This lovely morning I schlepped myself across Chicago to meet
with several people who are building something that is hard to
quantify. It’s not a quite an incubator, although the companies
that it houses are relatively young. It’s not a coworking space
either, but some individual people who are deemed excellent will
be allowed to work from there. It’s also not a normal office
space, as it’s designed to let companies share resources, and
grow by helping each other out.  There’s not really a name for
it, in other words. It’s creators just call it Catapult.  The
idea was hatched when two of its three founders were vamping
over the issues that they had, and how it would be great to have
space where they could work nearby, but not on top of one
another. Later, law firm Foley & Lardner offered up a massive
tract of office space for the project. And thus Catapult was
born.  Currently six companies reside in Catapult, but more are
coming. Roughly forty people work in the space, but that will be
ramped up to 100. I as