March 18, 2011


Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) is the largest flexible office facility for growing technology and life sciences companies in the Greater Boston area. CIC offers start-up and emerging companies award-winning facilities and state-of-the-art business and technical services in a package which is designed to meet the needs of small and growing businesses.

Mission critical for CIC is providing a collaborative, flexible work space for their residents. There are over 1,200 residents at CIC, spread over seven floors of their impressive Kendall Square office, all with different needs. Part of Google Android started at CIC, as did HubSpot. These are residents who demand dynamic work environments to grow their businesses.

"At CIC, what we do is manage facilities, and they need to be among the best in the world," says Founder and CEO Tim Rowe. "As you walk around the building, what you'll see is a large number of social areas and different types of working spaces. We are very much a campus for start-ups, everywhere you look there is going to be an entrepreneur on a cell phone or on a laptop. Whatever those people need to be comfortable and productive, whether it is a shower room, a nursing room or conference facilities, that is what we try and provide for them."

CIC is the site of the first commercial application of IdeaPaint. It now covers almost every wall of every conference room and co-working space. Thousands of square feet. "These days when we bring a new floor online, we paint all the the conference rooms and shared paces with IdeaPaint," continues Rowe. "When you walk around it seems like every surface is IdeaPaint!"

"Before we got IdeaPaint, we experimented with a vinyl wall covering, and it did not erase well. What we were looking for was a continuous whiteboard surface that came completely clean, so it looked like a plain white wall when it was erased. That's what we got with IdeaPaint."

"In a creative environment, a meeting is not just a meeting. You are not just presenting predictable or known ideas, but are trying to present new ideas all the time. Typically everyone in the room is actively engaged in the content, and so for someone be able to just turn around in their chair to the nearest wall and start sketching out an idea, concept, or diagram of a product, that's just natural and it feels like it should have always been that way. Makes us wonder where this product was all of our lives."

Contact IdeaPaint to see how we can help turn your office into a more flexible, dynamic environment!


Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.