Carrboro Creative Coworking - North Carolina's First Professional Coworking Space

Thank You for Three Rewarding Years

brian — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:12:26 -0400

September 30, 2011, will be Carrboro Creative Coworking’s last official day of operation. At this time I have no plans to continue operations with CCC, although I believe in coworking as strongly as ever, and I'm pursuing options that would continue my involvement in the coworking movement. I’m writing this post to explain how the business got to this point and why change is necessary.

I started Carrboro Creative Coworking to support workers—specifically freelancers, telecommuters, and entrepreneurs. These are workers who have escaped traditional nine-to-five jobs to work more flexibly. This flexibility provides huge benefits in the form of freedom and autonomy, but some have encountered the unintended side effect of decreased productivity. It can be hard to get work done at home, where you face such normal distractions as children and laundry; or to work at a cafe, where people and music compete for your attention.

In our three years of operation, I've witnessed many examples of increased productivity at Carrboro Creative Coworking. The ritual of leaving the house and going to an office mentally prepares us to begin working. Once we’re there, a silent undercurrent of positive peer pressure encourages us to work efficiently. Without the distractions of home or cafes, we get things done!

Carrboro Creative Coworking has been a huge community success that has served many independent workers. CCC even helped two businesses grow so much that they had to leave to find bigger office space. One of those businesses stayed right here in Carrboro after they moved.

Unfortunately, the costs of my current coworking business model have turned out to be higher than the potential maximum revenue. The reasons for this are systemic, including high costs for office rent, Internet access, and payroll. On the revenue side, sales are small because there aren’t enough customers. A large number of potential customers are unwilling to drive more than twenty minutes one way to cowork. That puts more than two million Triangle-area people out of range of this Carrboro-based business. Also, the bad economy has reduced personal and business budgets, meaning that some potential customers cannot afford our prices. All of these reasons have combined to prevent Carrboro Creative Coworking from operating at a profit.

My original business plan was designed for an open floor plan in a small space. But when I was starting CCC up, that kind of office space wasn’t available in Carrboro. In addition, my startup capital was coming from the Town of Carrboro revolving loan fund, and the town required me to have a lease in downtown Carrboro in order to qualify for a loan. So, to qualify for the loan, I grabbed what office space I could find, which was our current suite at 205 Lloyd Street.

In retrospect, that was a mistake, and I take full responsibility for it. This office is chopped up into two common areas, a break room, and several small offices. The floor plan dictated a major change to my business model, forcing me to be in the office lease business. In that business model, more square footage is better. To that end, I wrote several financial plans that called for massive growth from our humble beginnings. In these plans we would sell tons of executive office space, with coworking on the side. Unfortunately, the economy worsened, and the startup capital necessary to fund a large-scale expansion became scarce.

I'm working on strengthening partnerships that will allow me to continue to provide sustainable office space to independent workers while also providing much-needed financial support for my family. Stay tuned for more details on this new business direction.

I owe a debt of gratitude to many people who helped made Carrboro Creative Coworking a reality. Thanks are due first of all to my wife. Without her help and financial support, I would not have had the freedom to pursue this dream. I also appreciate all the friends who spread the word about CCC. I also want to thank the Town of Carrboro for its steadfast support and unique revolving loan fund. I will honor your investment in me and find ways to enrich Carrboro throughout my life. Finally, I want to say a huge thank you to my customers. Your support made the past three years incredibly rewarding. I look forward to continuing the professional and personal relationships that we’ve created.

-Brian Russell, Founder & Owner

Geek Yard Sale

brian — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:45:19 -0400

When: July 9, 2011, Saturday, 8am - 2pm
Where: Carrboro Creative Coworking, 205 Lloyd Street, Suite 101, Carrboro, NC 27516

Find cool used electronics of all kinds. Such as audio recording equipment, interesting old computers, peripherals, LCD monitor, and much more. Sale will be held inside rain or shine. Images of items forthcoming. (Note: Luchadores may or may not be present.)

PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS

Thank you!

RestKit RESTful iOS Apps Training for Charity

brian — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:06:50 -0500

On Saturday, January 22 from 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM join us at CCC to learn about Restkit. For $100 receive a hands on training about developing iOS applications with RESTful web services. All proceeds of this event goes to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The training is presented by Blake Watters, CTO of Two Toasters & Lead Developer of RestKit. REGISTER HERE

Learn how to rapidly integrate your iOS applications with RESTful web services in this hands-on training workshop. You'll be introduced to RestKit, a high performance, production quality Open Source solution for modeling and accessing RESTful web services in iOS applications.

RestKit presents a simple, yet very powerful API that allows the developer to integrate with backend web applications in the cloud without worrying about the complexities of HTTP, threading, data parsing/processing, and handling data persistence. You will come away from this workshop ready to build professional quality apps that seamlessly integrate with new or existing web services.

What You'll Learn:

The Basics: RestKit provides a full HTTP stack for interacting with remote web servers. You'll quickly gain proficiency in constructing and sending requests, processing responses, authenticating via HTTP AUTH, uploading large files and all the other little things every web-connected mobile app must be able to handle.
Managing Environments: RestKit provides support for quickly switching between backend environments (i.e. development/staging/production) using base URL's and resource paths.
Leveraging Reachability: RestKit provides simple integration with the SystemConfiguration Reachability API's to detect and handle changes in network availability.
Modeling a Web Service: We'll take an in depth look at how to cleanly build a client side data model around a web service using RestKit's object mapping layer.
Routing & Object Mapping: You think of your app in terms of objects and so does RestKit. You'll learn how to declaratively connect your object model to remote URL's and understand how RestKit maps data into objects.
Integrating with Core Data: RestKit provides deep integration with Apple's Core Data persistence technology. We will look at how to use this integration to build a persistent, client side object model that synchronizes with the cloud.
Offline Access: By leveraging the combined strengths of Core Data & Reachability, you can use your local object model as a cache to provide access to content even when the network is completely unavailable.
Database Seeding: For applications that work with large data sets, being able to download content isn't enough. You'll learn how to bootstrap a local 'seed' database to include with your builds so that your app is ready to rock straight from the App Store.
Advanced Topics: We'll briefly discuss advanced topics such as integrating RestKit with the Three20 framework, extending RestKit's parsing layer, and how to tune your apps for maximum performance.

