The Innovation Commons in Vancouver

Tonight in Vancouver there’s a brainstorming session for something that Boris calls the Innovation Commons. The goal is to “build a physical, 24/7 space where Vancouver’s entrepreneur community can gather to motivate each other’s innovation.” Here are some more details:

• provide 24/7 access on a membership basis — work on your great ideas any time of day or night, without pesky cafe closing times
• provide affordable office space and shared resources for entrepreneurs and start ups
• serve as a location/funding organization where motivated co-op students (see University of Waterloo, University of Victoria) can spend semesters developing their own business ideas and/or working on open source projects, rather than more traditional work placements with actual companies
• bring the power of small teams to large companies: rent space and buy memberships for your employees (I’m looking at you, ActiveState and Blast Radius) to interact with the wider universe of small teams and innovative ideas; or even let your employees do "20% work" on their own projects like Google does, working at the commons one day per week
• providing a physical space for various meetups; ActiveState does a great job of doing this now, but we need access to the Internet, people! And, it should be open to everything from Vancouver Company of Friend’s Sunday Jams to Biodiesel enthusiasts and social venture groups
• (insert more ideas here — create a new page on the wiki)

Sounds like some kinda commune-who are these hippy nutters? Just kidding. It sounds like an interesting idea, and is something that artists have been doing for hundreds of years. In fact, the IC organizers ought to talk to some artists who have successfully run collective spaces, and learn some valuable lessons.

They should also learn not to schedule these things on the night of the Feist concert and the opening night of the hockey season. I’ll be attending briefly, before the puck drops.