Events, Meeting Connectors, and Outerspaces: A Coworking Space Initiative
Hey everyone!
This was a busy week at BWP! This past Tuesday was my first BWP Open Mixer. Although BWP hosts many events, mixers are focused on allowing Connectors to meet other Connectors, attendees and entrepreneurs in the area. June’s event took place at the Hawthorne, located near Fenway Park.
As the event started up, I worked with the other interns to sign in guests as they arrived. As all of us greeted people on their arrival, I was giving out nametags but had to give out specific badges to Connectors. Since I haven’t most of the Connectors before, I had to pay attention to when people were checking in to hear if the other interns greeted them as familiar attendees to figure out if they needed a Connector badge or not. As I met the Connectors, they were all incredibly friendly and excited to be at the event.
Instead of just writing down someone’s name, the name tags include a spot for an “offer” and “need”. An offer is any skill or asset the person can put on the table, and a need is any opportunity they are ultimately looking to get out of the people they meet at the event for the long run. I noticed most people wrote down their expertise or industry for offer, and to my surprise, most people were looking for interns or employees. As the event got going, my bosses encouraged me to go mingle with the crowds. Although it was intimidating to go jump in on conversations at first, everyone I met to was more than willing to talk to me about their education, career path and current job.
The June mixer also marked the announcement of Outerspaces, a new initiative between Boston World Partnerships and WorkBar, one of Boston’s shared coworking spaces. Outerspaces connects established companies with startups looking for office space; businesses can rent out empty desks in their office for a monthly fee to startups that need office space but cannot afford to sign long term leases.
Right after the announcement was made, a few of the Connectors and guests went up directly to the directors and expressed their interest in renting office space or offering desks. The program has already matched startups with desks, and it was exciting to see the immediate impact of the announcement and that it was getting people talking.
As the event wrapped up at the Hawthorne, some of the Connectors and guests went next door to Eastern Standard to continue socializing. All of us interns headed over and were able to talk to some of the people who attended in a more causal environment. As I was talking to one of the Connectors, I found out he is an adjunct summer professor at Babson who runs MBA programs. We also realized another Connector who was talking with us is connected to Babson; she’s an author who is hired by a woman I work with at Babson to speak at the college. I had a great conversation which one Connector, only to find out the next day that found out that he invented Vsnap, a video tool we use all the time at work. Although it was surprising that I was able to connect with people I had just started talking to out of the crowd, the connection was the epitome of was BWP aims to do with their Connector network.
Here are a few pictures from the event: