The Tampa tech scene wouldn’t be the same with the smiling face and hard work of Microsoft evangelist Joe Healy (he’s @DevFish on Twitter), whom I had the pleasure of meeting on the second week of my job at Microsoft back in 2008. Many developer/techie/creative events here in the Accordion Bay area come about with a little help from Joe, and I’m thankful for everything he does.
Every now and again, in order to help the community stay in touch — and possibly just to keep us off the streets — he holds “co-working office hours”, in which he opens up Microsoft’s Tampa offices to let indie, freelance, and other works not tied to an office space to come hang out, get work done, and even play a board game or two. I’ve been to a couple of these, and they’re part of my usual changes of pace that I set up to make sure I don’t go stir crazy at my home office.
For those of you not familiar with it, Tampa Bay Wave is a venture center, incubator/accelerator, coworking space, and general booster of entrepreneurial and techie activity for Tampa Bay. Founded in 2008, they’re a non-profit public charity whose goal is to support the local tech community and help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into growing businesses with their “for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs” approach.
Tampa Bay Wave’s marketing manager, Gracie Leigh Stemmer (she’s @GracieLeighz on Twitter) has invited us to all work at their new downtown Tampa facility, and Joe will be playing host. I’ll be there, and if you’d like to be there too — to work, play, or a little bit of both — come on down! You can find more details on the event’s meetup page.
The details
- Here’s the event’s Meetup.com page.
- What: Co-working at Tampa Bay Wave. Bring your laptop, hang out, and get some work done!
- When: Tuesday, September 1st, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m..
- Where: Tampa Bay Wave’s downtown office — 500 East Kennedy Blvd, 3rd floor.
- Other details:
- There’s lots of pay parking all around the area.
- There are lunch places aplenty in the area — odds are that someone will organize a lunch expedition.
- There may be an after-work drinks/dinner thing that night.