IndyViews: Independents Hall report on coworking members

Old City coworking space Independents Hall has released its first research project called IndyViews, what co-founder Alex Hillman calls “a compilation of experience and worldview personas from within our membership.”

Download the report here [PDF].

Hillman describes the motivation behind project, which was conducted by Valerie Wilcox:

We’re always introspective, but we do it most when we’re thinking about growth. The house project put us into that mode, and the original goal was to produce something to help with the house. What we ended up with was some reinforcement of goals and values, which are the tools we use for hard decision making around growth efforts. Especially with the complexities of the house, I see this as an extremely valuable set of tools to have freshly renewed.

Also, we’re headed into a redesign of our branding and our website, putting a heavy heavy focus on “member stories” as the primary method of communicating Indy Hall. This research project reinforced that the stories members tell are the most compelling, and they’re so consistant with our “planned” marketing message that we want them to take center stage. It’s a complicated and kinda risky project to pull off, but I think the result is going to be fantastic.

Finally, I personally think that more coworking spaces should be conducting their own research. We’re going to publish our research framework to try to spur more things like this from other coworking crews.

Event Highlights July 18th – 24th, 2011

We’re smack in the middle of summer and that means two things: Phillies games actually matter and Philly tech busts out the BBQs.

Join PSL for grub, FOSS for open source and get schooled by Adobe in this week’s event highlights. And remember, dear reader, you can sign up for Event Highlights and other newsletters here.

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Prometheus Radio’s Brandy Doyle celebrates FCC’s media consolidation rules rewrite

On April 30, 2007, Brandy Doyle was a freelance journalist in Tampa that was encouraged to give testimony at a series of federal hearings about media ownership and consolidation.

Standing in line for hours with hundreds of others at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center — hoping to give testimony to the Federal Communications Commission — among the many things on her mind, Doyle was wondering whether or not she was going to be fired for what she had to say.

“I was speaking out against my newsroom,” she says. The way news happens, she says, is that in-depth coverage doesn’t fit with the business model. She was never given the chance to cover communities the way she felt that deserved to be covered. “I’d never been asked to write a second draft,” she says.

Though she made headlines, she wasn’t fired. But it was, unbeknownst to her, the first day on the job for Prometheus Radio, a West Philadelphia-based nonprofit advocacy group that speaks out against media monopoly in large markets like Philadelphia and actively helps small organizations and individuals set up low-power radio stations across the country. Be sure to see our coverage of Prometheus and one local low-power station here, for more details.

Last week, the organization scored a second major recent victory in its battle.

Philadelphia’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided in favor of the group in its Prometheus vs. FCC suit, deciding that the regulator’s rules that allow one company to own a newspaper and a broadcast property in the same market need to be rewritten. “The court decided that the FCC failed to give the public adequate participation in shaping the rules,” Doyle says. “You have the right to a diverse media.”

Though there’s no companies in Philadelphia that have both a print and broadcast property — though, there are related concerns from some about Comcast’s new role as content provider and service provider — thus was the case in Tampa, where Doyle was introduced to Prometheus.

But the decision hit home for her on both personal and professional levels, now that she represents Prometheus as Policy Director, one of eight full-time employees.

We spoke to Doyle about the organization’s recent victory and what’s next, after the jump.

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Where will broadband competition take Philadelphia?

A map of broadband adoption in Philadelphia prepared by Temple University researcher Charles Kaylor for the Philadelphia 2035 comprehensive plan.

Updated, Fri., July 15: Corrected typo on fact that 41 percent of Philadelphia has not adopted broadband.

For many years, broadband Internet in Philadelphia was only available to large companies and institutions with the budget to literally build connections. But Verizon‘s successful push to bring FiOS to the city has spurred Internet service providers operating in Philadelphia to compete. The result, city officials say, is that residents will pay less for better service.

Since early 2010, Verizon has been building a fiber-to-the-home network throughout the city with the goal of providing cable TV and high-speed Internet. Verizon representatives say they expect to make millions from customers looking to switch from rival Comcast.

Comcast says it welcomes the competition. But both companies and city representatives agree that city residents will win big from the deal. And in a city where broadband adoption — not physical access, but the use of commercial broadband — is low, increasing competition will be an important part of providing access to low-income individuals.

Forty-one percent of the city lacks broadband Internet in the home, according to data commissioned by the Knight Foundation and published in the city’s newly published Philadelphia 2035 comprehensive plan.

