Hellooooooo 2013!

Holy moly! I've been severely neglecting my blog. Life has been keeping me on my toes and I'm in a whirlwind of thought and movement. From where I'm sitting, it's still cold outside (our never ending winter this year) and I'm ecstatic it's Friday. Where shall I even begin? Well, first things first: I am officially employed again! I started a new job at the beginning of the year at an awesome start-up called CoCo. The immediate follow-up question I get when I say where I work is "So, what is CoCo exactly?" In short, it stands for "coworking and collaborative" space. What does that mean? Well, we basically are an alternative work space where folks can come to work, socialize, meet, and learn. You pay to be a member and it's a newer, unique, and awesome underground "movement" of sorts. It's community driven and I think Ben Dyett (one of the founders of Grind NYC coworking space) describes it best: "our members are "free radicals," or people who "network endlessly and collaborate constantly. They choose when and how they do what they do, on their own terms. They don't want job security, they want career fluidity."

Here's a fun little video that explains it well:

As my friends & family know, I've been looking for sustainable work for quite some time (almost 2 years) in this very tough economy (which in my opinion is still in rough shape). It was made even more challenging by the fact that I wasn't exactly sure what it was I was looking for. I have a lot of transferable skills, but choosing which direction to take that in and where to live has been really difficult. It's hard to be picky when there aren't a lot of prospects in the first place, but even more difficult when trying to decide what's "best" for you. I'm old enough now to appreciate things I took for granted when I was in my twenties, but I'm still young enough to take risks (especially since I'm not tied down by a relationship or children). For the first time in my life, I don't have a clear focus on where it is I want to live and what it is I want to strive towards.

I'm digressing though -- back to CoCo. So what is it that I'm doing for them? Well, all sorts of different things which is nice. Every day is different and I get to utilize a lot of my natural talents (networking, socializing, events, design work). I also really love the people I work with -- we're a small team (2 founders and 3 others) and growing quickly which is exciting. The position is actually perfect for me right now -- it offers a lot of autonomy, creativity, and freedom to curate a rewarding experience for myself and our members. It's incredibly nice and refreshing to be surrounded by smart, forward-thinking, and entrepreneurial types every day.

Currently, we have 2 locations in the Twin Cities and here are a few pics of both spaces. The Mpls. location gets a lot of press (we just signed on with Google for a 2 year partnership to produce entrepreneurial/tech/startup events) and operates on the former Grain Exchange trading floor. Talk about a super awesome unique space!

CoCo St. Paul is located in Lowertown -- a great part of the city dedicated to artist spaces and restaurants.

CoCo Minneapolis -- 20,000 square feet of awesomeness.

So yeah...that's pretty much the biggest news of 2013 so far. I'm still plugging away with my partner Jim Brunzell on Sound Unseen. We're continuing our monthly screenings at the Trylon Microcinema and we're expanding our programming this year to introduce a *secret* summer series and I'm hoping to do a monthly late night music series with a TBA music venue. I'm also still helping Friedman Iverson with their quarterly art shows and am hoping to work on the Food & Film festival in the Fall again. I'd like to add in a few more projects that I think will go over well in this city...so I need to start getting those "realized" soon.

Outside of work and passion projects, I'm always looking to fit in travel and adventure as much as possible. I was in CA for a very brief camping trip to the mountains last weekend and paid for it this week by prolonging cold I've had for months it seems and failing at catching up on sleep all week. I look forward to spending a lot of time in bed and at home this weekend!

I hope to update more often this year...so stay tuned!

Love,
Vilay