Justin Kistner writes “Friends, we have been Beer and Blogging it since the beginning of the year. After almost 8 months, I think we finally have a predictable format. Here’s what I’m thinking we’ll do…”
Louis Gray writes “I just got off the phone with my friend Chris and we talked about how we hardly blog anymore. Also about how nothing seems that exciting in tech lately. It’s mostly about Google and the iPhone over and over. Are we just cynical or have things quieted down considerably?”
Portland-based blogger extraordinaire, Marshall Kirkpatrick, is well-known for his investigative skills, his objective reporting, and his almost Barnum-esque flare for hinting at the “big news” he’s just about to publish.
So when @marshallk sent the following tweet on Thursday night…
Let’s do the business thing first and the personal thing second, because I’ll probably get all gooby and misty by the end of this thing.
Marshall Kirkpatrick joins ReadWriteWeb full-time as Vice President of Content Development
Marshall has served in a part-time role as Lead Writer at ReadWriteWeb for nearly year, helping the publication climb the ranks of the tech blogs—and truly all blogs—to crack the top 10 of “most linked” blogs worldwide and to a near-permanent residence in the top 10 of the Techmeme Leader Board.
Marshall’s effect on ReadWriteWeb has clearly been felt. And, as such, his promotion to Vice President of Content Development is both timely and well deserved. Bringing him on as a full-time employee will only strengthen his ability to contribute to the publication.
So what will this new role entail? And does it mean we’ll see less of Marshall’s posts? Richard MacManus, RWW founder, described Marshall’s new role:
The grand title reflects Marshall’s senior position within ReadWriteWeb, where he will be responsible for driving a lot of our upcoming content developments. These include premium content, publishing system enhancements, and more magic things. Marshall will also continue to be ReadWriteWeb’s Lead Writer, so don’t worry his writing isn’t taking a backseat at all. He will be going full-time at RWW sometime over the next couple of weeks.
There’s no telling what Marshall has up his sleeve. But, before too long, we’re sure to see some of that Kirkpatrick magic beginning to wend its way into regular rotation on RWW:
I am really excited about getting to bring some of my other ideas to fruition with a team of good people and Richard’s support, though…. I think many of you will really like what you see us come up with over at ReadWriteWeb.
In my opinion, this is a shrewd and necessary move for the ReadWriteWeb team. Embracing one of the leading bloggers in the industry and giving him more control over the content on the site will only help RWW continue its ascent in the tech blog world.
That, and I never get tired of hard workers getting just rewards for their efforts.
Tech jobs come and go. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started chasing the next shiny Web 2.0 bauble.
So that’s why it’s I take a distinct pleasure in reporting truly important news like Marshall’s and Mikalina’s engagement.
Marshall puts the announcement in context:
Most important, I’m getting married to my partner Mikalina! Many of my work contacts here on the blog haven’t met Mikalina but many of you have. She’s wonderful and I love her very much.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with Marshall as a consultant, as my blogging mentor, and—yes—even as an entrepreneur on the receiving end of his objective reviews. But for all of that fun, learning, and excitement, I always feel luckiest about the fact that I get to count Marshall among my friends.
And there’s nothing better than seeing friends happy.
(See? I told you I’d get all gooby.)
So congrats to Mr. Kirkpatrick on two very exciting—and life altering—announcements. I can’t wait to see where he goes from here.
And, I can’t tell you how much I love it when this kind of stuff hits Techmeme.
Likely if you’ve ever spent any time working in Web design and development—or if you’ve ever had the opportunity to wrestle with some CSS or make your code jump through some hoops—you’ve come across A List Apart.
In 1997, web developer Brian M. Platz and I started the A List Apart mailing list because we found the web design mailing lists that were already out there to be too contentious, too careerist, or too scattershot. There was too much noise, too little signal. We figured, if we created something we liked better, maybe other people would like it too. Within months, 16,000 designers, developers, and content specialists had joined our list.
It’s fairly safe to say that there are few more influential sites out there when it comes to developing and designing the Web.
Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.
Via the Jama Software blog “Not surprising, companies are using more Web 2.0 tools and technologies now than they were last year. The latest survey results from The McKinsey Quarterly on “Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise” illustrate the growing investments in Web 2.0 technologies.”
Mike Rogoway writes “Seattle VC firm Voyager Capital is moving its Hillsboro office to downtown Portland, and will name former Tektronix exec Diane Fraiman partner to run the office.”
