Florida Creatives - Creating a Community of Innovation

Gregg Pollack wrote on the Coworking Orlando mailing list:

Yesterday I stopped by John Hussey's office, he wanted to talk to me
about CoLab. John Hussey, in case you're not aware, owns the Angebilt
Building where CoLab is located and helped put together CoLab. I assumed
CoLab wasn't bringing him as much income as he would have hoped, so I wasn't
sure what to expect from the meeting.

John let me know a few things. First of all that Fredda is no longer
employed to help promote CoLab and secondly that he's looking for ideas and
maybe a person to take up the reigns to make CoLab sustainable.

Before I go on about this, I have to say that I was a little surprised
that John was still willing to continue with the whole CoLab idea. 6 months
ago a few of us from the community went to him asking for a co-working
space, telling him how much the community needed this space, and well, it
didn't work out. Most of the times I was working at CoLab I was working
alone, or with one or two people. More recently Fridays have been getting
more popular, so that's a push in the right direction. However, from a
business perspective I could totally understand how someone like John Hussey
might consider CoLab to be a failure, and perhaps shut it down.

But here was John Hussey asking me to talk to him about how to make
CoLab successful. Here's a guy who owns buildings and is in the middle of
sifting around millions of dollars of Real Estate, who is still willing to
give the space a chance. I was really impressed that he still wants to see
the space succeed, and his optimistic outlook was really surprising.

He obviously doesn't have the time to build the space himself, so he's
looking for someone from the community to take the lead and make it work,
make it function. He's willing to compensate whoever does bring in
business, either by profit sharing or maybe even ownership. He's totally
open to hear our ideas about how we think we can make the space work.

Anyways, he invited me to his office to tell me this, and ask if I
wanted to be the one to bring in new people to the space. I honestly don't
have the time right now, but I told him I'd ask the group. I'd love to find
someone who is willing to dedicate some time to figuring out how to make it
work. This would be someone who would be willing to:

* Go to all of the tech events in Orlando, and speak about co-working /
CoLab
* Go to many networking events in Orlando, and speak about co-working /
CoLab
* Make deals with companies to get their employees working at CoLab
* Do whatever it takes to get people there working on a daily basis

This last point here is a big one. If you were to ask me why CoLab
hasn't taken off in the past 6 months, my first answer would be "Because
there aren't cool people there on a daily basis". The only reason I'd pay
to work downtown is if there was an awesome group of creative developers
working there on a daily basis. I know if I work around smart people, I'll
make friends, make business contacts, and it will help my company grow.
So... In my mind that's the biggest hurdle for CoLab.

Does anyone know a company of 6-8 cool guys/gals who we can get to
work at CoLab? hehe... We could give them a big discount. If they were
friendly people who I got along well with, I'd work with them. Just a
thought.

So... CoLab is there.. we have the space.. with no liability. John
is open to ideas, has the patience to do what it takes to make it work, and
is willing to compensate people who bring in subscribers. What more could
you ask for? Anyone have any thoughts or want to give it a go?

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