Former Pavilion Furniture building hosts
"extraordinary entrepreneurs"
COLUMBIA, 5/22/11 (Beat Byte) -- Noted venture
capitalist and Foundry Group
director Brad Feld speaking to a crowd via Skype. Entrepreneurs
touting mobile applications. A snazzy rethinking of once-defunct,
long-vacant building. A Twitter feed announcing the next "Innovation Bash."
A "vice president of connectivity." A "director of awesomeness."
Silicon Valley? Silicon Alley? Not hardly. This is Columbia, Missouri
ca 2011, where a young marketing consultant hopes his take on The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen -- a 2003 movie -- becomes The League of Exceptional
Entrepreneurs.
Housed in the former Putnam's Interiors/Pavilion Furniture building at 3500
Buttonwood Drive (above), Brent Beshore's League of Innovators (LOI)
occupies what's now called The Museao (emphasis on the Muse), a
16,000 square ft "business accelerator" (don't call it an "incubator") that
offers a "unique working environment to inspire entrepreneurship," League
members told the Mizzou
Maneater.
Instead of monthly rent, interested innovators pay a monthly membership fee
for access to work space, meetup space, innovation bashes, and other social
activities designed to "foster friendship and entrepreneurship."
It's a retro approach to the digital age, which relies on Skype, Facebook,
Twitter, instant messaging, video conferencing, and email for most
communications when everyone knows that person-to-person contact still beats all
in good old-fashioned networking.
Beshore (above right) -- who founded Pure
Marketing in Columbia -- chose an appropos spot to create his
"innovation hub." With audacious curves, glossy coloring, and polished
surfaces any Hollywood starlet would envy, the Museao Building looks like it was
born to inspire what Beshore calls "innovation sex" (*blush*) on the LOI website.
Consensual innovation relations aren't restricted to LOI startups,
either. Beshore is encouraging established business people to "relax, learn and
get away from the hustle and bustle of their offices," at the Museao, he told
the Maneater.
"You can be a student, a freelance worker, a web designer or a lawyer. It’s really open to anyone who would like to join," added Kelsey Meyer, LOI's "director of awesomeness."
"You can be a student, a freelance worker, a web designer or a lawyer. It’s really open to anyone who would like to join," added Kelsey Meyer, LOI's "director of awesomeness."
And that vice president of connectivity we told you about? It's former
Boone County National banker and PS: Gallery owner Chris
Stevens, who announced his new position on Facebook last week.
"There are some great things going on at Pure Marketing and I am excited to
be a part," Stevens wrote.
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