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The Netflix streaming disk is now hitting homes across the country with reports coming in from San Fran that disks are already shipping. If you want to reserve your disk pop over to Netflix but don’t expect it to ship out until the early birds get theirs. Image from HackingNetflix
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No BioShock up there… That’s funny, not one hour ago I mentioned that Australia had embraced the idea that adults have the capacity to make decisions vis-à-vis buying violent video games. Good ol’ Switzerland, though, the darling of Europe, has passed a law essentially outlawing violent video games. I’d feign, well, not anger , but something , but it’s Switzerland: how can you get mad at those guys? The specifics of the ban haven’t been officially revealed yet, but apparently the most likely scenario is that games rated PEGI 18+, if not PEGI 16+, will be banned from going on sale in the country. ( PEGI is sorta the European version of the ESRB.) That would affect everything from Street Fighter to Modern Warfare 2 to God of War . While I sincerely doubt we have many Swiss readers, it’s still sorta interesting to note that enlightened Europe is still of the mindset “violent video games = bad.” As if Europe wasn’t a violent place before Kratos showed up… Flickr
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Every generation thinks that they are the first. The first to feel this way or that, the first to make this or that revelation, the first to do and make things that we find later have been done and made since before we could record their doing and making. But while these illusory and fleeting firsts are common to every generation, there are true firsts being achieved constantly, though they are often subtle enough that they are not noticed even by those in their midst. My generation has been lucky enough to be part of a very important first. The personal computer (in all its forms) has grown to be, I would say, the single greatest potential source of prosperity in history. It has enabled the internet and a consequent democratization of all sorts of arts and information, as well as the ongoing destabilization of financial institutions via distributed money transfers. The revolution, and it really is one, is ongoing. How unlike the world of 2000, of 1990, is the present day? And 2020 will be doubly, triply removed. As technology further enables itself, the positive feedback creates a greater rate of advance, and thus our acceleration; if this interests you, you should probably go talk to Mr. Kurzweil , since he’s done a bit more work on the idea. I’m not concerned with the singularity, however: my object is the generation to which I belong. I propose that this generation, which I am going to call Generation I for a number of reasons, is the only one to which the rate of advancement of technology was exactly fitted. At no other time in history, and perhaps never in the future, will there be a group of people whose own growth and maturation is so perfectly reflected in the principal technological and cultural advancement of the age. It’s a serious claim, but I hope to show that it’s founded in observation and not egomania. And let me remark further before I begin, that I am not claiming any special merit for this generation, only a special situation . Lastly: I will speak of “advancement” or “progress” as if they were objectively measurable, when clearly there is much to be said on what those concepts actually consist of. But for the purposes of this article, let us consider them to be, say, the progressively sophisticated bending of the natural world to our needs and wants. As even a casual student of history (read: a grade-schooler) can see, the rate of technological and cultural advancement has ever accelerated, of course with some interruptions due to warfare and subjugation. This is first observable in the length of “ages” — the stone age, 40,000 years. The bronze age, 2000 years. The iron age, 1000 years. There are too many books written on this topic for me to spend many words on this, and at any rate this acceleration is palpable to those of us living in the modern first world. Moore’s Law was once a simple prediction; now it’s practically a force of nature. Let us look at recent history, to prime our minds for the idea of what I would call a “generational technology.” The car is a perfect example. Prototyped in the late 19th century, manufactured widely in 1915, increasingly affordable and common over the next 30 years, then producing a “car culture” in the 50s and 60s, followed by an increasingly consumerized nature as the automobile was integrated completely into civilization, and cities and lives began to be designed around it. Today the integration is complete, and perhaps we are on the verge of another change, to a post-car world. I don’t know. But the divisions in the car’s history, you see, are a lot like generational periods. The specific dates and years aren’t important, as generations are a sort of rolling concept, and the lines are wherever the historian finds them convenient to be. So let us look at the stages of the car, which I have also given names (I’m a coining machine today): Hammer stage: During this time, the concept and platform of the automobile were being determined by the founders and inventors. Things like setting down how