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Improved 3G cellular coverage in the Northwest

If you’re struggling for fast cellular access in sections of the Northwest, Verizon Wireless tells us that it has improved its 3G network in Mt. Airy and Ivy Hill.

They’re not fooling around on specificity:

New cell site provides increased wireless voice and 3G data coverage for the Mount Airy area north along Stenton Avenue and Gorgas Lane, south along Germantown Avenue and Pleasant Street, east along Washington Lane and Anderson Street and west along Ardleigh Street and Durham Street. Another new cell site provides increased wireless voice and 3G data coverage for the Ivy Hill area north along Waverly Road and Limekiln Pike, south along Stenton Avenue and Ivy Hill Road, east along Washington Lane and Stenton Avenue and west along Paper Mill Road and Cromwell Road.

How’s service been in the past? Let us know how the service has improved in the comments.

Thanks to our weekly sponsors

Technically Philly is made possible by advertisers and sponsors that are important to Philadelphia’s technology community. This week we’d like to thank:

Alteva — Reduce your total cost of telecom ownership and improve employee efficiency and customer satisfaction with Alteva’s cloud-based Voice over IP phone systems and services.

Reed Technology — Reed Technology’s Web Archiving Service is a litigation protection, web compliance and e-discovery solution for all your online assets.

The University City Science Center — The Science Center has officially opened Quorum, a central gathering space to enable the entrepreneurship and innovation communities to meet, share and learn.

Splat Productions — Splat Productions provides smart, brand-centric website design and internet marketing services to privileged clients in the Philadelphia region and beyond.

Caffeine Fish — Caffeine Fish develops iOS apps including Trainboard and PhillySubway and offers consulting in the Philadelphia area.

Newsworks — NewsWorks is the online home of WHYY News and its growing network of journalism partners. This public media service covers the Philadelphia region, Delaware and South Jersey, with a focus on regional issues, neighborhoods, health and science, and arts.

Morgan Lewis — Morgan Lewis provides comprehensive transactional, litigation, labor and employment, regulatory, and intellectual property legal services to clients of all sizes—from global Fortune 100 companies to just-conceived startups—across all major industries.

Interested in joining these organizations and individuals in supporting Technically Philly? Check out our ad packages and contact our Ad Sales Manager. Can’t find something that fits? We’ll customize a package for you.

Alteva sold for $17 million

The company has sold to Warwick Valley Telephone Company for $17 million in cash and stock. Based in the Bourse building in Old City, Alteva provides VoIP services to businesses. Read our 2009 profile on the company here.

From the release:

Following the closing of the acquisition, WVT will integrate its existing Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (“CLEC”) business, USA Datanet, with the operations of Alteva … It is anticipated that the Alteva acquisition will increase WVT’s consolidated revenues by approximately 30% on an annual basis.

Source: MarketWatch

City of Philadelphia wants more school district data, documents

The Daily News reports on the city government’s desire for more data, documents and internal information from the school district:

City officials were recently granted an unprecedented look at internal Philadelphia School District documents, providing a level of access that has long evaded those trying to keep tabs on the district. But after sifting through the boxes of district data released to the city as part of the Educational Accountability Agreement signed last month by the city, state and School Reform Commission, officials want more.

Villanova University to open classroom at Navy Yard

Forget the Regional Rail to Paoli. Students can now pursue their Villanova graduate degree by way of video conferencing. The university has announced that it will provide graduate classes to students at a technology park in the Navy Yard.

Starting in August, the operation will gives students access to a small 40-seat classroom and a bay of 10 teleconferencing workstations that will take advantage of the Yard’s data center, Philadelphia Technology Park, and its broadband capacity.

Villanova’s Dean of Engineering, Dr. Gary Gabriele says, in a press release:

“This partnership allows us to offer our students the opportunity to learn in a new world-class research, development and industrial setting. It also allows our faculty to develop new research relationships, and strengthen existing ones, which will yield new challenges in the classroom and new opportunities for student research.”

For the for-profit technology park, access to classes and additional training gives its colocation facilities — that is, the Park offers corporate clients office space — more skin in the game.

Comcast-Spectacor has agreement to sell 76ers, losing video subscribers and more: Roundup [VIDEO]

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an email subscription for our weekly Comcast roundup or other news updates

• Philadelphia 76ers sold by Comcast unit [Philadelphia Business Journal] — Comcast-Spectacor comes to “an agreement to sell the Sixers to a group led by Joshua Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management”
• Can Comcast Stop Losing Video Subscribers? [Light Reading Cable]– H/T Philly Tech News

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