Category Archives: philadelphia

Indy Hall Featured in Knight Foundation & National League of Cities Report: Case Studies of U.S. Communities Creating Greater Civic Participation from the Bottom Up

Damn, that’s a mouthful of a post title, isn’ it?

To break it down, I met Chris Kingsley from the National League of Cities just over a year ago while he was working with the Knight Foundation to produce a report identifying bright spots in community engagement in cities across America. Pleased to find that Philadelphia was making the ranks of those bright spots, I happily shared what I’d seen over the previous 5 years of community engagement both within the scope of Indy Hall but also a number of significant shifts that I’d been noticing on a larger scale.

They’ve completed the report (pdf link), and I’m pretty proud of the amount of Indy Hall & Philadelphia story are told. Even a number of our members are highlighted in the photos. Enjoy the report embedded below.

Embedly Powered
via Nlc

And as a bonus, here are the slides from a conference call about these topics that I participated in last week with Jeff Friedman & Paul Wright from the Office of New Urban Mechanics and Open Access Philadelphia.

Thanks so much to Chris Kingsley & NLC, The Knight Foundation, and most of all to my colleagues and community members that continue to inspire me with what’s possible when the community is running on all 8 cylinders of engagement.

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Why economic development needs a more collaborative approach to building cities

Philadelphia is becoming a test case for a new theory on how cities develop in 21st-Century America.

The conventional wisdom used to be that economic development was the key to urban dynamism. Create the jobs, the people would follow, incomes would rise, and all would be well.

Now an alternative idea has come along, preached by a number of urban analysts. It holds that quality of life has become the key element for a city’s prospects, because young adults demand it and many jobs no longer have to be in any one particular place. Establish an attractive setting, talented people will come, and, sooner or later, the jobs will, too.

I pulled this from the opening paragraphs of the 2013 “State of the City” by Pew Charitable Trusts (warning, epic PDF behind that link). For the last 5 years, Pew has produced this report that’s packed with research and statistics that help highlight Philadelphia’s strengths and weaknesses. This years’ report is no exception, and is full of insights about how one of America’s largest cities is doing year over year.

What is exceptional, though, is how this years’ report brings together the trends that we’ve been observing at a micro-scale with Indy Hall and a slightly larger scale with coworking in general.

The environment matters, but not quite the way that traditional economic development thinks about environment.

The Mistakes We Make

In the case of coworking and community development, among the most common mistakes I see are founders & community managers who don’t leave enough room for their members to participate in co-creating the environment that they share.

These coworking spaces put all of the emphasis on creating the environment so that it may be consumed as a service.

These coworking spaces deal with the highest turnover rates, since their members perceive the environment as something to use and when it is no longer a need, neither is their membership.

While all coworking spaces are at risk of the Tragedy of the Commons (where shared resources and common areas suffer from disproportionate wear and tear). But these coworking spaces and their members suffer the most when their members are less considerate of the people that they environment they share.

Here’s what we know for certain: community members who contribute to the environment are the ones who will have the greatest sense of belonging to the community. Community members who contribute become natural evangelists, proudly sharing their participation with others and encouraging them to join in. Communities thrive when their members are “bought in” and feel a sense of ownership over the direction and evolution of the environment.

Cities make the same mistakes

“The conventional wisdom used to be that economic development was the key to urban dynamism. Create the jobs, the people would follow, incomes would rise, and all would be well.”

The fantasy of these steps isn’t that they’re inherently wrong – in many cases, they’re right. The fantasy is in the illusion that “creating the jobs” is a single step. Or maybe, just maybe, the fantasy is in the illusion that “create the jobs” is a step at all – it’s part of the environment that needs to be co-created.

And here’s what we know for certain: citizens who contribute to their environment are the ones who will have a greatest sense of belonging to the community, become natural evangelists for the city, and proudly share their participation with others and encourage them to join in.

Economic development needs to be collaborative

“Now an alternative idea has come along, preached by a number of urban analysts. It holds that quality of life has become the key element for a city’s prospects, because young adults demand it and many jobs no longer have to be in any one particular place. Establish an attractive setting, talented people will come, and, sooner or later, the jobs will, too.”

Here’s the key to remember: the most attractive setting for the change-makers isn’t an environment that’s done, ready to be consumed as a service. Community members need buy in and ownership in order for economic development efforts to have a lasting effect.

Let us know how we can contribute. Remember, if it’s change-makers you want, you show us something that needs changing, and be prepared to work along side us to make it happen.

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    This Friday – Mike Jackson & Indy Hall Arts present an art show about moments in baseball

    I have a confession: I don’t even like baseball and I’m psyched for this show.

    In the second installment of Indy Hall Arts Program for 2013, Mike Jackson (not the singer) is presenting a solo showing of all original works based on moments in Baseball dubbed “Fast, for a catcher”.

    Want a sneak preview? Check out Mike’s Instagram stream, as well as the most recent posts from Indy Hall Arts. See what I mean about how awesome this is going to be?!

    This show is open to the public during First Friday THIS WEEK, April 5th, (which also happens to be during the Phillies home opener…which you’ll be able to listen to over the speakers at the show).

    RSVP optional (but feel free to share!) on Facebook.

