Likemind.orl April 17, 2009

More than 2 years ago, I heard about these two marketing guys / geeks from New York who had started an event they held on Friday mornings for coffee and conversation. The first few were just the two of them, but as they invited people and the word got out, it grew until it started getting on the radar all over the world. Now Likemind happens in scores of cities on every continent, and Orlando has been on that list almost since the beginning.

The next Likemind should be April 17th, the day before BarCampOrlando. Let's use that international date to take action locally. Likemind is before work (8AM), it happens downtown, and everyone is welcome. Bring a few friends, get some coffee, and tell us what's on your mind.

Likemind in Orlando could be huge - in a different way than the Happy Hours and Coworking have been. The point of Likemind is the exchange of ideas - it's not a networking event, it's a discussion. There are tons of networking events. They suck. There are tons of user groups. Their format is generally a presentation. We all know from the Cluetrain Manifesto, and from events like BlogOrlando and BarCamp, that conversations are powerful things.

I'm proposing we get together on April 17th and create something. Groups in 60+ other cities all over the world will be getting together for conversations with their community - sure, they won't all be having BarCamp the next day, and they may not have 2+ years of these events behind them, but we do.

One of the first reasons we started Likemind was to encourage the coworking scene locally - that's grown up and there are now several healthy groups in town. Attendance to likemind has been poor, and sometimes even I forget when it's happening. Likemind is too cool an idea to have it fall by the side of the road. The events in New York and London are huge, with 50-100 attendees every month. When I went in London, they said 80% of the people were newcomers every month. If we can be half as successful, we'll have a huge impact.

You show up, I'll buy coffee and breakfast. Just like the old days.

Location? (must have good coffee)
I wish B&S Market was still around... the next best things are Roho, Volcano's, Dandelion, the Drunken Monkey and Stardust (in order from the center of town). If we do Roho, we'd have to sit outside at the tables, there's no room to speak of inside. I wish Gwenivere's/DMAC/Avalon was still around as a venue... the current management doesn't have the same dream for it that the space used to have.

During the "Fredda days" of CoLab, she wanted us to hold Likemind there, but the lack of coffee, and the lack of attendance from communities other than technology was a turn-off for me. A great thing about Stardust, Dandelion, Austin's or Drunken Monkey are the people from the Film, Theatre, Music, and Art communities in town who call those places their "third place", where they go when it's not work or home. Cross-pollination is going to be important to an event like Likemind.

It's interesting to see how much of Orlando's Likemind is visible on the internet - Alex, Cory and Florida Creatives appear in the first 3 pages of google for "likemind", along with Piers and Noah (who started the event in New York), San Fran, Berlin, Italy, Austin, Milwaukee, Tokyo, and a few others. Orlando gets more hits on those 3 pages than the founders!

Please twitter about it, grow the community, talk it up, put it on your calendar, and help Orlando leave a wake on it's way sailing to the top of the world.

Official Website: http://floridacreatives.com/group/likemind