Brilliance lives in the mind, but ideas need a place to grow. One of the great things about creative people is that they have no shortage of ideas, but as is often the case, hard currency can be in short supply. Before leaving the States, my friend, David, mentioned an organization called The Hub that builds multi-purpose work spaces, and plans to build one in New York. However,  since I was leaving town, it didn’t register at the time how helpful it could be. Looking back at how casually I leaped into the unknown, I realize now that I too needed a hub of some kind to connect me to the people I was hoping to meet in Brazil. After a week of furtive cold calls, I was over the moon when my efforts finally materialized into on-site interviews and a visit to The Hub Sao Paulo. My gracious guide was Paulo, a programmer and blogger whom I met through an Aardvark query. Just goes to show how creative applications of technology can deliver unexpected results. The Hub is a flexible, membership-based work space where creative types from all disciplines can come to socialize and cross-pollinate ideas that lead to exciting and unexpected new projects. “It’s a mixture between a Starbucks, a traditional office and an incubator,” said Barbara Stutz, one of the co-founders and a  partner in The Hub Sao Paulo. Opened in August of 2008, The Hub Sao Paulo was still in “soft launch,” Stutz said, with about 120 members paying 440-600 Reais (approx. USD 220-300) for an allotment of hours in the workspace. Members can book space for meetings, tackle personal projects or just hang out and be inspired if they like. Said Stutz, “It’s just an excuse to have all these people here linked and doing something.”

Paulo @ The Hub Sao Paulo

From the outside, The Hub was one of a dozen unassuming doors lining Rua Bela Cintra, a busy thoroughfare that crosses Paulista Ave., Sao Paulo’s most notable drag. Inside, however, the building had the unmistakable feel of a creative agency, such as a tony architect’s studio or a graphic design firm. The high ceilings, exposed brick and minimalist art pieces gave me a sense that experimentation and reinvention were happening constantly inside. The rear wall had a row of huge, circular windows looking out onto a handful of Sao Paulo’s innumerable office towers, a jumble of while bathing the room with natural light. On a central island, a group of people worked quietly on desktop computers, while in another corner, two women chatted excitedly with a camcorder. The first Hub location was built in London in 2005, said Stutz, and it has expanded its operation throughout Western Europe, India and South Africa, as well as three North American venues: Halifax, Nova Scotia and Montreal in Canada and Berkeley, CA. Hub Sao Paulo co-founder, Pablo Handl, confirmed that a Hub location in New York City is expected to open in 2010. He also said that walking into a Hub anywhere in the world, a certain look and feel is maintained. While The Hub is not meant to be a home away from home, the line can be blurry at times. Stutz said one of her missions for The Hub is to promote a different working culture for chronically-stressed Paulistas, whose work schedules and commutes  would cause a battle-hardened New Yorker to gasp. To give you a sense of working conditions here, when I came back from Rio de Janeiro yesterday morning, a massive pileup had already formed on the freeway at 6AM when we were miles from the city center. According to Stutz, while Paulistas are used to the long hours, the idea of the Hub Sao Paulo isn’t to replace a desk in a cubicle farm with the same work schedule in better surroundings. The fact remains that Sao Paulo’s Hub closes at 10 during the week and opens on the weekends in contrast to its Europeans counterparts that close by 6. If The Hub were a financial institution, it would trade heavily in social entrepreneurship, whereby a company is able to  generate profits while upholding high standards of environmental sustainability and making a positive impact.  Stutz told me the story of Franco Fodor, a Hub member who decided to left corporate life and start an eco-lodge in Northeastern Brazil.  As the result of an introduction made at The Hub, Fodor decided to hire trainees from a cooking school for low-income Brazilians to run his hotel kitchen, Stutz said. Gilberto Jr. is a Hub member and one of the co-founders of  Amanaiê, a digital advertising agency that creates apps social media sites like Orkut. His business card lists The Hub as his office.  Stutz told me members are encouraged to use The Hub as their mailing address. After a lenghty chat with Jr. about his business (post to follow), it is clear to me why he may not get much physical mail, and his location at any given time is irrelivant. Many people now live and work in a world that is completely mobile, digital and distibuted. Anywhere in the world we can access the Internet, we can be working.

Another Hubster who brought this point home was Paul Gould, a recent transplant from the UK who runs three London-based companies from a perch in Sao Paulo. Gould, who operates a play-money poker site, a social network for financiers, and a social media advertising agency, said his partners are in Viet Nam, Italy, Sweden and Brazil. Said Gould, “At the moment, there is no one in the UK.”  And that is the beauty of the Internet, the best people can and do work from anywhere in the world. While this isn’t meant to be an advertisement for Hubs worldwide, I was pleased to meet some great people and see how the Internet has made the workplace global as never before. I know all too well how much reporting was done from the comfort of my living room during journalism school. With newsrooms shrinking and “permalance” becoming the new full-time employment in a variety of fields, it’s encouraging to see how people are adapting to a dispersed work environment and creating new interpersonal connections in the flesh. Before I left, Handl told me that the global financial crisis was increasing memberships in Sao Paulo.  Although the economy in Brazil was not being baterred like the United States, Spain or Ireland, Handl said that in such a climate, people are rethinking their life’s best good use and deciding to pursue more meaningful goals. “When a crisis comes, small ideas tend to get more attention,” said Handl. While I hope that the worst of the crisis abates soon, it’s great to see places like The Hub growing, where the best of our creative nature is encouraged to grow.