many wheels a car will have, which method of propulsion it will use, the materials it will be built from, and so on. There was surely some bickering here, as there was between AC and DC when prototyping electrical devices, but one fundamental form is almost always selected, and for the car it was four wheels, front engine, and internal combustion. This stage is performed entirely by an older generation of inventors, investors, and engineers. Paper stage: This is the period where the creators turned the design over to the marketers, who made it into a product. Extra features were created within the confines of the pre-established framework, manufacturing methods were improved, the whole process made faster, and other steps taken to make the technology affordable and attractive. For the car this was of course improvement in reliability, luxury, and speed, among other things. It is a stage of intense competition among marketers, who must both inform and sell to the public, to whom the idea of the car (in, say, 1925-1940) is still new and barely affordable. They are largely ignorant on the subject and are likely skeptical. Tinker stage: Once the car was adopted by consumers at large, as cars were by the close of World War II, the next (very numerous) generation grew up with the “new” technology taken — I don’t want to say for granted but perhaps as granted. The car culture of the 50s and 60s was a result of a generation of people in tune with an important and exciting technology, a generation as familiar with the car as they were with the clock. There was an expansion of the purposes of the car during this time, as well as a great improvement in their quality, since this generation, having grown up with cars, would work to provide the advancements that were not possible under the auspices of either their parents or the inventors, whose ideas were likely no longer applicable. This positive feedback loop, as in other technologies, leads to a second push and prepares the way for the fourth stage. Mirror stage: Once the car had been proposed, adopted, and grown up alongside of, in the three previous ages respectively, it was ready to become fully integrated. Not just because it had gotten to a certain level of affordability or reliability, but because it was an integral part of the modern person’s life already, and now the task was to shape civilization around it. While the highway creation act in 1956 obviously wasn’t driven by 10-year-old baby boomers, the obligation of government and industry to acknowledge the growing importance of the automobile was clear enough once it was recognized at large as foundational. In this stage nearly everyone is part of the process; the automobile has impressed itself on civilization, and civilization must now reflect it more fundamentally. The term Mirror Stage is actually an existing psychological one (as well as an excellent game ), and refers to the period at which a child becomes captivated with its own image. I thought it loosely appropriate. Essentially: invention, introduction, internalization, integration. But is there another stage? I don’t think so. The cycle is complete: the changing world births a new technology, the technology is popularized, refined, and eventually fuels the next change. I chose the car as a representative because it is familiar and its effects clear, but with a little work I think that the model I’ve just suggested can be applied to pretty much any technology, from aqueducts to longbows. But this isn’t a longbow blog — so let’s move on. Note that, in the example of the car, each stage is relegated roughly to a generation. The inventing generation sells to the adopting generation, which brings up the integrative generation. Furthermore, the inventing generation cannot be the adopting generation, and the rate of progression in this case prohibited the adopting generation from being the integrative generation; for the car it took around 50 or 60 years, arguably more, for it to reach its Mirror stage. My belief is that Generation I (born roughly between 1975 and 1985) is the first generation, and possibly the last, to see and be a part of every stage: to be a part of the genesis, popularization, refinement, and counter-refinement of their age’s defining technology. Now, I don’t claim we invented the personal computer; nor, I’m sure, would those who are cited as inventing the computer. Like the automobile, the computer was a long time coming and was enabled by advances in many other technologies and disciplines. Early computing was as an exercise in logic, mathematics, and electrical engineering, and its early advances academic. What defined the automobile, and what has defined both the computer and the age in which it has proliferated, was not in fact the creators (brilliant though they were), who were the implements of history, but the people who used them and guided their use. For the car, that definition was stretched out over long decades, and people grew old while automobile technology remained young. For the personal computer and the internet, the infancy of the technology coincided with the infancy of my generation, its adolescence with our adolescence, its growth with our growth, in such a pas-de-deux as has no precedent in history and, for all we know, may have no equal in futurity. Generation I is the middle child of the information age. To be born a few years earlier would