Silicon Florist

Greenlight Greater Portland: Startup delegation welcomes your input

Rick Turoczy | June 3, 2008

Greenlight Greater Portland is one of the newest economic development organizations in the Silicon Forest, focusing on Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, region. All told, that covers seven different metropolitan regions.

Now, it’s not often that you get to see the development of a development organization. And, I was a bit concerned that the board governing the organization, currently, is composed of more old-school and big-businesses types than creative-class and small-business types.

So when I saw that Greenlight Greater Portland was having a launch party, featuring (ironically enough) Richard Florida, I thought “What better time to make sure that they’re aware of all the cool Web startups in Portland and what they need?”

And with that wild hair, I worked on putting together a little “startup delegation” to attend the Greenlight Greater Portland event being held June 4 at the Portland Art Museum.

Here are some of the local folks who have been gracious enough to attend and help represent the startup angle:

• Nathan Bell, Intrigo
• Katherine Gray, Independent consultant
• Pete Grillo, Iterasi
• Chris Logan, Serial Entrepreneur
• Harvey Mathews, SAO
• Steve Morris, OTBC
• Joel Norvell, Vidoop
• Eva Schweber, CubeSpace

If you were there, what questions would you ask?

As always, I know that you, gentle reader, have some really good ideas, too. And while I wish we could all be there, there is only so much room.

So, I’d like to hear from you. What questions would you like this group to raise? What concerns should be highlighted? How would you like to see this development organization supporting startups?

Please feel free to use the comments below to raise issues and questions. Or feel free to contact any of the delegates above to bend his or her respective ear with your opinions.

I’ll provide a wrap-up post following the event to let you know how things went.