Tag: office

  • Co-Working Spaces Hit Cape Town at TheiPlex.co.za

    Having designed the website for TheiPlex.co.za recently, and being a solo artist working from home, coffee shops etc, I decided to give their co-working spaces a bash out of desperation to find a space to concentrate better on work.

    TheiPlex is situated in the newly developed Boulevard Complex in Woodstock just outside of the CBD in Cape Town. Woodstock has become somewhat of a buzz in the last few years with creative, tech and corporates moving out of the city centre.

    A Business Idea much needed in “Silicon Cape”

    I really love what TheiPlex have gone about setting up and blogged about something of this nature way back in 2007. That was just before I decided to go solo and what a roller coaster it’s been since then. I’ve never fully mastered the art of confining myself to my work space at home and to be honest I doubt I ever will, so having the chance to catch some quiet time in a clean, clear workspace was really refreshing.

    I called them up in a frantic rush, with deadlines hanging over my head and anxiety boiling up from the need to get things done.

    TheIplex has been designed to set an atmosphere conducive to creative work and innovation. You’ll see form the get go colorful backdrops, themed meeting rooms & clean workspaces.

    The Reception Area

    The Iplex Cape Town rception

    Jts outside the building you’ll find a nice little Vida Cafe, one of my favorite coffee shops in Cape Town, though they are a little pricy. The iPlex offers some pretty decent coffee themselves at quite a good price and you can give the reception/concierge team a buzz when you need some caffeine to keep the engines firing.

    The Workspaces

    I Grabbed a spot in the corner near the window and plugged in. Wifi on tap and coffee a few meters away got me in the mode to get some serious work done.

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    Later on after feeling a little more relaxed i decided to poke around a bit and check out some of the meeting Rooms. My favorite one was the war room, which comes with whiteboard style wall paint so you can brainstorm directly onto the wall surface, take some pics when you’re done, if I’m not mistaken they take snaps of your ideas for you as well. I was alone so would probably have been a bit strange to test it out on my own, really looking forward to the change to brainstorm with a team in a space like that.

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    The War room is fitted out with netting and camouflage hang in from the ceiling, color coded seating and some really great little army figures running about to get you into combat mode.

    After a couple of days of driving into Woodstock I needed to take a break from driving, LOL. But the cool thing is it’s flexible so if you buy some hours you can choose when to make use of them.

    Some other meetings rooms and pics form the rest of the space below. I’v been planning on running my WordPress theme Dev course here as well, it’s a great venue and caters for events as well with a largish events room.

  • New School Business Idea no.1: Web 2.0 worker Spaces for rent

    Ok this is something I have been thinking about for a while now and I’ve just decided to go with it. I’ve got an overactive imagination and my mind just won’t leave me alone sometimes. There are times when I can’t even get to bed in the early hours and just have to jot down some ideas before I can get some rest from the continuous mental processes happening up in here.

    I have ideas on a daily basis, ones which I think are great and just have to be acted upon, but a host of reasons prevent me from acting, mostly procrastination and lack of motivation or just feeling bogged down by earning an immediate living. I’ve decided to document these ideas and share them, to see how others react, see what kind of feedback I can get and maybe if I can find some interested parties to collaborate or invest in them or just as a bouncing board.

    IDEA # 1: Mobile Office for knowledge/web 2.0 workers

    With so many of us taking the plunge into self employment or just being on the go and out of the office it has become increasingly difficult to find the right places to meet with our clients or peers, to sit down somewhere and get some work done away from our couches & beds at home and to just have a place of refuge when the creative juices are being dried up by our dry surroundings.

    Onto the scene walks the office away from the “home” office (This is my idea). Imagine a few centralised spaces where you can go, pay a small fee for an hour or 2 or 3, have some coffee, plug in and do what you do best. It’s designed to suite the modern knowledge worker, it allows for booking spaces in advance, you can take your clients there. There’s an open plan area for collaboration, brainstorming, networking & the like, as well as some private or more quiet spaces for concentration or to cut yourself off from the world.

    They offer office services like faxing & printing, places to plug in your iPod and watch the latest TED talks or listen to your favourite podcasts. They sell the latest gadgets which keep us drooling on a daily basis. They have a few techno savvy guys & gals to help with any glitches & bugs. Maybe they even have a few in house businesses running, which offer supporting services to the knowledge worker community like people who know how to set up blogs, wiki’s etc.

    You can go and have a video conference, shoot or record something for your latest podcast. It’s a web 2.0 worker paradise. Think it’ll work? Anyone got anything to add?Anyone got some moolah to throw at an idea like this or know some open minded investors? Jump in and throw your 2 cents or 20 million at this idea. Lets see what we come up with. If anyone’s got connections at any of the big malls or centers maybe get them interested in the idea. I’m sure they wouldn’t sneer at getting peeps like us interested in spending more time in & around their malls.

    Does anyone know of something like this which really exists? If so and it’s based in Cape Town I’ll by you a coffee & a Muffin if you point me to it in the next month. 🙂