mean to see the personal computer and the internet as an new and exciting gadget, like the VCR or Walkman. A few years later would be to arrive late to the show: to grow up in the presence of computers, smartphones, and the internet, but not to grow up with them. Taken for granted, these things become black boxes; on the other hand, seen as just another set of devices and applications, they lose their transformational potential. I think the timing is very important, but of course as part of the generation, I am prone to that error. Our readers will probably remember that computers around 1980 were ugly, limited, and expensive machines. They performed a few of the functions will still value today (word processing, calculating, games) but had no GUI and little connectivity. I don’t want to overstate the parallels, but just for clarity in what I am driving at, consider that an apt comparison might be to a young child, able to see and crawl, or walk totteringly — fundamentally intact, you see, but encumbered with limitations that can only be changed with time and effort. I remember learning just enough of my dad’s old work computer to find tic-tac-toe and play it on the flickering amber screen. A few years later, primitive UIs are emerging, so primitive that the command line is still unarguably the more powerful tool. Just as Generation I begins to learn to read and to speak, the PC can be communicated to in what we understood as plain language. The first truly popular computers proliferate, running DOS, and a few of us were lucky enough to play with one of the later Apple II models. In 1990 the GUI and the more complex tools it enables begin to flourish and become fundamental to the PC experience, as Windows 3.0 and the Mac Classic hit the market. Shortly after that, the first affordable modems. BBSes, AOL and its chatrooms and fake internet, and then the revelation of the true web with Mosaic, Internet Explorer, and so on. I won’t waste your time with further details you’re almost certainly familiar with (having lived through them), but you must see the way things are not moving at the rate of a stage per generation like the car. No – they moved more quickly, but not so quick that we lost track. This particular speed of maturation (from “infancy” to “adulthood,” which we may define as, say, Windows XP or OS X; after that I believe the core functionality of the PC OS has not been substantially altered), which is roughly the same as the speed of maturation for a human being, and Generation I has the privilege of being the computer’s twin sibling, if you will. Though the virtue of being born at the right time is not ours to claim, nor is it simply a novelty that Generation I has grown up in tandem with a world-defining technology. As we grew up with it, we have seen and participated in all the stages of generational technology. We witnessed as children the squabbling between Atari, Microsoft, Amiga, and all the others as the beat the raw metal of computing technology into a shape the world could use. We knew it when it was young, and then we helped it become a household technology by simply being in the household, the way baby boomer kids grew up around cars and ended up knowing cars better than any generation before them. However, cars as a technology practically stood still for the car kids’ formative stages. Not so for us: every year the computer was changing its case, its OS, its capabilities, its interface — everything changed about it, but we still recognized it, the way we’d recognize an old playmate year after year who, though changing in size, aspect, and ability, we still know . That is how Generation I knows the computer, the internet, the smartphone, and whatever comes next. Not as a series of devices, but as the natural progression of a friend whom we know by sight in spite of the changes wrought by time and culture. Perhaps it is best expressed that we know the ghost in the machine, that which has informed and guided the progression of the technology from household appliance to a tool as fundamental as the wheel. Captain Nemo took pride in the Nautilus “moving through a medium of movement.” He meant the ocean, of course, a place that is never the same one instant to the next, but which he nonetheless knew and navigated freely because… well, because he had a submarine. The metaphor doesn’t extend that far. But the idea of moving in a moving medium is a powerful one. To truly understand the way that the world changes around you, and to not only be able to survive in it but to thrive, to navigate, to direct that change, that is the privilege of a generation born into movement. I see in my flight of fancy I’ve really built up Generation I into quite a ridiculously grand thing, and in doing so made the same mistake that I described in the first sentence of this article. I did not mean to do so, but the simple boon of being born alongside a world-changing technology is not minor: it matured with us and has shaped us as much as we have shaped it, and that means that we are on the front line for the Mirror Stage of the information age. Can you forgive me for being excited to be a part of a sea change in civilization, a change in infrastructure perhaps more fundamental than the integration of the automobile? Few events in history are the equal of this impending shift, if I’m not mistaken. I of course don’t claim it for myself or my generation; it