Art Taco: A Record Exhibit @ Mind Games Tobacco & Hookah Lou...

Art Taco: A Record Exhibit @ Mind Games Tobacco & Hookah Lou...: Mind Games Tobacco & Hookah Lounge
The venue for this event is located about 10 blocks (if that) from where I live. I've driven past ...

The Completion of Phase One.

well here we are & another 2.5 months have passed since the last blog entry; not exactly the up-to-the minute web 2.0 platform I'm aiming for....:-)

The stark reality of it all is that this has been the hardest endeavor I've ever undertaken and I know I speak for my partners Steve & Bryan as well. Nobody is complaining because with great effort / risk comes great reward. That being said, as much as we all preach the importance of a strong, positive mindset eventually we all have our moments. This last month was particularly hard for me. When in the midst of a struggle you sometimes tend to forget how far you've come. Everybody at some point looks at the glass as half empty. It's almost like the immediate situation kind of closes in on you and you become accustomed to thinking on this smaller level.

The flipside of that is that with a strong team of like minded people you support each other and push through that. The great blessing of this process is that you form bonds that are unbreakable under these circumstances. One of the absolute best books out there on the new business paradigm we are embarking upon here is "the Culting of Brands" by Doug Atkin. The book describes traits shared by companies that develop a fanatical "cult-like" following. "Cult-like" can be defined as customers preaching the brand gospel to others without getting compensated for it. Apple computers is a real good example.

The culting of Brands in 2.5 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeIdZZtZkcA

One of the backbones of companies such as these is "a story of almost mythical proportions". As much of a struggle as this has been, the filming of everything from the beginning pretty much is that. In one short (or long - depending what day it is:-)) year we have gone from 3 guys with an idea to having a prime commercial space finally about to open with no rent, a ground breaking precedent in the Florida construction code to allow alternative engineering, an interdisciplinary team of 50+ people ranging from startups to multinationals & a 50/50 joint venture with one of the most influential & wealthy people in the state about to introduce a new real estate development concept with truly global potential.

The Project 3.0 show is finally in production and will be released within the next 7-10 days. Several syndication agreements are in the serious discussion stages. The Roosevelt has secured everything we need to officially open up & this monthlong event is being planned as we speak. The earthship will be dried in in another 30 days & a major event is being planned for that as well. All three of our projects will be interlinked through this official unveiling of the completion of phase one of the campus TV journey.

and a major announcement with the shipping container housing concept will be the crowning touch to all of the above.

We are in the process of shifting gears in a major way and are officially about to come out to the world with everything.

Milestones

As I look back at this blog I see almost 2 months have gone by since the last blog entry. It is an overwhelming task to juggle both the physical real estate projects & keeping the the social media presence up to date. Nevertheless, we are getting 1:40 on Fox 13 News tonight & I can't very well have the last blog entry saying I'm not interested in continueing the blog component. LOL

If you are new to this blog & are reading this because you saw this story on the news, allow me to briefly catch you up to speed.

Project 3.0 is a play on words of the term "web 2.0" taken to the next level. When the internet was first launched, this era was referred to as "web 1.0" meaning the flow of information on the net goes one way - people either store or retrieve information. The era we live in now is referred to as 'web 2.0" meaning the internet is being used as a medium for collaboration / crowdsourcing. The most common example is wikipedia - the online encyclopedia that in a few short years became the # 8 site in the world with all of its content user-generated (crowdsourced).

The goal of the Campus TV is to utilize the free web 2.0 infrastructure to connect people, ideas & projects to be executed in a fully transparent business model. The driving force of the Campus TV will be the Project 3.0 show where we put this philosophy in action. the central theme of the show revolves around the zero energy conversion of a 104 year old historic building using crowdsourcing at its core. By zero energy conversion we mean taking an abandoned brick shell & building it out to a fully functioning building that is completely self sustaining - a net energy consumption of zero.

The project was started about 9 months ago now by 3 people : Rudy Arnauts - the writer of this blog & the concept guy, Bryan Roberts - a general contractor with extensive experience in cutting edge "green" construction & Steve Francois - a musician/events promoter/artist manager. The conventional construction budget to build out this building (which I have seen as estimated for a potential buyer of the property) is over $ 300,000.

We took this project on with no financial resources whatsoever. At times progress was held up by items as menial as not being able to buy a $ 20 bucket of paint. The way we have been able to accomplish everything on this buildout has been through sponsorships of materials & joint ventures of people with a wide variety of skills. The sponsors are receiving publicity in exchange of their contributions. The idea is that this diverse team - which ranges from dynamic young 16 year old artists to 70 year old engineers - moves forward and executes projects together.