Via The 451 Group blog “I wrote recently about the potential of open source software as a platform for cloud computing. Since then I’ve been involved in a couple of conversations with prospective cloud users that have further highlighted the opportunity for an open source cloud.”
It’s no secret that one of the best things about Portland is the summer weather. (Although the past few days have been working at doing a pretty job of keeping that secret.) It’s also no secret that the more technically inclined spend more time absorbing rays from their respective monitors than they do from that burning orb in the sky.
So, if you’re a coder and you need something enticing to draw you away from the dull glow of your favorite machine, look no further than the Summer Coders’ Social, a language and framework agnostic gathering of Portland’s coding community, this Sunday, August 3, at Laurelhurst Park.
The first Coders Social was last December, Winter Coders Social (photos). It was the result of many of the scripting language User Groups “Taking the month off” from their regular meetings and instead “having a party”. The event was a great success so we thought we would do something this summer. Coders Summer Social is the outdoor, sunny, successor of that winter event. The goal is a very casual, geek social event. BBQ, games, and conversation.
C’mon. That code will wait for a few more hours. Why not take a few minutes this Sunday to hang out with some other coders?
Sponsor Mozilla will provide hamburgers, hot dogs, and vegetarian BBQ fare. The rest? Potluck. You’re a coder. Go build something in the kitchen, too. Beverages are your responsibility, as well.
Portland-based Jive Software has been a bit quiet as of late. Which is always a good sign that folks are up to something.
Part of that “something” was clearly their move to a new office space. And this morning, we discovered another part of that something in the form of a new offering, Clearstep:
Clearstep is the first of its kind online community, powered by Jive’s own Clearspace product, for social and enterprise 2.0 practitioners. Now these professionals have a place to interact, share best practices, and gain access to a much wider range of perspectives on common community and collaboration issues. Clearstep is intended for all social and enterprise 2.0-focused professionals, including Jive customers.
Ever wish you could find someone working on social media or Enterprise 2.0 efforts at other companies, same as you? Wish you could pick their brain about how the heck they justified the implementation cost? Found that elusive ROI? Tricks to get employees to use it? Best way to communicate your new online community to your brand fanbase?
The fringe benefits for Jive hosting the site are immediately evident. Not only do they get a bunch of leading social media specialists talking it up about enterprise adoption of social media in Jive’s backyard, they also get those experts having that conversation while using Jive’s product.
Which, aesthetically, I might add—thanks to the work of Michael Sigler and his design team (specifically Chris Kalani)—is one of the most beautiful corporate Web apps around.
It’s an interesting experiment, to be sure. But the question for me remains: Do people involved in social media experts—especially those within the enterprise—like talking to one another as much as they like talking to non-expert social media types? That remains to be seen.
[Update]Gia Lyons was kind enough to stop by and clarify this point. The community is actually for everyone—not “experts” as I had incorrectly concluded. So this truly becomes a social network focused on social media, open to anyone who is interested in participating. Obviously, the community was seeded with experts because, well, I mean who else would you seed it with?
Interested in participating in the Clearstep community?
If you are someone interested in social media expert pursing that ever elusive “Enterprise 2.0” and Clearstep has sparked your interest, why not consider joining the community and giving it a test drive? Clearstep registration is currently open. Jive has done a great job of seeding the community, pre-launch, so that there is plenty of existing content in which you can root around.
If you don’t have any lunch plans today, you might want to take the opportunity to swing by CubeSpace at noon to have “Lunch with a VC.”
Come hang out with Epic Ventures to learn more about VC funding. Bring questions! We’ll have 45 min. of Q&A, then head out to lunch as a group.
Carolynn Duncan of Epic Ventures will host this first-of-many-to-come event as a way of introducing herself to the Portland startup and entrepreneurial community.
Via the BlinkGeo blog “Call it visionary if you will (or perhaps just a 5 minute online detour I took a while back), but I had forgotten that I had set up a Geospatial social network on Ning.”
Via the ma.gnolia blog “Every so often we take a look at some of the new people in the Ma.gnolia community in the past few months, and try to spot some good people for the Featured Linker space. We look for people with diverse interests, who we find interesting to follow and think you might as well. Some are geeky, some are the farthest thing from it, some are in-between, but they’re all interesting in their own right, and they’re all close by in our corner of the interwebs.”
