Diane Moca: Is it hard for you to be created when you're not surrounded by the right vibe? Well, today we're talking about how to build that vibe, right? Welcome to our Creator Economy, Entrepreneur Learning series. I'm Diane Moca, reporter at TalkLab in Aurora, Illinois, and I'm with our CEO, Jimi Allen, who is commoditizing creativity by promoting this so-called third place. So it's not home. It's not work. It's like an aspirational utopia where people can watch their dreams come to life. Wow. I want to go there. So how do you make others look and feel great by hosting events and doing videos and bringing them into this third place? Jimi Allen: Well, there's so many ways to jump into this, but I always think of the Art Institute. Whenever I go to the Art Institute, it sort of sorbets bays my creative palette and I don't bring a lot of preconceived thoughts there. I tend to walk through a gallery and see something that's been curated and it really sets my mind on what it is that I'm looking at. And so, what the third place concept is that if you're hanging out in a place that's normal for you, that's become routine, that you don't notice things. It's very hard to be creative in those spaces because you don't have the full compliment of what inspires you. Those things aren't stimulating you. So not to be too philosophical about it, I mean, you really just need to be in a studio. Right? That's what studios are all about. They're clean slates, great pallets that you can start with. You need all your tools around you, you need the white boards to think, you need the cameras, the open space, you need food and beverages. You need things around you to do that. But you don't want to be in an overly familiar space. So that's what I think the third place concept is and why Bureau Gravity has been built the way it has. Diane Moca: To create that third place. Jimi Allen: Yeah. Diane Moca: And one of the things that you're doing and you want to do more of in that third place is workshops. Why do they fit so well into that third place? Jimi Allen: Well, this is the time that we're in, where everybody needs to be creative online. And creativity isn't just being wild. It isn't doing something out of the box. It's probably taking your real estate business, or it could be any kind of thing that you're selling, anything that's your business, where you need to think about how do you produce that? How do you produce the message around that? And that's why we're in a place right now where workshopping those concepts is so important because you're not going to know how to do that on your own. And it'll take away from your existing cash flow in your business, because now you're learning how to do what we do. So if you come into this environment, we're going to surround you with people that know how to use the tools and have the physical ability in the space to produce what it is that you want to share. Diane Moca: And this isn't something that just you are doing, others can do it and want to do it as well. Jimi Allen: Yeah. Diane Moca: And you say, when you're creating a third place, you're also creating community. So how can others create that community and create that third place themselves? Jimi Allen: Well, on your own I think, again, it's difficult. You got to build a system to do that. But a lot of times when I'm talking to clients, they've become very familiar and connected to different people on our staff because that particular person or group of people has worked intimately on whatever the entrepreneur is trying to do. And I think that's how you build that community at that level. But things are going to get bigger. I think people are going to do more shows, they're going to try to own more, experience real estate on the internet. They're not going to just think of their website as a brochure, a place you put some content and you never go back to it. And I hope we do away with the news button that no one can really support. And we start doing things on the internet that become active productions, that your customers will look forward to seeing, and that'll build community as well. So community is having conversations. It's being around people, getting familiar with them, and then you basically build affection for things in community. So, that has to happen actively. And it takes time to do that. Diane Moca: Mm-hmm. Jimi Allen: Yeah. Diane Moca: And you talked about being online, so can a third place be virtual as well as physical? Jimi Allen: Yeah. I think that's what they've proven with all these social platforms is that people get familiar and they just get lost in binging on Netflix or binging on Facebook Watch or whatever it is, and Instagram. Those are third places for sure. But to start to realize that you're going to have both, you're going to have a physical and a digital third place, and if you can create that for your business, you create that space where people can go to hear about, again, your real estate business or your law business or whatever it is that you're doing. Diane Moca: Your city? Jimi Allen: Your city, yeah. Any of those platforms are places where people can be in their own community or their tribe. And Malcolm Gladwell talked about that. But getting into a place where people understand you and you're understanding them is a much more satisfying space to be in than just being misunderstood. It's really hard. I mean, people struggle from being misunderstood. And we have kind of made that more difficult for people to deal with finding those groups because there's so many of them. There's so much expertise in so many different groups, the Facebook group versus the Instagram group, different age groups. But if you find your tribe and you find your community, you're going to be much happier with what you do. And of course, if you run a business, you need to find that you need to create that audience and build towards that audience that needs your service Diane Moca: And then creativity flows from that. Jimi Allen: Exactly. Diane Moca: Right? Jimi Allen: Yeah. Diane Moca: Yeah. Jimi Allen: That's right. Diane Moca: All right. Jimi Allen: Yeah. Diane Moca: Thanks Jimmy. And thanks to you for joining us in this edition of the Creator Economy, Entrepreneur Learning series. For Talking Cities, I'm Diane Moca.