In 9 short months 3 guys with no money have gone from a dead start to having a million dollar building on the verge of a Grand Opening, have changed the building code through our sister project (Florida's first earthship) and are about to announce a major affordable housing development unlike any other in the very near future. Our core team has grown to well over 40 people.

We have been filming everything from the very beginning & are about to release this footage as a show. We will not hide our mistakes. Everything will be completely financially transparent.

The show will educate through demonstration and is meant to encourage participation from the viewer. The first 5-6 episodes will summarize our journey thusfar & then the show will continue in real time.

3.0 Musketeers with Cynthia Smoot Fox 13 News.

Blogging blah

Blogging...you're heart's either in it or not. I'm not a writer. I try to keep up on the blog with what's going on but I am too busy and excited just from dealing with the reality of it all. Writing about it is a chore.

A tremendous amount of things have happened. You're probably going to have to wait for the videos to get released to find out.

Running Free

Things are continuing to shift forward. We signed a long term deal with Joe Redner (the owner of the Roosevelt) right at the time Creative Loafing called us to schedule a photoshoot for the "Green 100" edition which comes out next week:

Bryan spoke to the reporter compiling the "Green 100" list and apparently there are more than 10 people/companies on the list of nominees that are associated with one of our projects.

Cool!

I also just finished the conceptual proposal for the 26 unit development in Sarasota to be build out of shipping containers. The package can be downloaded here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?xdzmmymjzyh

Next items on the list are:

1. Get the place ready for Fire Marshall inspection of the Roosevelt as we are getting constant booking inquiries, not to mention our own events.
2. Do a formal business plan for the Campus TV to raise capital.
3. Finish watching the video footage for the first 5 pilot episodes; I'm about 65% of the way through on that. Web design is done & all copy is written.

Speaking of events; Steve / Tek-Nique Entertainment is hosting State of the Art v.2 at the Roosevelt April 25th. Check out this write in the Tampa Bay Times:

TBT article on State of the Art

Overdrive

The schematics for the roof have been completed by our USF Master's (Architecture) candidate Craig Trover. Chris West from http://www.wdgsilicones.com/ is flying down from ohio to spend 2 whole days with us, getting up on our roof and setting up the installation of 3 different companies' products. These companies are CPI (http://www.cpifoam.com/) for interior (soybased) insulation, WDG for the silicone overlay for the roof and a skylight company to be announced later. The value of the average sponsorship of each company is about $ 5,000; double that including the installation they are providing.

This represents a 900% increase in sponsorship value since our first in kind contribution (about $ 500 worth of concrete from Tarmac). This is a very encouraging feeling especially since the website is not even up. The roof on the Roosevelt also represented the biggest problem to fix so this is huge. Our owner (Joe Redner) is pretty happy at this point and our relationship has now been completely solidified on this deal.

Speaking of the website; that dream is finally coming to fruition. Still going through a ton of footage; next editing session is this Thursday 9 April. We will also have Creative Loafing (local press) coming down so be watching for some interesting coverage there next week.

The collaborative on the Zenloft affordable housing development is coming together quite nicely. This will be a 26 unit community build out of shipping containers in sarasota FL. We are looking at finalizing the business arrangements between all the players this week; goal is to present the owner with a proposal for the project this Friday.

Finish line in sight

I feel like a slacker somewhat with these sporadic updates on the blog; I know successful blogs are supposed to get updated daily... Truth is maintaining all the social media aspects of this venture - even at this early stage - is like another full time job. As everyone knows; this entire effort is being put together without any financial backing. In every aspect this is really a blessing. If you're launching a concept that says (a) you can do anything & (b) the conventional way of doing things is so broken that a complete overhaul is necessary, then this is perfect. We're launching several real estate development projects in a time that most people will concede is the worst in 100 years for the real estate industry.

perfect.

The Roosevelt has been transformed with the application of the waterbased stain; it is starting to look like a real venue now.

We also secured two more sponsors for the next phase of the Roosevelt buildout - the construction of the green roof:

www.cpifoam.com

www.wdgsilicones.com

We did meet with Mr. Vengroff (see previous blog) at the earthship site and it was certainly an intersting & productive meeting. Suffice it to say we are doing due diligence on a project right now - details to be released in the near future. Affordable shipping container residential & commercial construction.

Bryan also just received a call from Michael Reynolds - the original earthship builder - about building a second one in Florida. That means we are dealing with the two pioneers on the ground up construction methods we are working on - Mr. Reynolds on earthships & David Cross on shipping container construction. The business models of all our efforts are unfolding.

Oh yeah - and the Campus TV destination site template is finished. I'm writing the copy for it now. Sunday I'll be spending all day looking at video footage from the past 5 months with the video editor to put together the first 5 episodes. The idea is to have the first 5 episodes summarize everything that has taken place so far & by the 6th one the show will continue in real time.

The Campus TV is finally about to launch.