    This show is already in the press:

    As a personal aside, I’m particularly impressed with how Mike has REALLY stepped up his game in the last 6 months. He played a massively instrumental part in the collaborative “Music Inspiring Art” show at the beginning of February, and is really reaching a new level of JFDI with his output for this show. It’s also been incredible to watch Sean Martorana, Indy Hall’s curator, step into the role of mentoring. Sean and Mike, together, are a truly dangerous duo.

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      How to get an internship at Indy Hall

      It’s springtime, which means that we’ve been getting an influx of internship request emails at Indy Hall as people come out of their winter hibernation and gear up for the summer. Timing is ripe, too, since we’re spinning up a rebooted version of our internship program very soon.

      I’ve started to notice patterns in the emails we get, and thought it might be helpful for the interested students out there to guide them down the right path towards getting an internship at a coworking space like Indy Hall.

      Why would you want to be an intern at a coworking space?

      Our coworking space is a pretty unusual place to be an intern. There’s a plethora of experiences to learn from, ranging from operations & management, communications & community building, and business & civic engagement.

      But I’d argue that more importantly, there’s the community members themselves to learn from! Indy Hall in particular is inhabited by one of the most diverse communities of workers in this city. On a regular basis I am surprised to find out what a member does for a living and think to myself, “damn, I didn’t even know you could DO that as a job.”

      And to that end, interning at Indy Hall is different from most internships. It’s more of an exploration. While we do have a checklist of operational things that need to be done, there’s time between tasks where you’re expected to find things that you want to do, and with our guidance and support, figure out how to do them in a way that benefits you AND the community.

      A quick story

      Parker Whitney came to Indy Hall from Houston, Texas in the spring of 2009. In his application, he said that he found our blog post looking for interns searching for “cool philadelphia internships”. We got a dozen applications or so, but one of the reasons that Parker’s stood out was buried in his answer to a key question: In your own words, what is Indy Hall?

      “Regardless of my potential employment status with IndyHall, I know it is a place I must experience.”

      It’s useful to know that Parker had never been to a coworking space, and hadn’t heard of Indy Hall until 15 minutes before applying.

      To make a long story short, Parker was offered the internship. Looking back at our requirements, he’d be the first to admit that “being an organized person” wasn’t his strength, but he made up for it in other ways. Not the least of which was his drive to try things.

      In 6 months I watched him take a crack at no less than 6 different professions held by other Indy Hall members (and a few others that he had scouted out on his own). He tried and stumbled at some skills, while baby-stepping forward with others. He learned his strengths and weaknesses in a place that supported and cared for him, but pushed him to try new and different as well.

      Parker settled in as a freelance illustrator, building a portfolio of contract design work. His artistic aptitude was honed with some guidance and mentorship from members. But he’d also made a friend in Jake O’Brien, an freelance iOS developer who’d also launched a few of his own game titles in the app store.

      Parker and Jake teamed up over beers to talk about video games, a passion they both shared. But an opportunity blossomed as well – an opportunity to collaborate on work became a natural extension of their friendship, shared interests, and complimentary skills of developer and designer.

      This is the part where I “easy-bake-oven” a lot of their hard work, but less than 4 years later Parker and Jake have a company called Flyclops, a 3rd partner that they met here at Indy Hall, and a very successful iPhone game called Domino! in the app store that’s led them to leave freelancing behind entirely and even bring on their first employee.

      Parker didn’t come to Indy Hall for the internship.

      He wasn’t the ideal candidate because he was the most talented or impressive.

      He never said “I want to build video games” or even “I want to start a company”.

      He discovered Indy Hall while looking for an internship, but applied for a different reason: he wanted to be a member but didn’t know how to get there.

      Like Parker, our ideal intern is someone who wants to be a member of IndyHall, even if they don’t know how to get there!

      Is Indy Hall the kind of place you’d want to intern?

      Start by asking yourself this question: “What do I want to do next with my career?”

      If your answer is “I’m not entirely sure, but Indy Hall is the place where I want to figure out what I really want to do”, let me know.

      For bonus points, tell me: In your own words, what is Indy Hall?

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        Guest Post: An Ode to Indy Hall Night Owls by Hila Ratzabi

        This is post is being shared from one of Indy Hall’s members, Hila Ratzabi, about her experience at our weekly Night Owls coworking session:

        This is not going to be a poem, despite the title. I just wanted to share with you all my first night owls experience—cause I don’t think you know what you’re missing out on.

        Firstly, pre-night owls, I got to have a one-on-one yoga class with Ahava, and it was awesome. I hope and expect there will be more of this. Secondly, I talked to Bridget about her anthropological work on gender and Islam, and now am editing some of her writing on the topic—and it’s seriously fascinating.

        The highlight of the evening—Kara and Dana made some seriously kick ass food. Kara’s mac & cheese might be one of the best I’ve ever had, and Dana’s collard greens were just perfect.

        I had a deep conversation about the Internet with dude-with-the-handlebar-mustache (what is your name?). I met new member Sam who apparently might be kind of related to me through the Ratzabi lineage of our families in Israel (crazy!). I learned about Kara’s awesome work she recently did in India. I got to learn a bit about Austin’s work creating apps that are geared toward the blind.

        And to top it all off I watched Sean, et al., hanging curtains out front and stood there in awe of how these guys just up and hung some curtains just like that.

        Seriously, night owls was like a microcosm of what an incredible place in Indy Hall is. I’m happy to be part of this motley crew!

        Love, Hila

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