Category: Uncategorized

NJ COVID-19 Update Blog

During these stressful times it’s important to stay up to date on the COVID-19 situation to allow you and your loved ones to make the best decisions for yourselves and those around you. With that said, please take a look at these listed articles ranging from the CDC and WHO to news sources within New Jersey. From the CDC and WHO you will find all the data you need to know about COVID-19 itself and how to keep yourselves safe. The NJ related articles list what the state of NJ is doing to keep everyone safe and how it affects you directly. The Employers Guide to COVID is another great resource for business owners trying to navigate the pandemic specifically.

We here at =SPACE are doing our best to make sure everyone makes it out of this pandemic stronger than before. As well as continue to provide programming that keeps our community connected and thriving. Please everyone, stay safe, stay healthy and remember that we can make it through together.

Snapshot of resources:

Restrictions; Murphy’s executive order included the following:

Banning gatherings of 50 or more people.
All public, private, and parochial preschool programs, elementary and secondary schools, all charter and renaissance schools and institutions of higher education beginning Wednesday.
All casinos, concert venues, nightclubs, racetracks, gyms, fitness centers and classes, movie theaters, and performing arts centers must close at 8:00 p.m. Monday.
All other non-essential retail, recreational, and entertainment businesses must close after 8 p.m. Monday.
All restaurant establishments, with or without a liquor or limited brewery license, are limited to offering delivery and/or take out-services only. No dine-in service will be allowed.

Google Black Small Business Livestream: Make Your Website Work for You

Makerhoods & =SPACE has collaborated once again in recognition of Black History Month!

On Tuesday, February 25th, Grow with Google will celebrate Black History Month by hosting a Black Small Business Meetup in Washington, D.C. and we want you to be a part of it – virtually, that is!

If you work with Black-owned businesses in your community – or with organizations that do – we hope you’ll join us in gathering them together for a viewing party. This special workshop will showcase how to create a search-friendly website that drives user action and supports business goals. The workshop will also be followed by an inspirational panel featuring successful small business and entrepreneurs who have used digital tools to grow.

EVENT AGENDA

2:30 PM: Check-in/Light networking

2:45 PM: Introductions

2:50 PM: Livestream Starts

4:00 PM: Networking

4:30 PM: End of Event

“AMOR FATI”: The Art Revelation by David D. Oquendo

EQUALSPACE is proud to present David D. Oquendo’s “Amor Fati”. Loosely translated to “Love of Fate”; Amor Fati is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one’s life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary. Oquendo has developed a personally constructed script. He calls this writing system, “Metaphrase”. This “Metaphrase” is a series that includes large-scale wall renderings (indoor and outdoor) and mixed media paintings. The artwork explores the artist’s ideas and questions of identity, language, meditation, religion, and life. Oquendo is steering his work to align with his beliefs and practice of Stoicism and positive affirmations that help him make incremental progress in his life and his struggle with depression, suicidal thoughts, and his disability. AMOR FATI is the practice of loving everything that happens and seeing all circumstances as a chance to grow. Not just accepting it, nor simply tolerating it, but leaning into it. As a Latinx individual, there’s no other way to live.

AGENDA:

6:30PM – Networking

7:05PM- Introductions

7:10PM – Artist Talk w/David Oquendo (Moderated by Citi Medina, Founder of =SPACE)

7:40PM- Networking & Tour of Artwork/=SPACE’s new facility addition

8:40PM – Closing Remarks

9:00PM – End of Event

RSVP HERE: http://bit.ly/Am0RFAt1

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

David Oquendo’s artwork explores the artist’s ideas and questions of identity, language, meditation, religion, and life. The genesis of the series is personal. The artist was diagnosed with a learning disability as a child – causing difficulty in speech, comprehension, translation, and writing. Each letter is a system that has been influenced by Textualis Quadrata with hints of Eastern Kufic and Hebrew calligraphy. Completion finds the balance between obfuscate text and the beauty of calligraphy. With this series, David D. Oquendo challenges the notion of what language must be, how language must be used and how language must look like.