is a glory we will share in, but which we may be able to uniquely enjoy. Imagine being the childhood friend of the first man to set foot on Mars. It’s no credit on yourself exactly, but you just may understand him more fundamentally than anybody else. What’s that I hear you saying? That we haven’t actually contributed much to the progress of the personal computer and the internet? Very true! If I’ve claimed otherwise I’m very sorry, because Generation I, like the baby boomer generation in the 60s, isn’t quite ready to make our mark. The fact is we’re just starting out. What was the work of the baby boomers? Was it driving cars around fast and knowing how to clean a carburetor? Hell no. Their task wasn’t just to know the technology that would shape their world, but to shape their world . And that’s our job as well. What changes the world will know in the next 20 years are impossible to predict, but you better believe that Generation I are going to set their shoulders to it. The Mirror Stage awaits. And why Generation I? Before us is Generation X, or so we are told. I’ve heard people my age, or my brother’s, as Generation Y. It’s no use naming a generation before their purpose is clear; otherwise the Greatest Generation would be called the Kaiser Kids or something horribly inappropriate. Generation I occurred to me as I was writing this piece, and as far as I can tell it’s the most evocative of that which truly defines us. Generation I reflects the burst of technology which in the last decade (as we ourselves have made our real-world debut), has become commonplace, and the prefix “i-” has become a universal indicator of tech. Yes, it’s a bit of a capitulation to Apple, but let’s not fool ourselves: the iPod and iMac immediately became so synonymous with personal technology that i- became generic almost overnight. So we’ve got Generation i . To be honest, I’m not sure if I prefer i or I. I think that, like other instances of the letter, capitalization may vary. Generation I is also Generation Me : the increasing independence and compartmentalization of the social order that is the result of the personal computer and the internet, our totem technologies. It’s the paradox of instant connection and constant isolation. And Generation I is Generation One . This is the most important of all. The coincidence of timing that resulted in us being born with silicon in our mouths also charges us with a serious responsibility — though what it may be is yet unknown. No generation is warned of the tribulations ahead, though with luck our task will be suited to our unique position. But why the One? If, as I suspect, we are in fact the first wave of a new, tech-integrative sort of people, then surely the kids born after us, into a world already possessing high-speed internet, Wikipedia, and GPS smartphones, are Generation II. What better than to start giving version numbers to our offspring? Seems like something Generation I would do. I’d like to conclude with an apology. If you’ve read this far, there’s a good chance you’re seething with anger at having been excluded from what I seem to think is the most awesome generation of all time, who invented everything worthwhile and will do everything important in the future. I want to correct that potential misconception, though I understand where it’s coming from. Obviously the pioneers of the information age are largely baby boomers, and of course Generation X is one of the great utilizers of technology. And for that matter, kids today fulfill many of the conditions that I think make Generation I so special. I can only say that I tend to get carried away, and that our special situation is really the main thing we have going for us. Am I reaching? Very likely. Am I romanticizing? Most certainly. Let’s chalk it up to youthful vigor. It is probably true that every distinct generation is born into a confluence of circumstances that is consequential in its own way. Too often, though, I have felt that people my age have been maligned as a passive generation, one of consumption and luxury. That’s actually true as far as it goes, but there is much beneath the surface; who would have thought that the boomers, flower children and hot-rodders in the 60s, would be galvanized by the civil rights movement and Vietnam, emerging to become the most powerful demographic in the country, and perhaps the world, for decades running? It is toward such heights that Generation I must drive itself. We must show ourselves equal to the special favor we have been granted, and do our part to carry the world into the next age, whatever it asks of us. Note: if you comment about how this article was too long for you to read, your comment will be deleted. Who cares?
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An outstanding e-mail showed up in my inbox a few moments ago promoting the release of Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business . It’s a remix album from OC ReMix, the people who are famous for, you know, remixing video game soundtracks. (I used one of their Street Fighter remixes in a video review about a year ago.) But, yeah, Serious Monkey Business! The album is totally free to download, and it totally brings me back to 1995/1996 , perhaps the last year I was legitimately happy. That there video is a preview of what you can expect. I don’t know, I figured at least a few of you would get a kick out of it.
