Maybe you’ve heard about the soon-to-be APPLE Sustainability Center, scheduled to open this summer in downtown Nevada City? We plan to post more details soon – but, to help get the ball rolling, please help us out right now by taking this quick (just 5 questions) online survey:Click Here to take survey
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Robert Trent owns a Nevada City marketing and public relations firm that provides promotional materials for organizations committed to saving the world’s oceans.
His business, Velocity 7, also provides glossy brochures for Airstream trailers — those towable, livable aluminum recreational vehicles.
All he needs is a laptop, a chair, and a reliable Internet connection that, when it goes down, Trent can walk two steps away and ask fellow entrepreneur Rob Sheldon to fix.
Sheldon is a self-employed information technology specialist who works in the same office with Trent — and Sheldon sits next to Paul Smith, who has an MBA in sustainable management and owns a consulting firm.
And when Smith wants to share an idea with Trent, he can either walk the four steps to Trent’s desk, send him a Twitter feed or instant message.
The entrepreneurs, each with his own business, work in the same room in a second-floor office on Broad Street. Trent holds the lease to the building, and Smith, Sheldon and one other solo entrepreneur work at different desks in the same room.
Together, they make up Sierra Commons, where business people can rent space on a month-to-month basis.
For $200 a month, Trent offers tenants a desk, an Internet connection, and the chance to break the work-from-home doldrums.
“You get a lot more value for your money,†Trent said. “We’re not making money by subletting. That’s not why we’re doing it. It’s all about getting some energy going to share some ideas and learn from each other. Being a part of this downtown is important to us.â€
Trent, 42, has been in the building on Broad Street for five years. Sheldon, 30, who owns No Problem IT consulting, has been in the building two and a half months; and Smith, 39, who owns Green Smith Consulting, has been in the building one month.
“I didn’t need an office, technically, but it helps to have human beings around you,†Smith said.
Smith and Sheldon use sleek laptops; Trent and his associate use desktops.
The office has a kitchen and a bathroom around the corner, but no copy machine — that’s done down the street, in an effort to keep waste at a minimum.
The “solopreneurs†are working to save some green — both money and otherwise — by using one office.
“We all need to make a living,†Trent said. “We’re all businesses with local, national and international clients, and we all want a quality of life, and this adds to it.â€
Sheldon, who does troubleshooting, network administration and installation, and Web design and development, used to work at home.
“I think it’s fair to say that my productivity has increased 250 percent. I get so distracted at home.
“It feels very good to say ‘I have an office,’†Sheldon added.
The setup is not unusual in larger cities — nor in Nevada City, which has several examples of similar work arrangements.
Smith joked that the office is so user-friendly that all one needed to work there is a roll of toilet paper and an Internet connection.
But they really need intangibles, too.
“There’s a culture that has to be a part of it,†Trent said. “If you have a party and you have crackers and Cheez Whiz, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a big, good party. It has to be a symbiotic relationship.â€
So far, so good.
There is something really cool happening in Nevada County. Its call Nevada County Solopreneurs, We have a Google Group going and I think you should join if the description below fits your fancy.
Freelancers, consultants, “solopreneurs”, and small business owners of all kinds in Nevada County. If you’re not a solopreneur, but you’re interested in what we’re doing, you’re welcome to join in too. The mailing list will contain information on future meetings, presentations, and events.
I’m tired of paying Verizon $1 every time I need directory assistance. My sister passed me a link and phone number for Google’s Free Service.
Try calling 1-800-466-4411
Or going to www.google.com/goog411
The most underreported vote that took place on Nov. 4th was probably the FCC’s vote to allow unlicensed use of much of the TV spectrum for wireless internet access.
The decision, which was opposed by broadcasters but supported by prominent technology companies (see the Wireless Innovation Alliance), permits anyone with the right type of hardware to transmit wireless data across most of the TV frequencies that will be abandoned in the mandatory switch-over to digital TV in 2009. The requisite technology is still in development, but it promises to pull an urban-style WiFi blanket over currently unserved areas. The very low frequencies stay strong over relatively long distances, making them ideal for potential broadband customers in rural locations where DSL and cable are not available.
The exception is channels 52 through 69, which were auctioned off earlier this year—mostly going to AT&T and Verizon. While those channels may become a proprietary access conduit run by those companies, the portions of the spectrum that the FCC has left unlicensed will probably develop along the more anarchic WiFi model—which is in many ways more successful and promising than the DSL/cable model.
For more details, check out Sascha Segan’s article in PC Magazine.
Type Nevada City or Grass Valley or wherever you are sitting into the location box, and check out the statistical graphics it generates. Pretty sexy for a chart widget. YouCalc is the engine—their website lets you process your data for free into a portable chart that you can hang on your blog, your Facebook page, iGoogle, or wherever else you want to take it. Considering all the Google Analytics V7’s sites will hopefully be generating in the near future, this might be a tool we can have a lot of fun with.
And why do you keep inviting me to yours?
Seems like every day I get three new Facebook requests from acquaintances and friends offering me some kind of animated plant or Pokemon-meets-Lego character if I will only join this (lil) Green Patch application.
So, apparently, it’s an extremely viral RPG-style web game that brings its users back for so many repeat page-views, it makes buckets of bucks in ad revenues both for its two creators and their charity of choice, The Nature Conservancy. The game is designed to cultivate its own popularity, because users have to earn GreenBucks to play by sending gifts to other Facebook users–often to those who haven’t started playing yet. Hence the incessant invitations annoying me.
The environmental charity aspect of the game is as much of an appeal of it as the addictive role-playing quality. It’s the same appeal made by The Rainforest Site, plus it’s a game.
Normally I avoid Facebook apps like the plague. I’ve always thought Facebook looks way better than MySpace, and big graphical applications like Superheroes and Superpoke! tend to be really ugly. I guess the lesson of (lil) Green Patch is that people don’t care about aesthetics like I do if they have a couple substantive reasons–gameplay + environment–to keep coming back.
The Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival On Campus is featured today in Grist.org’s lead story, Goody for U!: 15 creative ways that students and colleges are going greener.
Grist.org is, of course, the definitive source of environmental news on the web. What’s better, their writers’ mastery of bad punning is enough to make any MSM headline writer turn green. But I have an admission to make: I’ve been Grist-less for four months. Back in May, I unsubscribed from their email list, subscribing to the RSS feed instead. Then I missed a few days, and, terrified of the quantity of new items, never opened my RSS reader again.
Result: I’m four months less informed and amused than I should be.
Conclusion: sign up to receive Grist by email.
Velocity7 is a certified sustainable business and encourages, initiates and practices green solutions in all business endeavors.
We take an integrated marketing communications approach to creative solutions because this delivers consistent results, value and unified messaging.
