Silicon Florist

SXSW 2008: Silicon Forest contingent making the sojourn to Austin

Rick Turoczy | March 6, 2008

It’s hard to believe that the annual geek pilgrimage to Austin, Texas, is almost upon us. That’s right, it’s time for SXSW 2008. The geeky portion of the event, SXSW interactive, begins on Friday, March 7 and runs until Tuesday, March 11.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of Portland and Silicon Forest folks who make the journey down to the event on a regular basis. This year is no different. There’s even a breakfast get-together for Oregon folks organized by Portland Web Innovators.

With all of the folks in attendance, I thought it might be valuable to have a list of what companies and what folks will be down in Austin. (If you don’t appear and would like to be listed, please comment, and I’ll work on updating the list.)

Silicon Forest companies down at SXSW include:

• Bend’s EllisLab, makers of ExpressionEngine, who will be sneak-peeking, hosting, labbing, and a heck of a lot more down there.
• Portland’s CDBaby
• Portland’s eROI
• Portland’s ISITE Design. James Keller will be down there.
• Portland’s Vidoop, who will be soliciting feedback and starting conversations on Data Portability and a variety of other pursuits. Scott Kveton and Luke Sontag will be in attendance.

As far as individuals headed down that way, I know of:

• Dave Allen from Pampelmoose
• Josh Bancroft from Intel
• Matt Beck from CouldBe Studios
• Adam DuVander from Portland Web Innovators
• Dawn Foster from Jive Software
• Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWrite Web
• Toby Lucich from Return
• Sean O’Brien from Western Pulp
• Hal Newton from Planar
• Schlockstar from Stumptown Confidential
• Lev Tsypin from Level OS
• Alex Williams from Iterasi

This list is by no means complete. Just what I know.

I mean, there are also a ton of Portland people from the creative industry headed down to SXSW. I lost count of the number of Wieden + Kennedy folks making the trip.

So, again, if you’re going down to Austin and you’d like people to know, post to the comments and I’ll continue to update this post.

And for all of you back home in Oregon, please stay tuned to SIlicon Florist for updates on the Silicon Forest contingent and their participation in SXSW. Or feel free to follow me on Twitter. There are sure to be some cool things happening.