First, A Small Disclaimer

It is time to start putting the world on notice. Des Moines is ready to step up.

Don’t let Des Moines’ polite people and little big city atmosphere fool you – it’s home to a tech savvy, hard workin’, ass kickin’ crowd of creative workers with opportunities to spare.

As local social networking consultant Nathan Wright puts it: “Des Moines is the greatest city in the world because you can make epic shit happen here, period.”

Des Moines is home to TweetUp Badges, the Sarah Lacy Square, a butter cow, 80/35, Market Street Media Foundry, and, of course, Impromptu Studio – the first (and most badass) coworking joint in the Midwest ran by Daniel Shipton. Des Moines has grown a lot in the two years since Fast Company proclaimed it “The Hippest City” in 2007 and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. Locals work hard and play harder, so we had to celebrate our first anniversary as part of Advance: A Week to Move Forward!

Advance: A Week to Move Forward

cultivate:dsm is launching with a week dedicated to collaboration, inspiration and Moving Forward. A partnership of Impromptu Studio and Market Street Media Foundry and the brainchild of Dan Shipton, cultivate:dsm is dedicated to providing a platform for big thinkers to rally the support they need to act big.

Advance will be held July 20-25 with events at Impromptu and Market Street. All Advance events are free and open to the public. The program is designed for creative and business professionals alike with useful, casual events encouraging people to work together and get to work.

Wednesday’s events will anchor Advance week with conversation, learning, and socializing. Acclaimed author Tara Hunt (The Whuffie Factor) will lead a presentation and Q&A about using social capital to build your business. A social meetup with conversation and karaoke led by local and national coworking and arts leaders will conclude the evening. Other Advance: A Week to Move Forward events include the Ignite Des Moines Remix luncheon, Your Baby’s Ugly aesthetic critique night, Rewrite copywriting workshop, Freelancer Friday, Expert Mode, and Market Day.

Bring on the Whuffaoke!

Did someone say Karaoke?  HELL YES.  Wednesday, July 22nd the Whuffaoke crew are helping us celebrate our one year anniversary in style!

“Shortly after the successful release of Tara’s book The Whuffie Factor, Tara desperately wanted a way to have the time and space to write her next book and continue to travel around. Taking a look at her current situation, she knew that, in order to do that, she would need to quit her job and move back to Canada (where she is a citizen). She picked Montreal, because it’s awesome and beautiful and incredibly affordable to be a writer in. Within minutes, it dawned on her that this was the PERFECT opportunity to pursue her dream of karaoke-ing across America. Why just move when you can move AND bring karaoke happiness in the process?” – via the Whuffaoke site

More information and the full schedule for Advance Week can be found the cultivate:dsm site.

Last week we held Hack Night for the first time.  A dozen passion-filled folks showed up.  Projects were pushed forward, pizza and a few cold brews were consumed, and everyone said “DO IT AGAIN.”  So we are.  The 2nd and 4th Mondays of each month will now officially be HACK NIGHTS!  If you don’t know what Hack Night is….read on.

Do you have a side project (or three) that you have been neglecting? Do you desire an open environment to exchange ideas, concepts and demos? Want to garner input and feedback on your TOP SECRET project? If so, Hack Night is for you!

Hack Night is an open invitation for everyone to come and work on their projects at Impromptu Studio. It doesn’t matter if you are working on a php backend for a website, a digital art piece, or knitting your Grandma a sweater. Come out and interact with others and see what everyone is up to!

Hack Night starts around 6pm on the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month. Hack Night goes until all the creative juices have been exhausted. Snacks are welcome. If a few people chip-in, pizza may get ordered. Of course, caffeine will be consumed in large quantities. We hope to see you at the next Hack Night!

On Thursday May 28, 2009 from 7:00pm – 9:00pm Dan Welk from Click! Photography will be guiding participants through digital photography so participants can start taking spectacular pictures.

The workshop will be split into two parts: The first hour will focus on general photography principles and how they apply to “point and click” digital cameras. The second hour will focus on more advanced techniques and how to harness the power of DSLR cameras.

Sign up on Upcoming to reserve your spot today! Oh, and bring your digital camera along to the workshop!

Art and business combine in coworking art gallery

Des Moines, Iowa - Impromptu Studio, a membership-based coworking community in downtown Des Moines, will house a salon-style art gallery featuring work from members of Market Street Media Foundry beginning in June.

MSMF member Cat Rocketship – recently named Best Artist in Cityview’s Best of Des Moines reader survey – will be curating the exhibits. Work will be updated every other month and feature an assortment of pieces from MSMF members.

“We’re really excited to be able to share this space with our friends at Market Street,” said Daniel Shipton, founder of Impromptu Studio. “Their business and our business are different sides of the same coin. I hope that the entreprenuers and professionals working at Impromptu find inspiration for their projects in this gallery.”

Market Street Media Foundry (MSMF) is a collaborative art and media studio located in Des Moines’ downtown Market District just south of Court Avenue on East 4th. Members of MSMF include photographers, painters, textile artists, video editors and other creative entreprenuers.

