We’re all moved in at our new physical space in the basement of:
Aoppleton Makerspace, powered by DHMN
120 N. Morrison St.
Appleton WI 54911
We have Make meetings every Thursday night, they are open to the public. Bring a project to work on or help someone with their project..
Regular members get access keys and storage space,to make any time they want.
There’s still a lot to do at the Makerspace. Come help us build something awesome!
Q: How do you get an insurance rep to stop talking?
A: Tell them you want to insure a makerspace.
Hey all – just a quick note to let you know that we ran into a delay getting our insurance, but we are making great progress. We are expecting to get a quote this week yet that would consider us a “Hobby Club”, and I’m confident that we can work out the kinks with an affordable plan. The final questionnaire is in the hands of the Pres and Treasurer, and hopefully they have time to fill it out today. If all goes well, we can expect to open doors early next week.
So please come to the Harmony Cafe in Appleton tonight for the open Make session, from 6pm to 10pm, 3rd Floor.
Last week I was invited to sit in with some amazing pioneers at the first OpenCoffee in the City of Appleton. I call them pioneers, because they are all high-tech startup entrepreneurs in a land where no high-tech startup infrastructure exists. LIke “those who went into unexplored territory in search of a new life, looking to establish permanent settlement.” except Appleton Pioneers are “those who are exploring financial territories, in search of resources to establish profitable exit-strategies”.
One of the OpenCoffee guests from the City of Appleton is looking for ways that the city can help these startups be successfull. It basically comes down to cold-hard cash, but of course this is a delicate, multi-phase, interdependent process 
I agree with Bob Waldron who quoted from Brad Feld’s book (and I paraphrase) that we won’t have a successful technology startup community until successful tech-startup owners from this area put time into building said community. Education is needed, and so is experience.
The way I see it, every tech startup owner that has been funded, or boot-strapped themselves to get to year 2+, should be at this open-coffee, every time. And every owner that has successfully exited, or taken their profits and started a new venture, should invite a wealthy friend on a ride-share to these meetings. Then they can discuss and argue the finer points during the car-ride home.
Related to all of this, is the future high-tech planning on what Appleton is becoming. During my personal tech-search this weekend, I came across a number of reputable online courses (think MIT, Stanfard, etc) and discovered one of particular significance to our pioneering: https://www.coursera.org/course/techcity. It’s an online, 4 week class from Ohio State University. I’m very interested in exploring this class for the Appleton Makerspace powered by DHMN, especially week four on Entrepreneurial Urbanism: “You’ll explore how open data initiatives, hack-a-thons, and urban prototyping festivals are creatively innovating our cities.”
My thanks to Matt Straub of http://TheAvenueHQ.com/ for the invite, and Chris Schmitz of http://DigitalFertilizer.org/ for bringing OpenCoffee to Appleton!