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Might as well get this over with now. The FCC has announced its National Broadband Plan , which describes where the agency would like to see the U.S. in a few years’ time vis-à-vis broadband and connectedness . It’s sorta like the UK’s Digital Britain report, published last year. The big thing is this: it’s in America’s best interest to turn itself into a first-world nation again, and the best way to do that is to develop its Internet infrastructure a wee bit more. That’s the gist of it: better, faster Internet access for many more people. The FCC’s goal is to have, by 2020, 100 million homes (out of a projected 130 million) wired with 100 mbps broadband. The agency has said that broadband represents the country’s “greatest infrastructure challenge.” It’s not bridges and subway tunnels anymore—though we could sure use those, too—it’s about making sure you’re able to use the Internet easily and effectively. The idea is to make the Internet the country’s primary means of communication. The executive summary , a quick synopsis of the otherwise gigantic report, says that broadband “is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life. It is changing how we educate children, deliver healthcare, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organise and disseminate knowledge.” All true. Think of your typical day: how many times do you use the Internet? (And think of those days when, for whatever reason, your Internet connection is down—freak out!) You wake up and you read the news; you check your bank account to make sure you’re not being charged weird fees for no reason; you look to see if your kid’s school is closed because of the snow; you check the weather; you read your work and personal e-mail; you check your Facebook and wish your brother-in-law a happy birthday (even if you don’t mean it); you tweet to the world that “today feels like a good day, gonna be productive”; you download the new Jimi Hendrix album from iTunes and stick it on your iPhone; and you order a Michio Kaku book from Amazon. It’s broadband, it’s the Internet! It’s the future! Now, it’s one thing for the FCC to say, “This is what we’d like to see,” but it’s another thing for that to actually happen. The U.S. doesn’t have the best Internet infrastructure out there—yes, we’re not the best at something, don’t cry—and that could be for a number of reasons. One, the U.S. is pretty big. The best wired countries—the Netherlands, South Korea, Norway, places like that—aren’t very large to begin with, and they’re more urban. That is, the majority of the population lives in cities, unlike here in the U.S. where suburbs and exurbs dominate. There’s a reason why, having lived in and around New York my entire life, I go to other places in the country and think, “Man, this is what the rest of America looks like? This is weird .” Not bad, just different. New York might as well be Jupiter compared to Texas. Anyhow, cities are far easier to wire for broadband than Kansas. It’s often not worth the local Internet Service Provider’s time (and money!) to wire you and your neighbor’s house on Smith Street. But that’s why we need to think of broadband as infrastructure and not some silly little thing. Did we depend on private companies to construct the Inter-state Highway System? Why should broadband be any different? Will taxes go up to pay for this? I don’t know. I do know that I’d rather see tax dollars go to an improved broadband infrastructure rather than, say, bridges to nowhere or ridiculous corn subsidies. (I just saw Food, Inc. and I’m all worked up.) Let the record show that I already have 100 mbps broadband (well, 101 mbps!) and it’s really neat. I, for one, would like to see the U.S. embrace broadband rather than see it fight tooth and nail against progress —big government this, big government that. That’s such a tired argument. Flickr
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Augmented Reality is a pretty hot topic currently, but it seems to me that the Japanese in particular have really embraced the concept of mixing the real world with computer-generated imagery and data. One case in point is the Crimsonfox project [JP], an “Alternative Reality” scavenger hunt game event that took place over the weekend in Tokyo, Japan. The main idea here was to use a tailor-made augmented reality app on the iPhone (which is only available in the Japanese App Store) in a mass-player game in the real world, namely the central district of Shibuya . And over 200 players showed up in flesh and blood on the day of the event, all equipped with iPhones. Using said app, GPS and the built-in compass of the 3GS, players ran around in the city looking for hidden (physical) hints to find the real-world hideout of a “secret society called Moonlights”. On the screenshot below, you can see those hints in red and an interim goal in blue. Players were able to “scan” hints they found with their iPhones, for example a graphic printed on a piece of paper somewhere. The app would then verify the hint by superimposing an emblem (see below) over the image on the iPhone camera, give away points for finding the right hint and then lead players to the next part of the game. Very cool concept, so it wasn’t too surprising that the Crimsonfox project was watched by a total of 7,000 people live online. Tokyo-based Ubiquitous Entertainment , the main organizer of the event, was even able to win the support of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry . While this is probably possible in Japan only, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this kind of event copied for marketing or other purposes outside this country in the future (hit this link for more information on the game in English). Here’s the official Crimsonfox promo trailer:
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Up until a moment ago, this was going to be a standard “newsy” post: the FCC will announce its National Broadband Plan on Tuesday, here’s what it’s all about. Then I read the comments of a PC World article discussing that very same plan—many people are outraged that the government would muscle its way into the free market! If Americans wanted fast broadband then the market would provide it on its own terms. That, of course, is complete nonsense: plenty of Americans live in one-ISP towns, and if said ISP provides terrible service, well, though cookies, chico. This is America! Love it or leave it~! And really, the FCC isn’t doing anything particularly controversial, at least I don’t think it’s controversial. All it’s doing is saying, by 2020, we’d like to see 100 million homes (out of an estimated 130 million homes come 2020) have access to broadband with speeds of up to 100 mbps. Some people already have access to that type of Internet connection, myself included . Other ISPs, including universally loathed Comcast , plans to roll out 100 mbps service in the coming months. So it’s not like the FCC is making some sort of unreasonable demand: the market has already decided that it’s worth its while to deploy 100 mbps service all over the country. A cynic might say that the FCC knows this, that 100 mbps service is closer than you might otherwise think, and is merely latching itself onto the ISPs so that it can be all, “See, FCC = leadership.” But don’t be cynical, don’t hold grudges: while you’re holding a grudge, the other guy is dancing. I don’t know, I suppose it makes sense to get into this a bit more when the FCC actually makes the Plan public on Tuesday. But for now, all I have to say is: chill out. Not everything the government announces is tantamount to quartering British soldiers in your house without permission. I suppose I’m talking to people right now who actually believe, and understand, that a wired country is truly in the best interests of everyone.
