This knowledge was Strong Linx original motivation to provide international travel opportunities to young people in London, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds and ethnic minorities, who are the least likely to travel abroad.

The new understanding of cultures and finding common ground is also beneficial to the individual and their community when they return home in numerous ways. It will encourage the belief of other similar young people that they, too, can fulfill their dreams and aim higher!

Strong Linx joined THECUBE to have a professional space to have meetings and grow their company.

She joing our coworking space, THECUBE in March 2010.

Maybe as Steven Hawking is intrigued with exploring the beginnings of the universe, so are business analysts with finding the origin and value of ideas; they are the theoretical physicists of enterprise. At THECUBE we are also theoretical physicists, and we are looking at our blackboards, into a microcosm of ideas, and these are our notes.

We’re all quite certain now that the gensis of our universe didn’t really eke itself out over seven days, with one hand smoothing the rough before chucking a couple of humans down onto a little rock called Earth. No. It happened in a split second, an amalgamated explosion of gases that ended up as the building blocks of life, the foundations of matter – all elements and all things were born from this moment.

For the moment, it isn’t really about theology or physics. It’s how it relates to who and what we are now: thinking machines. If our ideas seemingly come from ‘nowhere’, just as the origin and reason for the big bang’s occurence is a puzzle and a half, then both must have a catalyst to provoke them into being. What is that catalyst, and how does one begin the process of creating an idea?

Well, like all things, it is the beginning. Ideas come from observation, and subsequent consideration and meditation on what you have observed. Everything that can be seen and thought about can be improved. Things like current events, issues that seem to have regular slots in the news, what your peer groups are concerned with, the economy – these can all produce ideas. So, the catalyst for all our innovative big bangs, our creative booms, is observation. Simple as that. These ideas go on to fuel enterprise – the stars of the business world.

Enterprise doesn’t have to be hard. In the beginning, it is about two things: observation of a problem and ideas of how best to solve that problem. Think for a moment about summer in the suburbs, if it isn’t raining. It’s a hot day, children are playing carefree in the streets, running around, playing tennis, on their bikes – whatever. All that activity makes for a parched mouth. An entrepreneurial child will have a brainwave: make ice cold lemonade and sell it to all the kids running around with dry mouths. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? For the astute mind, enterprise is merely a natural reaction to its surroundings.

But that reaction requires a little bit of work. It needs trimming, smoothing down, measuring, and generally it needs to be evaluated. This is where you need to brainstorm your reaction. I have illustrated our child’s (let’s call him Charlie) progression as followed:

 How do you solve the problem?
 Make cold lemonade.
 
 Will this product help people?
 Yes; it’ll cool them down and rehydrate them – plus its tasty.

 What makes it relevant?
 The fact that it’s ice cold, and the day is scorching hot

 Are others doing something similar? Can you make it better?
 No – they’re too busy playing. If they do, I sell my lemonade cheaper, make sure it tastes better and is colder than any rivals’ lemonade.

 How will people use it? What is the psychology behind it?
 They’ll drink it. With any luck, they’ll come back for more. The psychology? Making sure that the stand is accessible and visible; child-friendly cups (i.e. no glass); using a fun, twisty straw that will attract attention.

Charlie’s brainstorm, perhaps more of a flowchart, shows the thought process that goes into an enterprise. It is slightly simplified, given that it’s only about selling lemonade on a hot day, but it can be applied to top enterprises. Take for example Facebook – the problem was keeping in touch with people and how to perpetuate correspondence with friends at all times. How was this solved? With an online directory of friends and people you know – it means that essentially (and unless you choose to be) you are never out of the loop. It turns out that this has happened to be an exceedingly popular solution to the problem.

After this initial brainstorming comes the generation of ideas. This is the part where things are tweaked – the point at which a business may call in an industrial engineer to have a look at the mechanics of their ideas, and how they might succeed and how they might fail.

Charlie now needs to highlight his best ideas. One might be to serve lemonade with ice cubes, another to serve it from a thermos flask that will keep it cold. Other ideas might include something as seemingly tenuous as where to place his lemonade stand – the middle of his road, or further down from his house; the further he goes, the further he would have to go to refill his flask or jug of lemonade – but the closer he is to his house may not be the most popular place on the street to play, therefore diminishing his client-base.

