Something that surprised me — Week 2/10

It has been two weeks since I started my first day at Groundswell, and a lot of has happened since I last posted — lets get to reflecting:

Let’s recap:

Last week, I spent a good chunk of my time learning about the co-working space, what it really means to co-work, the long/short-term goals of groundswell, and what my role and expectations are here. After discovering these things Micah, the CEO of Groundswell, put me right to work.

After warming up to the employees, startups, and Groundswell as a whole, I figured there were no more surprises, even after getting a solid first impression of my work place: I was wrong.

So what was I surprised about?

Groundswell, as we all may know by now is a co-working space, incubator, and a space for Melbourne’s community. I had the opportunity to get a a good understanding of the first two through online research and Micah’s guidance, but understanding what it means to be a space for a community, was definitely something that had to be learnt through experience. Groundswell typically connects to the community through a variety of hosted events.

Week two was the first week I was able to attend Groundswell’s hosted events. I attended events such as the Melbourne Founder’s Festival, Art of the Pitch, and as of now we are readily preparing for Groundswell’s Anniversary Party. After attending each of these events, I was very surprised. Like I talked about in my last post, I’ve been to numerous of workshops and networking events as a college student, so I thought I knew what to expect from these events.

I was wrong.

So what was different about Groundswell’s Events?

One of the events I attended was Art of the Pitch, where startups come in and pitch there startup ideas to Melbourne’s startup community, and get live feedback along the way.

Unlike workshops and networking events in college, I was in a room surrounded by professionals. Typically, when I attend a workshop/event at school, they would have one professional or student lead a discussion or lecture on a specific topic of interest — a very streamlined, boring, and typical process of learning that is similar to that of taking a course. This was different, this was a group of professionals critiquing and inspiring other professionals. Instead of learning from a powerpoint, I was learning through a clash of ideas and critiques that lead to growth. Each time a person spoke, it was easy to tell that they were speaking with passion and purpose — the person pitching sounded like they cared about their product and the person who asked questions and critiqued sounded like they really wanted that person to improve or that they themselves were also interested in the opportunity.

Another event I had the opportunity to attend was the Melbourne Founder’s Festival, where people of color within Melbourne’s community came together to celebrate the city of Melbourne being founded by people of color. Being a supporter of diversity and inclusion, as well as a C.A.R.E student (a member of a first generation, low income program at Florida State), I enjoyed every minute of this event — minutes spent learning about Melbourne’s founding and meeting great people.

I came into Groundswell knowing there will be events, but I only ever expected these events to be professional or is something tailored to startups or business. Going to the Founder’s Festival changed this perspective, I learned that an incubator is not just a place for startups and businesses to develop, but for the community as a whole to develop too.