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The Humping USB Dogs became so popular 2 or 3 years ago that the maker, Japan-based Cube , not only started selling the silly things internationally but also added a plethora of other animals to the line-up. And now, the same company has another USB-powered gadget ready, the so-called Dodobongo USB dog. The Dodobongo isn’t quite as silly as its humping counterpart, as it actually starts barking and blushing once it detects a person approaching you PC. Just like the other Cube gadgets, it doesn’t offer any kind of memory. And it works with Windows PCs only. If you’re interested but live outside Japan (Cube currently offers the Dodobongo in this country only), head over to Geek Stuff 4 U. The Tokyo-based import/export specialists list the gadget for $73.90 . Via Akihabara News
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The Humping USB Dogs became so popular 2 or 3 years ago that the maker, Japan-based Cube , not only started selling the silly things internationally but also added a plethora of other animals to the line-up. And now, the same company has another USB-powered gadget ready, the so-called Dodobongo USB dog. The Dodobongo isn’t quite as silly as its humping counterpart, as it actually starts barking and blushing once it detects a person approaching you PC. Just like the other Cube gadgets, it doesn’t offer any kind of memory. And it works with Windows PCs only. If you’re interested but live outside Japan (Cube currently offers the Dodobongo in this country only), head over to Geek Stuff 4 U. The Tokyo-based import/export specialists list the gadget for $73.90 . Via Akihabara News
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Located at the MIT-owned One Broadway Street building in Kendall Square, Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) houses more than 175 companies in over 100,000 square feet of office space and prices everything per person, so smaller companies can add more space as they grow. There are no long-term leases, either–it’s all month to month. I had a chance to take a tour with Cambridge Innovation Center CEO Tim Rowe. The CIC website says that pricing varies and “a good rule of thumb is that the price range is between $790 and $1000 per month per person.” I soon found out that there are more affordable options available, and that there are plenty of nice extras included in the price. There’s a Google-like abundance of free food, coffee, and tea, and CIC even retains one of Google’s massage therapists (massages aren’t free, but CIC doesn’t mark up the prices ). Internet access is also free, backed by an “enterprise-class Wi-Fi solution” (dual-band, 802.11n) from Ruckus Wireless . “The kitchens are for everybody,” said Rowe. “Everything’s included, it’s free. There’s Dove bars in the freezer, the produce is all organic, there’s sparkling water, espresso, whatever. You’re gonna work, you should be comfortable, you should be happy. You should just chill and enjoy yourself. The hope is that if you’re enjoying yourself you’ll be more productive.” True to the startup spirit, there are showering rooms. So bike to work, shower, pull an all-nighter, shower, and repeat. There’s also a nursing room for mothers with newborns. “We have people on eight floors and we just had a groundbreaking the other day with the governor and the president of MIT for another 57,000 square feet of space, so there’s going to be a lot more startups here,” said Rowe. “We’ve got shower rooms, a massage therapy room, we’re putting in a ping pong room in the new space. Basically just like you would have in your own office, except you don’t actually need the ping pong room all the time if you’re one startup and you don’t really want to pay for that space, so if you could share that cost with a lot of other people that’s better. That’s the model here.” “We have spaces for little companies. These are basically one-person companies,” said Rowe, motioning to a bank of smaller offices. “So you get one desk, locked file cabinet, and a phone. This is a lot cheaper, like $500 a month, and when you get bigger you might move into a bigger office at around $750 per desk per month.” I asked Rowe if they take anyone or if there’s some sort of vetting process. He replied, “We take essentially anyone. If there was an integrity issue or something like that, then that would be a problem but we don’t have a ‘we have to like your startup’ kind of thing.” “We also have this little section called Flex Space,” Rowe continued, “It’s $375 a month and you have a phone here and a mailing address here, but you can only work here one day a week. So it’s for someone who might be in a lab at MIT and they’re starting a business while they’re at the university. You can’t legally have your company in a lab at MIT. It has to