Congratulations to Ian Graham. His vision of a collaborative, co-working space becomes a reality later today when he hosts an open house at The Code Factory, 246 Queen Street (Ottawa), second floor.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the open house. Instead, I dropped by The Code Factory to congratulate Ian and Jocelyn Kartes (Minister of First Impressions) during lunch, yesterday. The space looks great!

Ian will be organizing a series of lunch-and-learn sessions for the community. He showed me a wish list of sessions and speakers and it looks like a great lineup.

Each team weighed in during the latest checkpoint meeting at Ottawa Web Weekend.  It almost felt like a NASA pre-launch go/no-go exchange as marketing, business, design and then development sounded off on the remarkable progress each has made today.

That’s no surprise really.  Today’s discussions have been very focussed and energized, and there’s been long stretches of quiet time as everyone focused on their keyboards and screens, writing code, legal agreements, business plans, marketing strategies and web content.

Companies should take note.  There is something incredible about this kind of initiative.  I see a lot of potential for companies that would invest the necessary funds to have a weekend getaway for employees (perhaps even sponsoring this kind of event) to innovate and develop in an democratic, collaborative and supportive environment.

Now… back to my work!

Ottawa Web Weekend is taking place at the future home of The Code Factory, a collaborative, co-working space founded by Ian Graham. The facilities are still under construction, heading towards a launch on May 20. Ian was kind enough to give me a tour.

My favourite part of this tour is when we walk into what Ian refers to as ‘the smallest office’ which sounds like a massive cavern in this audio recording.

Music: Bigfoot from Elegant Chaos by Robert Farrell

 

 Ian Graham of The Code Factory [11:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Most of us had never met before 6pm when the Ottawa Web Weekend kicked off. It was a fast paced introduction, though. By the time 10pm rolled around, we had introduced ourselves, shared ideas for web products, debated the ideas and finally picked one to work on as a team this weekend.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, a web weekend brings together a group of people of all backgrounds and interests to start a new company. This weekend’s participants includes design, development, marketing, business and legal professionals. As of this evening, we’re all partners in a new company. The depth of our partnership is dependent on the contribution of the individuals as measured in hours. By the time we wrapped up this evening, we had finalized a product that we will design and develop, and plan a marketing strategy for over the course of two twelve hour days.

The Ottawa Web Weekend is being held at the site of the future collaborative co-working space, The Code Factory. The facility is in its final stages of construction and it looks great. The rental rate is right and I expect I’ll take advantage of the space and the opportunity to network in it.

I can see how this kind of weekend can be hard on psyches. I can also see the potential of this weekend to cement strong friendships, explore new ideas and collaborate on something we can all be proud of. I’m in it for the latter. And, based on what I experienced this evening, I am part of a very strong team.