I am literally exhausted but I wanted to drop a quick note about the Ignite Casablanca. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic energy. First Ignite in Africa, Morocco and the Arab world. I was pretty proud to be part of History. Thank you Salah for setting up all this.
And, of course, Casablanca is not only a brand of beer, not only a black and white movie, it is also a very dynamic city with a lot of IT and Web projects.
I love it.
Do you want a frozen Coke?
This was fun… Snow everywhere, domination of white over anything (first degree only please). We finally managed to get to the IBM Palisades conference center. The last mile was pretty long.
Located just 12 miles from the George Washington Bridge, 20 minutes from Westchester County and within 30 miles of five airports: Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark, Teterboro and Westchester, the IBM Palisades provides an exceptional backdrop for meetings.
At least, here, you are not tempted by Poker tables, slot machines… I just wished I had more time to go in the surrounding forest. Wonderful landscape under the snow.
It’s not a big secret, GreenIvory would like to extend its operations in the US and extend what we already have in Durham, NC. This is why I am in Boston, MA. this week. I am pretty sure that there are a few Bostonians who want to double the efficiency of their web sites, nope?
Nevertheless, after my meeting, I went to visit two co-working places.
At GreenIvory, we do a lot of telecommuting and we think that co-working spots are a huge benefit in the way we work. We already have some experience with such spaces, thanks the vision of a good friend in Strasbourg.
It made sense to see whether this model could be adapted to GreenIvory on its US operations.
I started by visiting CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) and the WorkBar.
Drop boxes (not really mail boxes) at the CIC co-working spot.
CIC started 10 years ago and it is ideally located on the 14th floor, dominating MIT, the Charles River… Very inspiring. They have different model, starting by co-working spaces, which can turn into nice and flexible offices when the start-up matures. Lovely. A very nice lady showed us the place and drove us around. Prices start at $250/month.
Sergio Ferreira at the WorkBar.
WorkBar is a little more fun. It’s almost downtown Boston, within walking distance from the Federal Building and in front of the bus station. It’s kind of a mix between Regus and a start-up. Evona showed us the place and it was very pleasant, I just wanted to sit, pull-out my Mac and start working. WorkBar has several places where you can isolate yourself if you want. Prices start at $20/day.
A few conclusions from this Bostonian tour…
The MIT (Massachussets Institute of Technology) Police: yep, you are really covered there...
For us, the consumer, GreenIvory… If I had to start GreenIvory again in Boston, I’ll go to CIC. Wow… this place is incredible in terms of location. Now, as I need some space from time to time, WorkBar is more flexible for people like us… Of course, both are not incompatible as I hope our business to grow here. Definitively such places will help us.
For the other project of doing such an open-co-working space in Strasbourg, I am really surprised by the lack of benchmark from the projects I have seen on my “native” side of the pound. Co-working spaces are small, CIC is about 50 to 60 sq meter (but CIC has a lot more room for non co-working space), can hold 40 people max, WorkBar is bigger, roughly 120 sq meter…
Both CIC and WorkBar are private companies. I don’t see how / why they would be subsidized by the local gov’t. Hey, we are in the US, baby!
I urge my friends in Strasbourg to rethink their model. Boston and the metro area combine 4.5m people, this is about 2.5 times the size of Alsace…
As you probably know, we keep ’till the very last moment to send our best wishes to our friends, partners, suppliers and dear customers. Come and discover our e-card on www.greenivory.com.
See you soon.
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