have its own outside address, and if you’re not careful with that then MIT can assert that it owns everything that your company has. You definitely want to have someplace where you can say, ‘Oh, I actually have an office here. That’s where I made that.” So that’s what the Flex Space is for.” Some tiny company called Linden Lab has a huge office here. They’re working on something called Second Life. I don’t think it’ll take off, but that’s just me. Ha! Rowe explained, “One of the things they do in this office is, literally, the weather—the rippling of the waves, the clouds in the sky, stuff like that. It’s very high tech. And they’re usually having a ball in there.” Other current and former companies include Ambient Devices, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Atlantic Ventures, Carbonite, Conduit Labs, Hubspot, GreatPoint Energy, and plenty more. CIC-affiliated companies have raised over a billion dollars in the past ten years. Plenty of venture capital companies rent office space in the CIC, so startups are always in pretty close proximity to the types of people they’re trying to woo. “We have venture funds here,” said Rowe. “This is the conference room for New Atlantic Ventures—full disclosure, I have a part time venture partner with this fund. You can check them out on The Funded , it’s the number one ranked venture fund in the country.” “How much funding has gone into the companies here?” I asked. “We’ve tracked about $1.1 billion worth of venture funds going into the companies here so far,” replied Rowe. “And how much of that funding comes from venture funds working in this building?” I asked. “It’s surprisingly small,” answered Rowe. “I would say, like, five percent of that. The venture funds that are based here invest everywhere, not just here. And lots of venture funds elsewhere invest here. That’s the way we like it. If you’re a startup, you want to go to anybody for funding. And if you’re a VC, you’re going to invest in whatever the things are that you particularly like, not just things that happen to be down the hall.” “There are multiple competing VCs here. In fact, we have office hours here for various VC funds. Over the next 12 weeks we’re going to have 12 different funds—one each week—doing their office hours here. So it’s what you’d expect. It’s a very open platform. Anybody can talk to anybody. We’re opening the office hours to the public during the window of time when those are happening, which is Thursdays 2PM to 5PM. We’re not making it really public, we’re not advertising it or anything, but we’re tweeting it so people who are in the venture community and want to run into other entrepreneurs know that this is where it’s happening.” For those who aren’t quite to the we-need-an-office stage yet but are tired of working from home and coffee shops, CIC just opened the Cambridge Coworking Center . For $250 per month, you have access to just about everything the CIC has to offer except a private desk, landline, and physical mailbox. Said Rowe, “This is C3, the Cambridge Coworking Center. It’s part of us. It’s a different model. As you can see here, you have your little cubby. It’s $250 a month, so it’s half the price of what you saw upstairs. It’s kind of like a library/reading room feel. There’s no phone on the desks, so you’re going to use your cell phone which most of us do anyway. There’s no mailing address. It’s not about pretending to be here when you’re not, this is actually ‘I want to go somewhere to work,’ and by stripping some of those pieces out it makes it cheaper for us, and we’re able to offer it for a price that’s unbelievably low compared to what people would normally expect.” “I would say that the reason people come here is mostly for community,” continued Rowe. “If you’re working out of your house, it’s an isolating experience. Starbucks is an interesting alternative, but it’s a different group of people every time—what they call a third place. It’s not home, it’s not work, it’s a place which is intentionally to be around random people. But the second place—the work place—what it’s distinguished by is a consistent group of other people. So you get there in the morning you’re like, ‘Hey, how are you doing? How are the kids? I heard you went skiing last weekend,’ that kind of stuff. You don’t get that at Starbucks because it’s not a consistent group of people. “And it’s very loud,” I said. “It’s loud and you feel like you’re taking up a table and you’re not really supposed to be working there all the time. You’re supposed to be working here and it comes with the free coffee. If you do the math on what it costs you to work consistently out of cafes over the course of a month, it’s probably about the same cost as it is here.” Cambridge Innovation Center [cictr.com]
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