Scott Kubie, co-owner of MSMF, said that he is excited to offer this benefit to their members. “Unless you want to rent your own space or deal with the same stale crowds, there aren’t a lot of options to get your work on display in Des Moines. Impromptu attracts a uniquely connected crowd and wil be a great outlet for our artists.”

The MSMF gallery at Impromptu will only occupy a portion of their available wall space, leaving the coworking space free to host larger exhibitions for individual artists.

Artists interested in participating in MSMF are encouraged to visit http://www.marketstreetmediafoundry.com or contact Kubie at scott@therevuecreative.com.

Visitors are always welcome at Impromptu Studio and coworking plans start at $25 a month. Impromptu is located at 300 Southwest 5th Street.

Websites: Market Street Media Foundry – http://www.marketstreetmediafoundry.com
Impromptu Studio – http://www.impromptustudio.com

Nathan T. Wright, Andy Brudtkuhl, James Eliason, Karri Wells, Rich Drake, Andrew Roger and Hillary Brown will be presenting at Impromptu Studio for What I Learned at South by Southwest 2009. For those who were not able to attend SXSW you will get to  hear about everything they learned.

Like most of our great events, there will be a keg of beer from Olde Main and snacks on hand donated by Technology Association of Iowa.

RSVP today, tickets are limited.

At Impromptu Studio we strive to do great things for and with the business and technology communities.  It is awful nice to hear feedback and feel the support from our community in whatever medium.  Today has been one of those days. To that end, we want to thank James Eliason, Founder of Twittad for making a donation to Impromptu Studio.

“Impromptu Studio not only provides a great work environment for shared office space in Des Moines, it provides a great spot for meetings and conferences.  I highly recommend that all local Des Moines and surrounding businesses hop on and support the Studio!” – James Eliason, Founder and CEO of Twittad

We love being a part of the great things that are happening in Des Moines and hope to be a part of everything for a long time to come. So a big thanks goes to James and Twittad for their continued support in making Impromptu Studio a sustainable reality.

Tuesday March 24th Ben Stone of RPO Consulting hosted his ribbon cutting and a general celebration of his brand new company at Impromptu Studio.

Ben had a great crowd with lots of local business professionals, consultants and freelancers. Ben treated all to amazing food and beverages and the party lasted well into the evening.

We are so excited that Ben has decided to call Impromptu home and look forward to watching his business grow.

Doug Mitchell, of CreateWow Media and a member here at Impromptu Studio is hosting a private tax day launch party for their new website operationredstate.com. If you are interested for more information about the event check it out here.

Operation Red State is a membership based website that offers technology and new media training. Operation Red State was conceived by Doug Mitchell after noting a distinct gap of effective technology use between the parties in the last election.

Impromptu Studio will serve as their home for training, creating video, audio tutorials, and political tech boot camps that will be held this summer.

We’ve decided to offer 2 new membership plans here at Impromptu Studio. The first one is a daily membership card that is $75 for 5 days of coworking (the difference from our $50/5 day monthly plan being that these don’t expire) We’ve been working with Rich Drake of VR ID Cards and Tweetup Badges to make rechargeable QRID readable cards that allow us to track everyone digitally by scanning your membership cards. We are pretty excited about this new option and the awesome technology behind it.

Our second new membership plan is our “Partner in Business and Innovation” plan this plan is $550 a month and allows for a full time desk as well as priority scheduling for events and classes. We’ve always allowed members to throw events but have had to work out additional fees for those wanting to use our space to hold a class which they charged admission for. Now with this plan everything is included in one price. We will also be recognizing our “Partners in Innovation” members with an additional “plaque” so that others who work here or stop by realize that they are doing a large part toward making Impromptu a sustainable reality.

If you want to inquire about either of these plans please contact us at info@impromptustudio.com or on twitter @impromptustudio

Mike Wagner of The White Rabbit Group and Mike Ferrari of SmartyPig were our speakers for the final installment of the WhatNow? lunch and learn series. And they certainly did a fantastic job of wrapping things up for us. Mike Ferrari reminded us “you’ll be surprised what you can do yourself” and Mike Wagner emphasized that “Advertising is the price you pay for being UN-remarkable”. Ferrari told us about how he sets aside a few hours everyday to monitor SmartyPig’s online presence. He told us a story about how a small “snafu” early on made him wonder if it was all over before it started but by handling the mess and responding to EVERYONE in a matter of days (from a Friday to a Monday which is unheard of for “banker hours”) they wiped the egg from their face and emerged a more credible and trusted company. Wagner spoke heavily on the relationship with clients affecting a companies marketing strategy and how it fails when the client is no longer in love with their customers.

We want to extend a big Thank You to Nathan Wright of Lava Row and Andy Brudtkuhl of 48Web for planning speakers and hosting the WhatNow? A  six part entrepreneur survival guide. We may provide the space to do great things but our wonderful community of businesses and friends make these great things happen.