The Factory

In some ways, coworking makes even more practical business sense in the social entrepreneurship space than in other fields. Social entrepreneurs tend to need lots of diverse resources from a lot of different places to make their projects work. Shared work space is an incredible way to build that social capital.

Via Social Entrepreneurship

A few weeks ago we put out a request. We were looking for everyone out there to nominate someone they thought was awesome. Someone who could greatly benefit from having a great place work and be surrounded by other entrepreneurs, creatives and get them out of their home offices and coffee shop hang outs.

Well the nominations came flooding in and we were blown away by the response and are excited to invite some really neat people into the space. Each of our winners are going to receive a free three month full membership for The Factory. These individuals will have access to the space during normal hours as well as access to The Garage out in Zeeland as well.

So with out further blabbering, the winners are:

Patrick Vander Kolk
Andy Meisen
Joe Pohlen
Andy Miller
Danny Tasman
Kelsey Duda

Thank you to everyone, and if you’re a winner, drop us a message on twitter or though the contact form on the site and we’ll get you hooked up!

So we have a little snow? And….?

The Town Hall is still on! We hope you can make it out and join us in an open conversation about the space. We are looking to open our books and let the community help us make better decisions on growing the community, make improvements and provide feedback, comments and suggestions.

We’re also planning on announcing the winners of the Nomination contest that we were promoting last week. So come on out, meet some of the fellow members, eat some pizza and have a great Thursday evening.

Just 15 percent of the small- and medium sized businesses we spoke with utilize a traditional office model, where employees work from one central physical location. And 45 percent of survey respondents – including those traditionalists – spend more than three-quarters of their time conducting business out of the office.

– Via TechOat.com

Don’t forget that today is the last day (Wed 12/2) for nominations for free coworking. Get them in by 5pm today to be counted.

We’ll be announcing the random winners at our Townhall meeting next Wednesday (12/10).

Thank you everyone that has gotten in your nominations so far, it’s been an incredible time seeing everyone’s support for friends and their family.

It’s been a great few weeks since we first opened our doors. We’ve met some great people and have learned some good lessons and already made some changes. But this space is about you, the people that want to use it.

As a result we’d like to announce the first townhall meeting. A place for everyone to voice their opinions, volunteer to help out and just meet more of the people that are coming around.

Thursday December 10th at 6pm, let’s get together and talk about coworking and how to make the space better work for you.

Some of the items we’d like to cover are

• General introductions and hellos
• Open hours
• Prices
• Event ideas

On a side note, we’ve added a new calendar page to the site so you can easily see what events are going on in the space, any days that we might be closed and if the conference room is booked.

The idea around coworking isn’t the space, it isn’t working outside of your home office, it isn’t the free coffee (but that does help).

The idea is community. We want people to meet one another, we want people to help one another refine their craft and grow, we want to help make Grand Rapids a better place to work and live.

So as part of our grand opening celebration month we want to throw out a little campaign. We’re looking to give away five memberships good for three months. These will be full memberships that provide the recipients access to The Factory to use as much as they like.

We’re asking for everyone to nominate someone they think will be a good fit for The Factory. Maybe it’s someone starting a new company and could benefit from being around other entrepreneurs. Maybe it’s a student studying sociology that would love observing a new type of work. Maybe it’s someone that’s running or starting a non-profit that needs a good place to work. Maybe it’s just getting your husband out of your den a couple days a week.

Who ever it is, we’re asking youto nominate one person by posting a message out on twitter like:

I think @somebody should get a membership at @coFactory because they’re awesome

Or by leaving a comment on our Facebook fan page

To be qualified an individual has to be nominated by three different people (not themselves three times *wink* *wink*). We will then take those submissions, gather them all up, give them a little read over and select up to five people to receive the memberships. That’s it. Easy Peasy.

So that’s the idea, no gotchas or tricks. Let us know what you think by leaving your comments below.