Space in the workshop is limited to 12 participants to preserve an intimate, hands-on working environment. All proceeds from this event are pledged to Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and are fully tax deductible. The workshop is graciously being hosted by our friends at Carrboro Creative Coworking.

A moderate to advanced level of proficiency developing iOS applications is assumed. REGISTER HERE

Christmas/NewYears Hours

brian — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 08:18:40 -0500

This year CCC will be closed from Thursday December 23 - Friday December 31. If you have a electronic key, Office and Super Coworkers, you can still get in. If you have any questions please contact me. Have a very happy and safe holiday!

Virtual Phone Service Provides Flexibility

brian — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:39:25 -0400

Update: May 1, 2011 - Carrboro Coworking no longer offers this service. Please contact us if you have any questions. Thanks.

I think fall has finally arrived. Famous last words, right? But it’s been a good summer around the Coworking office, with lots of new coworkers signing up (and lots of cupcakes being eaten).

I wanted to let you know that I’m offering a new service through Carrboro Creative Coworking: virtual phone service. This is the phone system I already use at CCC, and I think it’s great, so now I’m offering it to you.

This flexible, affordable system is available in three levels: Basic, Advanced, and Complete. All levels give you:

a VoIP phone number with voice mail;
a virtual receptionist;
Find Me call forwarding;
and conference calls.

The Advanced level adds interactive voice-response menus, incoming call-tracking functionality, and automated outgoing calls. Complete service adds a nationwide toll-free number, virtual call center capability, and a developer API toolkit that allows you to integrate the service with your existing software.

Fees start at $49.95 per month. You pay as you go, and there are no long-term contracts. I’m making this service available to everyone; you don’t have to work here at CCC to use it. Plus, I’m your friendly neighborhood tech support! Once you sign up, I’ve got your back.

Click here to learn more about Carrboro Creative Coworking’s virtual phone service, and sign up today.

CCC featured on Web Worker Daily

brian — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:40:57 -0400

Brian Russell was interviewed recently for the Giga Om site Web Worker Daily. The story Coworking Stories: Carrboro Creative Coworking’s Brian Russell came out today. Its exciting to tell our story to such a large audience and very gratifying to receive the props. The Luchadores del Carrboro photo they used is awesome! :) Big thanks to Imran Ali for writing the story and Giga Om for publishing it.

Introduction to FileMaker Pro 11

brian — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 10:09:28 -0400

When: Thursday, December 02, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM (ET)
Where: Carrboro Creative Coworking, Google Map

Introduction to FileMaker Pro 11 is a one-day hands-on class that teaches you how to use FileMaker Pro 11 by building a basic recipe management database from scratch. The class walks you step-by-step through the basics of databases in general and FileMaker Pro 11.

Instructor: Chris Kubica, PMP, is a FileMaker 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11-Certified Developer, a 13-year, nationally-recognized, veteran FileMaker consultant and FileMaker Developer Conference speaker. He wrote the 800+ page book, The Book of FileMaker and has written about FileMaker Pro for Macworld magazine. More Information

REGISTER HERE

Lunch Event - Guard Your Source: IP Protection for Software

brian — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:42:25 -0400

Attorney Mital M. Patel is giving a lunch presentation about IP. Check out the details bellow. Its free! This should be GREAT! Bring your lunch.

When: September 9th, 12pm
Where: Carrboro Creative Coworking

Description:
Guard Your Source: IP Protection for Software
Join us as Mital Patel, a lawyer with a computer programming background discusses IP protection for software. The presentation will briefly cover the following topics and leave plenty of time for Q&A and discussion:
- NDAs
- Copyright for source code
- Software patents
- Licensing software
- Protecting open source code
- Protecting SaaS (Software as a Service)

Get Carrboro Sprint

brian — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:38:28 -0400

Carrboro is a great place to be a geek. So I want to let the world know we're here and that people should join us.

To facilitate this I bought getcarrboro.com, .net, and .org last night. I'd like to set up a website that demonstrates how cool our tech community is. I really want this to be a community built project. Its goal is to brag on you and your Carrboro based technology company. So if you're a coder, writer, or web designer join us!

We'll be gathering Sunday July 18 at Carrboro Creative Coworking from 10am till whenever. I'll buy lunch and have snacks. Let me know if you can make it.

Please spread the word.

Guerrilla Marketing Training

brian — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:59:56 -0400

EmPOWERment, Inc’s Midway Business Center, Carrboro Creative Coworking, and the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Chamber of Commerce present:
Guerrilla Marketing: Low-cost strategic marketing to get yourself known

Presenter
Tim Pedersen, Right Brain Branding Consultants

When
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
9:30am – 11:30am

Where
Chapel Hill/Carrboro Chamber of Commerce
104 S. Estes Dr. Chapel Hill, NC 27515

RSVP by May 5 to Charles Williams
cwilliams [at] empowerment-inc [dot] org
(919) 967-8779