Likemind.orl June 19, 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.

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.

Groups in 60+ other cities all over the world will be getting together for conversations with their community - sure, 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)
The Drunken Monkey is a great place, and it's not right in the heart of downtown - I don't know if that fact will end up helping or hurting in the long run - we'll try it out for a few months. The coffee is great, the food is good, and the attitude is right. Plus, you can sometimes run into people from other circles there, which never happens at Panera or Starbuck's.

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://likemind.us#orl