There are more variables than you’d think, and Charlie has to sit down and think hard about what he will do. He eliminates the bad moves for his lemonade business and sets to work tweaking the details: signage, price, and all the other fiddly bits.

He comes out of this with THE IDEA. He serves his lemonade further away for lots of customers, but calls in a friend to help him keep his lemonade and ice cube stock replenished, and he serves it in plastic cups with ice cubes, which means that the volume in the cups is decreased and he is selling less product for the same amount of money. The enterprising mind of Charlie pays off. His 25 pence per cup of ice cold lemonade earns him £10, and he gives his friend 40%, as was agreed, leaving him £6 richer. Not much, but it’s only the beginning of summer and his enterprise will get better and better the hotter it gets.

So this is our little big bang. It starts from nowhere and ends up as something somewhere. The path from a) to b) has a lot of forks in it – there are a lot of choices for the budding enterprise, some avenues lead to dead ends, some are a bit bumpy but end up at the right place. These paths represent different trains of thought, variables that can be changed ever so slightly to get to the most fitting location – the best idea.

So now we are getting to know the catalyst for our creative booms perhaps just as well as we know the catalyst that digests a carbohydrate. We have entered the realm of theoretical happenings. Just as Hawking wonders about the nature of the universe, we wonder about those electrons which were cast out from the big bang, which are in our brains, and which now make up the ideas that we wonder so much about.

On the 4th of March 2010 THECUBE hosted its first art event. We turned the seminar meeting space into a screening room and the rest into a intimate gallery. THECUBE is always experimenting and FIRSTBLOOD will continue as our platform dedicated to helping young artists hold their first showcase.

The event has two parts the first will be a Q&A with the artists followed by a ‘Freestyle’. Freestylin Art is was derived from the way hip-hop artists gain their credibility through freestylin their raps.

The way it works is an audience member brings an object, it can literally be anything, they hand it to the artist, which then turns it into a bespoke piece of art. People pay what they want, making art instant, accessible, affordable, and interesting.

Phillip created amazing pieces with hammers, hands, benches, canvases, bottles, junk.  Phillip’s work will be on show until April 23rd 2010

If you are an artist that would like to showcase at THECUBE, please get in touch with Araceli 0207 377 9279.

The decision to make our pricing so economical is we didn’t want potential members to walk in see the space, love it, and then not be able to join due to pricing. On the one hand it’s selfish as we are a new business and we didn’t want to see people walk out the door, however on the other hand, we felt strongly that any business regardless of size or cash flow, could have a great office space.

The long term goal is to add different revenue streams that will be part of the coworking space, which will also help keep pricing down, again reaffirming that we are more than just office space.

If you’d like to find out more about our affordable office space in London, please get in touch.

Top Five SEO Tips:

On Wednesday 3rd of March,BitZesty hosted a lunchtime q&a session on SEO, at coworking space THECUBE. Matt kicked things off by explaining the basics of SEO for those unfamiliar with the concept, and then opened the floor to the group. SEO-savvy attendees shared their tips, experiences and frustrations, before getting Matt to explain how BitZesty had succeeded in ranking so high on Google searches for certain keywords.

The main thrust of Matt’s introductory talk was that small business owners who rely on their websites to generate custom can maximise their site’s visibility on search engines without having to resort to payment. Used properly, SEO should ensure your site occupies a higher position on se arch engine results pages, and improve the numbers and calibre of your website traffic by helping people who are interested in your services to find your site. The most important thing to understand about SEO is how to work with the search engines: if you make it easy for them to index your site accurately, you increase the chances that they will place your site high up on their results pages when a potential customer makes the relevant search.

Matt concluded the session by listing his top five SEO tips, which are as follows:

