcamp orlando/ tampa/ chaos
doterati
likemind
digital media alliance florida
colab / coworking

ucf incubator program

user groups

ruby
python
java

upcoming events

convergence
create chaos
ignite orlando

the knowledge shop [lab for hire]

florida creative wiki has:

• event calendar
• wireless locations
• is user generated

Watch Florida Creatives History at Pecha Kucha Night Jax

BlogOrlando is happening this week, and that was really the event that kicked Florida Creatives out of the minds of the collective and into reality. Don't believe me? Watch this video. Yours truly has the full explanation of how it all went down.

Recorded at the first Pecha Kucha Night in Jacksonville.

Etan Horowitz of the Orlando Sentinel's weekly tech column, was at last night's CoLab Open House. Here's what he had to say.

Orlando Sentinel - A recap of the CoLab Orlando open house

Below is a video of Hussey, and Greg Pollack, a local web developer and one of the CoLab organizers, speaking about the space at last night's open house.

Location

Cow-orking and collaboration for Central Florida's tech/creative community.

CoLab Orlando is the home for those wanting to have a home in downtown Orlando while collaborating in an environment built for innovation.

John Hussey, the owner of the historic Angebuilt Hotel building on Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando, has converted office space on the sixth floor of his building into a coworking spot.

Don't miss CoLab Orlando's open house August 27th at 6PM. There will be appetiers and beverages provided by Finn Henry's (the Irish pub downstairs), as well as a raffle for CowOrking space. But the main purpose of the open house is to get feedback and direction from the community on what they want out of CoLab.

CoLab is located at 37 N. Orange Ave - 6th Floor
Orlando, FL 32801

Please RSVP and send any questions/requests to info [at] colaborlando.com

Reposted from a message on the international Coworking discussion list:

...we recently opened a coworking facility in Miami's Wynwood Arts District. Brikolodge is a loft unit in a live-work building, home to design shops, galleries and some of the best views of downtown from the roof-top pool. We have been hosting RefreshMiami meetups since our inception and we have recently opened our doors to The Figure Network - a local artist who conducts weekend workshops on figure drawing and has also posted some of his artwork around the facility.

We are always looking for more ways to expand our community. If any of you are ever in the Miami area, please stop by and visit :) Check out our website: www.brikolodge.org