Oquendo believes that language is not only about communicating with one another, it is also a tool to develop meaning in the world around us. Language allows one to categorize, and to normalize; it allows us to look at multifaceted ideas and simplify it. It also allows us to build a sense of self, a sense of security and comfort in our own being. It lets us believe that we are in fact someone in particular, and someone unique. It distinguishes the artist, Oquendo, from you, the audience. Language stabilizes the disarray of existence. But only to a point because of all the possibilities it offers it is also limiting. It doesn’t allow one to articulate the entirety of existence and therefore fails to alleviate the artist’s fear of it. This failure of language, especially language beautifully displayed, to mitigate the artist’s fearful fascination of existence is a major theme in “Metaphrase”. The work is created by the artist, for the artist, yet admired and unraveled by the audience.

=SPACE Continues Rapid Expansion Becoming Largest Black Owned Sharespace In New Jersey

Premium sharespace =SPACE continues their commitment to providing access and resources to the Newark community with their multi-floor 6,000 sq. foot expansion at 89 Market St. in Newark.

Creating a space with multicultural business owners in mind, =SPACE continues to provide opportunities and valuable industry connections to multicultural founders, women ventures, and LGBTQ+ enterprises. Partnering with RBH Group, one of the most impactful leaders of inclusive civic progression in Newark for the expansion, =SPACE will now offer a multimedia suite for content creators and event space across two floors.

“As one of the largest Black/Brown owned shared-spaces in New Jersey, we dedicate ourselves to providing opportunities and resources to multicultural founders, women ventures, and LGBTQ+ enterprises. We love Newark and always step up to the challenge of ensuring our space is accessible to all individuals who enter our humble abode. With the city’s entrepreneurial community ever growing, =SPACE wants to open wider doors for new and long standing local techies, freelancers, creatives, and everyone in-between.” – Akosua Ayim Interim CEO, =SPACE

=SPACE is excited to continue to participate in the shaping of the Newark community, solidifying their commitment to becoming a beacon of greatness and source of support in the city of Newark.

If you are media interested in covering the expansion, please contact Tequilla White at tequilla@tequillawhitepr.com

About =SPACE

A premium sharespace created with multicultural business owners in mind, =SPACE provides resources for startups, coaching for tech companies and access to minority business owners. With a multimedia suite, monthly programming and access to a workspace specifically tailored to your cultural identity, =SPACE has become a pillar in the Newark community and a hub for innovative thought leaders.

Newark Tech Week

Newark Tech Week provides an opportunity for all tech-based businesses in Newark to connect and introduce people to innovation in our city. Newark boasts a number of tech startups that produce ground-breaking ideas. Our mission is to showcase these amazing startups & businesses and celebrate Newark’s growth. We understand the power that each tech company in Newark has individually, and now we have a chance to make Newark our stage to show everyone what our tech community is made of. We are Newark, Silicon City.

Grab your Newark Tech Week Passes here:

Ras In 60 — Podcast Debut

=SPACE & Little Engine Media are excited to announce the opening of our new, high-end podcast studio in coalition with our first recording partnership with no other than the Honorable Mayor Ras J. Baraka.

This is our latest addition in creating a space that caters to the needs of our members – content is king & now you can create your own with state of the art equipment and engineering.

Ras in 60 offers a new experience and viewpoint into the life of an impactful thought leader and political figure. This will not be your conventional political podcast. During each episode, prepare to be intrigued by new information you will hear straight from the Mayor himself. He will include segments on fitness, lifestyle, health, Newark’s progress in development and more.

In this episode of Ras in 60 you will be Meeting the Mayor. In this introductory episode Mayor Baraka will talk about his fitness routine, his favorite music artist, the VMAs coming to Newark, the Forbes Opportunity Zone Summit and much more.

Each show is expected to be about an hour long but please keep in mind since this is an introductory podcast the first episode is expected to be shorter than future shows.

