This is the second in the series of Eva catch-up blog posts.  This one is all about our Open House scheduled for May 14th from 4-8pm.

So, given all of my complaints lately about being over-worked and under-slept, why would we think throwing yet another party would be a good idea?  That's a fair point, perhaps I should take that up with the Powers that Be.  Oh wait, I am one of the Powers that Be.  So, I must have had a good reason.

The best reason I can come up with is because we love having people over to CubeSpace.  CubeSpace is not just our home away from home (yes, we really do go home to sleep), but it is our community and we love to get to know our community better.  

The second best reason is so we can show off how cool CubeSpace is.  Whenever people come to CubeSpace for the first time, we hear all sorts of accolades about how much bigger it is then people imagined, or how comfortable the space feels or how many great people they meet at our events.  

Speaking of BarCamp, Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist has a great roundup of the various blog retrospectives that have been springing up. And below are a few of the pictures we took -- there's more on the CubeSpace Flickr stream, and hundreds more beyond that if you do a little tag browsing!

The past couple of weeks have been a real whirlwind here at CubeSpace, and this week only gives me a bit of a breather before taking off full bore again.

This past weekend was the second BarCamp Portland and once again it was held at CubeSpace. I have not yet fully recovered after having worked an additional 40.5 hours on top of an already full week, but suffice it to say it was once again an experience to behold. There is a kind of energy that comes with BarCamp that we don't see enough of during the rest of the year. It is a combination of tons of people (I love seeing groups and individuals in every nook and cranny of this place) and their collective energy. There are people who are sharing and learning and teaching and brainstorming and sometimes just staring in awe or exhaustion or in thought at the schedule wall. It always serves to remind me why we went into the community-building business.

David and Eva were interviewed recently by Spike Gillespie of LaunchPad Coworking in Austin, Texas, which will open this July.

Spike asked some good questions, and David and Eva answered them as best they could. Read it here!

The topic for April's WNG meeting was Networking.  I already shared some musings about networking in my April 8th post, but as I expected, the conversation took on a life of its own.  We wandered into questions of gender, communication style and, of course, shared some do's and don't with each other.

One of my favorite parts of the conversation was the advice proffered by networking "guru's" (often men) and the question of which advice is good advice.  Aja shared something she read suggesting that people track relevant information about a person, including spouse name, children, favorite foods and anything else that might "personalize" a future conversation.  Some members of the group do track bit of personal information.  Often on a client's folder or business card, so that they can follow up on conversations in the future.  Others of us rely on our memory to keep track of what we learn about others.  

You may wonder why I am writing a blog post about search engine history on the CubeSpace blog. Believe it or not, there is actually a connection there.

Today I am working at home until the WNG meeting at CubeSpace this evening. I am doing this so that I can get some projects done that require more attention than I can give them at CubeSpace, where my day is usually a constant stream of distractions. At some point late in the morning I got hungry and reheated some leftovers. I decided a meal was as good an excuse as any to take a break, so I picked up the issue of New Scientist that I am currently in the midst of reading. That is where I found an article about the Mundaneum, an index card proto-internet with librarians functioning as search engines.

Recently, someone asked if we ever hosted musical events here. In true CubeSpace style, we responded, "Why, no.  Not yet, that is!" So at 6:30 p.m. on April 10th, we are presenting the first CubeSpace musical evening, complete with fresh, seasonal, locally-produced ice cream from Cool Moon Creamery. Entertainment will be provided by Smiddy, the illustrious Folk-Singing Carpet Cleaner, who performs in an eclectic folk/country style. We hope to see you all here, socializing, snacking and enjoying the tunes!

Bring your friends and family! 

Friday I did something that was very unusual for me. I took a day off. This was done in preparation for Startupalooza, which in some ways (from our perspective, at least) was a dress rehearsal for BarCamp. Startupalooza went very well, and while I don't have the final count, my guess is that we had 200+ people through here on Saturday and we managed to stay on top of dishes and logistics (in that order) so I am happy.

Hey, everybody!

If you've ever been at CubeSpace after 3pm or so, you've probably seen me behind the desk. My name's Leigh, and I'm one of your Cubists -- the smiling staff who keep this place running smoothly. But I'm also a Cubester -- a working professional who uses CubeSpace as my base of operations. In other words, I not only work for CubeSpace, I also work at CubeSpace. In my other career, I handle publicity for a critically acclaimed graphic novel publisher, Top Shelf Productions. But since there's no centralized Top Shelf office for me to go to, I do a lot of that publicity work here, in one of the cubes (usually Animal, for some reason. We're both red-headed drummers).

As a result of my employment situation, I'm in a pretty unique position, standing in the overlapping space in the Venn diagram of "member" and "staff." So we all thought it would be a neat idea for me to start regularly blogging about life at CubeSpace -- sharing my perspective on what it's like to be a part of this community, and why it makes sense for my needs. We're calling this feature... CubeFace. (read more...)