The internet is amazing place. As a result of my long-time participation with TheRoot42, I have had the opportunity to get to know a relatively large group of highly talented, creative people. One of them is Thierry Blancpain, who is a student of Visual Communication in Switzerland.

Thierry recently did some branding work for a friend of his, Fabian Pfortmüller of Sandbox Network, which aims to connect ‘the most active and ambitious people under 30 from all over the world.’ If you know me, you’ll know that this goal is very close to my heart.

So, when Fabian and his colleague, Flavio Rump, were headed to NYC on a business trip, Thierry put us in touch. Both Fabian and Flavio are impressive, entrepreneurial young leaders, and what started as a simple brunch meeting turned into an entire day of hanging out and exchanging ideas. I have expressed great interest in getting involved with Sandbox Network, so I’ll have more updates on that soon.

In the meantime, Fabian has been very proactive about connecting me with other like-minded individuals in a variety of industries. Last Tuesday, he set-up a meeting for me with his colleague, Dave Radparvar of Incubaker, who was visiting NYC for a few days.

Dave and I have several large over-lapping areas of interest. The first and foremost, of course, being technology, which includes all of the ideas and innovation and inspiration that inherently goes along with that field.

Secondly, we are both very passionate about the concept of coworking. The conversation began with my involvement with my friends over at Conjunctured, and then quickly turned to the thesis on coworking and ‘inspiration cafes’ that Dave wrote for the recent completion of his International Business degree from Northeasern.

One of my favorite quotes is from Joseph Addison: “Reading is to the mind as exercise is to the body.” Dave seems to have grasped this wholehearted, as he describes an inspiration cafe as:

People need a place where they can socialize, relax, and engage in mind-expanding creativity. Just as a gym allows people to work out their bodies, people require a place to let their mind run wild with creativity. An encouraging atmosphere where interactions motivate each member to achieve personal and professional goals.

He is planning to open up exactly such a place in Brooklyn, upon returning from a short stint in California for an entirely different venture he’s working on. Which brings me to the next chapter of our meeting.

After we chatted about our respective backgrounds, and launched into a discussion about the projects we’re currently working on. I got especially excited about an fresh, innovative forrary in the fashion industry that he is working on at this very moment. In fact, I got SO excited (Who, me? Excited? Never.) that our informal meeting ended up turning into an high-energy brainstorming session for The Brand Name.

As it would turn out, we came up with a name that was so incredibly perfect, that we literally whipped out his iPhone, checked to see if the dotcom domain name was free (it was!), and registered it on the spot. I love it. We spent the remainder of our meeting basking in the afterglow of our productivity.

I will be continuing to collaborate with Dave on the aforementioned fashion project, so look for more updates on that soon. Dave was also kind enough to invite me to be a guest blogger on incuTANK! I’ll be sure to cross-post any contributions I write to this blog as well.

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