Stay tuned for future episodes as they will involve a series of conversations between the Mayor of Newark and guests who are doing work to move Newark and/ or the culture forward.

Click play and listen to episode 1 of Ras in 60!

Get involved in every conversation by hashtagging #Rasin60

Ras in 60 is also available on Spotify

Don’t Deny The Importance of Graphic Design

It’s the first thing a customer sees—your design.

Packaging is all a part of the customer experience. Without the right design, you lose the attention of your audience. Everyone likes nice things, even if they don’t admit it. In the age of social media and visual storytelling, your design speaks to a potential customer before the product or service. From logos to websites, brochures, signage, even your business cards, all are a reflection of good branding through design.

It’s how brands stay competitive.

Businesses need good design to create gag-worthy marketing materials, down to the memes on social media. It’s all inclusive. Good design is now an essential part of business development on and offline.

So what is graphic design?

According to Design Hill, graphic design is the visual communication of a company which includes the process of developing typography, layering image with text, or animation in a specific way to convey a company’s unique and distinctive message. As a startup, entrepreneurs often bootstrap design elements, which sometimes works; however, if you want your brand to stand out and bring visibility to your products and/or services, a sizeable part of your budget should be reserved for design. You can Canva your way through business so much before you have to breakdown and hire a professional.

Unless you’re a designer, then…

Here are eight ways, according to Design Hill, graphic design creates influence:

Sales boost
Establish your company name
Build goodwill in your industry
Express your brand message
Brand unity among staff
Professionalism
Persuasive power
Content readability

Does your brand make the list? Click here to read more.

#takeyourspace

Why Rhetoric Is Important To Every Entrepreneur

People do not listen because most only speak about or state things like gossiping, negativity, complaints, excuses, exaggeration, and declaring their opinions as fact. However, if you have a message with depth that you want to spread, we have the tool for you and it comes in one four letter word — HAIL. HAIL stands for honesty, authenticity, integrity, and love.

Honesty means simply being true to yourself and others. Authenticity represents being oneself. Integrity, in essence is, sticking to your word and not changing your mind. Love pushes one to speak in a manner that genuinely focuses on the wellbeing of others. If these four things are carried with your statements, people will listen to you more.

Our voice is our tool box, and in our toolbox we have tools like, register.Your Register is changing the tone of your voice to express what you feeling when giving an information. For example, we tend to vote for the politician who speaks low, it shows firmness and power. We also have a tool known as repetitive, which is making everything sound like a question. This is not a great tool due to the fact that people become very confused and it makes a speaker sound unconfident. The next tool is prosody, a meta-language. An example of prosody would be speaking in one tone (monotonic), it makes whatever information you are relaying sound boring. Pitch is another tool. This tool is used by everyone, pitch is speaking in high and low tones. This is not to be confused with volume, which differentiates when someone speaks loudly or quietly. Speaking quietly makes people put more effort into paying attention to whatever you say.

All of this knowledge relates to you as a person and as a business owner. Learning about speech will influence people’s interest in what you have to offer and allows people to more about the business, company, or organization you are managing. Whether you are speaking to a client or an angel investor, you need to learn how to make others listen. It will come in handy wherever you go.

Watch this interesting TED Talk to learn more about rhetoric and how it can enable you to grab the attention of your audience:

MAJOR NEWS: Newark is a finalist for Amazon HQ2!!

SEATTLE — Amazon said on Thursday that it had whittled the list of possible homes for its second headquarters to 20, including centers of technology like Boston and some surprise locations like Columbus, Ohio.

The full list of finalists leans toward locations in the Midwest and South and on the East Coast, and away from the tech-saturated hubs of the West Coast. It includes:

Atlanta

Austin, Tex.

Boston

Chicago

Columbus, Ohio

Dallas

Denver

Indianapolis

Los Angeles

Miami

Montgomery County, Md.

Nashville

Newark

New York

Northern Virginia

Philadelphia

Pittsburgh

Raleigh, N.C.

Toronto

Washington, D.C.