Via the RailsEnvy blog “Last week at O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention (OSCON) I decided to put together a video attempting to capture the essence of the event (I did something similar with Railsconf in 36 minutes earlier this year). I ended up with is 37 minute video of great speakers including the keynoters Tim O’Reilly, Damien Conway, Tim Bray, Robert Lefkowitz, David Recordon, Nathan Torkington, and Danese Cooper. “
Via the Intrigo blog “In case you’ve noticed that we’ve been a little light on the posts recently, it’s all because our great clients have been keeping us so busy. In fact, so busy we’ve got three big launches coming up in August! Here’s just enough to start whetting your appetite…”
From the Platial blog “Raven Zachary, man about town when it comes to all things iPhone, has his watchful eye on the iTunes App Store basically 24/7. He pinged us this morning with the delightful news that our app, Nearby, is making it’s debut right on the front page today.”
Alex Iskold writes “The genius of Murakami is in his discipline, focus and determination. I see him as a virtual Zen master – an embodiment of wisdom, passion, skills and exceptional will. The elements of his work and life story are inspirational and (here’s where ReadWriteWeb comes in) particularly applicable when you’re running a startup. Therefore in this post, we take a look at what modern technology startups can learn from this Japanese literary master.”
Is OpenID a panacea, a placebo, or something in between? Opposing viewpoints took turns on center stage Wednesday afternoon at OSCON 2008. The session entitled “A Critical View of OpenID” started off as anything but critical, but once the audience got its turn to raise questions, things got more interesting.
And I would really, truly be honored if you had a few moments to attend.
I’m planning to hold it August 13. And CubeSpace has been kind of enough to offer up space for the event.
I’m really hoping you can make it.
Do I sound desperate? Good. Because I am.
Rest assured, I’ve got a couple of other things up my sleeve. So, hopefully, there will be a free lunch and a little bit more.
But in any case, it would be really nice to see you. I mean, we’ve been so busy this summer. And I want to make sure that you’re doing okay. Oh, and I want to have you meet some of the other folks who make Portland such a cool place for startups.
One other thing? Holding this event in August is kind of special to me, because one year ago this August, I woke up at 2 AM, registered a surprisingly available URL, and started Silicon Florist.
So, this is a celebration of sorts. An anniversary. Or a birthday. Or whatever you want to call it.
It would be great to see you on August 13. Please take a moment to save the date by RSVPing on Upcoming for this get together. And soon, there will be more exciting news about what’s happening. Maybe.
Tell your friends. Everyone is welcome. Techie or not.
Looking forward to seeing you there.
P.S. If you’re a Web-based, Web-oriented, or Mobile-based startup in the Silicon Forest—whether I’ve had the opportunity to cover you or not—why not take a few moments to send a logo to siliconflorist at gmail? I’d like to see if we can’t work on getting your name out there at this event.
Via the Strands blog “Drew [Olanoff] is joining Strands as Community Manager / Evangelist, his job is to increase the number of Strands enthusiasts and to spread Strands awesomeness. Easy.”
Audrey Eschright writes “One of the things I realized during OSCON was that I had yet to see a central place to point people to for info on running user groups and tech events, that wasn’t specific to a particular place or technology. There are sites on how to start an Apple User Group, and for Portland we’ve gathered notes on our local tech scene, but we could use something a little broader. The Open Community wiki is a stab at addressing this.”
Amber Case writes “What’s creative and groundbreaking, and capable of topping iPhone buzz on Twitter? It’s Cre8Camp, the inaugural unconference that brought 50 creatives to SOUK, [last] Saturday. Within the first hour of introduction and networking, about 24 topics were developed for discussion, and groups of creatives went off to various conferences rooms and hallways to delve into some of the most intense dilemmas, new media techniques, and social prerogatives that currently exist.”
Steve Morris writes “Portland is no Cleveland — but it might need a little “goosing”, and the Jumpstart approach might be an interesting fit for the creative and sometimes vc-resistant tech culture in Portland. Your thoughts?”
Greg Hughes writes “Over on the Internet Evolution site I recently wrote an article discussing the fact that MySpace is becoming an OpenID provider. Of note is the fact that they will be provider-only, and not a relying party, at least initially. This is a trend we’ve seen with other big companies like Yahoo!, and many of us are not-too-patiently waiting for these companies to start trusting and relying upon other organizations, so the utopia of user-controlled Internet single-sign-on can become a reality.”