1. Identify the right keywords for your business. Search engines index sites by the text which they contain, so it it is very important that you should identify the key terms which define your business, as well as the words which will be entered into search engines by potential customers. Once identified, these words can be used to great effect, repeated throughout the site often and prominently (see point 2) enough for the search engines to register them. The words which potential customers might enter are especially important, and any time spent brainstorming them is time well spent. In order to compete with larger, more established companies on the keyword front, it is better to decide on a more specific set of keywords and target these on your site, rather than waging a hopeless battle for general terms. You can use Google’s Keyword Tool to identify relevant keywords that have many searches but comparatively little competition.
2. Place keywords in the titles on your website wherever possible. Search engines prioritise the text in the title tags and in your headings and sub-headings, which are labelled as <h1>,<h2>, <h3>… in HTML, so you should make sure that you choose these words wisely and use keywords where appropriate. The words in the main body of the text are also taken into consideration, but less so than the headings. However, search engines can detect when websites repeat keywords endlessly out of context, so don’t overdo it.
3. Try to get other sites to link to your own. Another factor the search engines take into account and consider important is the number of times other sites link back to your site. The more prestigious the site providing the link, the more credit your site gets from the search engine. For example, a link from a well-established site such as bbc.co.uk will count for more than one from a lesser-known, newer site. However, the links only work in your favour if your keywords are included fully in the link – being the destination of a ‘Click Here’ on ‘Read more’ link will not help you at all. You can help yourself by making sure that you always include keywords in the link when linking to other pages on your own site and by asking others who link to you to use those keywords as well. For example, instead of saying The Cube, it would be more useful if the link included The Cube – Co-working Space in London, not only it is more helpful for the reader, it also improves the SEO.
4. Maintain a steady flow of fresh content on your homepage. Search engines value fresh and original content, so it is in your own interests to keep your website regularly updated. This can be done quite easily, for example, by posting a blog on your homepage.
5. Choose the right technology. Finally, search engines also weight sites on the speed at which the pages load up. If your homepage is full of Flash and Javascript, it will take longer to load and count against you in the rankings, so it is generally better to use HTML (and keep Javascript to a minimum) where SEO is a consideration. On a further note, search engines find it harder to reach the text in a Flash format, so it is again advisable to work in HTML and only use Flash on a limited basis.

By bearing these points in mind when working on your site, you will be making the most of search engines’ potential to help you attract new custom and increase your company’s profile. There do exist  quicker, less honest, methods of increasing your ranking on search engines, but these are ultimately pointless. Developers are ever refining the ability of search engines to pick out and penalise attempts to manipulate the system by keyword stuffing and the use of artificial links, and the days of so-called ‘black hat’ SEO are dwindling fast. Rather than trying to outwit search engines, it is more useful for businesses to work towards helping them to do their job, which is to supply the most relevant results for each search.

Matt has created a short course on SEO for anyone who wants to learn more.

Bit Zesty Ltd is a web application development company.

Coworking is a new type of office space, which started in the late 90’s in Silicon Valley. Nearly 15 years later it has evolved to cater to people who are looking for the professional environment of an office, but the character of a members club.

THECUBE is located in Spitalfields making it easily accessible from both quirky Shoreditch and the City. Our focus is on helping creative ideas grow by providing an aesthetically clean office space, business resources, and a community of people who are creative and entrepreneurial.

There is always someone at hand to help with anything from PR, branding, to website development, and finance. Imagine the support that you would get from being part of a big organisation, but with the independence of having your own enterprise.

For more pictures follow the link and to view the space please call Araceli on 02073779279.

Our London meeting spaces are in the heart of Spitalfields making them an ideal location. We are a two minute walk from colourful Shoreditch and 5 min from the City. Non members are welcome to use our meeting spaces to get away from the office or as an alternative to sitting at your local coffee shop.

Our meeting spaces are flexible and can be used for small meetings, boardroom meetings, or seminars. They are also incredibly affordable starting at £10 per hour for the room, if you would like to check availability please call THECUBE 0207 3779279.

For more information on our meeting spaces and pictures please click on the link.

As part of our partnership with Consurgo, THECUBE will be doing a portfolio night for fine artists on Wednesday 24th  March 18:00-20:00.

The panel will consist of industry experts, gallery owners, and a pr agency. The evening will start with a Q&A with the panel followed by a ten minute portfolio review and advice session with each artist.

The event will take place in our boardroom meeting space downstairs.

To RSVP please email info@thecubelondon.com

The objective is to get people from different backgrounds to help each other solve any type of problem; from finding new clients, creating a logo, creating a marketing strategy, to getting an opinion on a niggling thought.

Platypus is our first step of getting people to work collaboratively in a coworking space, taking advantages of each others knowledge and contacts. This is what makes coworking different from office spaces or just sharing desk space, THECUBE aims to provide a unique work environment that creates solutions.

The coworking will take place in our seminar meeting space downstairs, to RSVP, please email info@thecubelondon.com .