Posts Tagged ‘Harry’s’

Happy Hours, Meetups, Mashups and More!

Friday, February 19th, 2010

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This was an exciting week at the Hive.  We hosted our first monthly happy hour on Tuesday, which felt like a great milestone.  It was nice to see lots of new faces, and hang out with some old friends too.  Especially inspiring were the two-for-one drinks! Thanks Harry’s!!

Crain’s New York Business ran a great piece on the Hive the other day and it featured two of our members, TripFilms and ReadHowYouWant.  These two companies have been with us since we opened, so it was great to have them included in the piece.  We’ve also added a number of new members in the past few weeks –- a few solo entrepreneurs plus a small company who will be working out of the Hive a few days a week.  It’s great to see the Hive grow with a continued diversity of represented industries.  Some of them are in early start-up stages while others have been successfully running their businesses for some time.  It’s such an interesting mix and there is something to be learned from everyone around us.

A few of our members have graciously offered to host workshops and presentations highlighting their work.  These will be for both existing members and those who are just interested in learning more, meeting cool people, or those who just want to check out the Hive in person.  On Monday we will have Hive member and Futurist Garry Golden start a conversation on the Future of Work.  It’s a topic I find especially interesting as people continue to turn to consulting and freelance work.  And if the conversation isn’t enticing enough, we will also have food for everyone attending!  I hope you will join us in this interesting talk.  You can RSVP here.

Another member, Thomas Stampfli, an expert in digital and social media marketing will be sharing his expertise in a workshop in March.  He’ll be offering great tips on how your business can utilize social media.  RSVP here. We hope all our members will at some point share what they are working on.

Finally, we have lots of meetups on the calendar; including a Web site boot camp, search engine optimization and search engine marketing, and a Python meetup.  You can take a look at our upcoming events by going to www.hiveat55.com/events or signing up for our bi-monthly newsletter at hiveat55.com.

Bee Careful What You Wish For

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

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This is just my second blog post on the Downtown Diary and already I’m revealing my deepest, darkest secrets. I’m really into weather. I mean: forecast models, hurricane tracking, comparing the personalities of our local meteorologists (I met Janice Huff!), and of course, worshipping Jim Cantore. Last week there were lots of predictions of the impending “snowpocalypse” across the Eastern Seaboard, and perhaps because I like the snow I didn’t pay much attention to the details; I was convinced we were going to get walloped.

Because I’m here at the Hive at 55 every day, I’m getting to know our members quite well. And last Friday I sat by the door and wished everyone a happy, snowy weekend. “Are you taking your kids to Central Park to go sledding? “I hope you like the snow, it’s gonna be a doozy!” “I don’t know if we are even going to be open on Monday!”

Boy did I miss that one. We all know how the weekend turned out: zero snow fell in Central Park and really no snow fell north of central New Jersey. But as I write this post, another storm is on the way. I’ve done my research and can make this promise: there will be snow on the ground when you read this! And of course now I don’t want a complete snowmageddon because Wednesday night is the Hive’s first Happy Hour at  Harry’s Café.There are more than 30 people who have signed up to go to this event and the Hive is so thrilled to know people want to come out and support us. Knock on wood –- but for what -– no blizzard? Brave Hivers? We’ll see.

The members of the Hive have made a commitment to work here and I don’t think foul weather will hold them back. But as I schedule more events and Meetups here at the Hive, every organizer seems to have a horror story thanks to Mother Nature. Hopefully fans of the Hive will emulate (the first half of) the Postman’s Creed, and come to some of our upcoming events that occur in the evening: NYC Hadoop’s Introduction to HBase on February 11, Website Bootcamp on February 18, Search Engine Optimization and Marketing on February 25, all beginning at 6:30pm at the Hive.

I’m glad to say that we’re getting into a routine here. Nearly every Thursday you can expect an informative Meetup, as well as monthly happy hours and free lunches for members. We are also working on more workshops organized by our members and friends of the Hive, so keep checking our event page to learn more about exciting programming options. And as much as I like the snow, let’s not have these weekly snow storms be part of the routine.