I feel really lucky to get the chance to ask a bunch of Portland social media heavyweights some questions at an upcoming OEN Pub Talk. “From Facebook to blogging to Twitter, it seems that social media is everywhere, as is the pressure to participate in this burgeoning “Web 2.0” world. It’s no wonder that every business is contemplating how—and why—they should be involved. Join OEN and its social media panel to gain a deeper understanding of social media, its benefits, and its potential pitfalls. We’ll share the rules of the road and etiquette for entrepreneurs and companies interested in participating in these online communities.”
Amber Case writes “I’ll be live-tweeting, podcasting, and blogging from the event. That is, if there is any time between meeting and greeting amazing people.”
I really like the idea that Jason Harris came up with while sitting at Gnomedex. Jason writes “Why don’t we start a PDX job shadowing effort? The shadows could be either for a full day, half a day, or just a couple of hours. Two people who are paired for a shadowing could meet either at one’s office or a coffee shop, or whatever.”
Via the Cloud Four blog “We’re pleased to announce the Mobile Wall Street Journal launched today. This application was developed by FreeRange Communications and the user interface was designed by Cloud Four.”
Via the Extensis blog “In 2003 a graduate student at Portland State University collected data about companies in our area and discovered Intel and Tektronix were sort of the “Kevin Bacon” figures on the local scene-if you went back far enough it all came down to one or the other…. Why am I going on about a poster from 2003? Because five years later it has been updated and just like last time we are totally on the list!”
There are a bunch of Portland types up in Seattle at Gnomedex, right now, so it was nice to see our own Josh Bancroft set up a room on FriendFeed to monitor the event. Josh writes “Turns out there’s already official Gnomedex 8.0 room, but this one will have lots of chatter from Twitter, FriendFeed, etc.”
Iterasi, the currently Vancouver-based but soon to be Portland-based company that allows you to create your own personal Web archive, has released the latest version of its service. And some people are taking notice. [Full disclosure: Iterasi is a client of mine.]
Use the iterasi Scheduler to automatically Notarize pages when you tell it to, without having to be there to push the button. Set up the Scheduler to Notarize a page every day, week or month at a time that you choose. Great for tracking blogs, reviews, retail sites, and just about anything you can think of. Use the Scheduler to build your own history of any website!
No more switching over to my Windows machine to save pages. With the latest release, I can do it right from my Mac. Simple.
Now, granted, I’m a little biased since Iterasi is a client, but I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see another Silicon Forest based company—joining the ranks of Vidoop and others—getting recognition on such an international stage.
Data and identity theft due to mobile phone theft and vulnerabilities are rising concerns. However, with both businesses and developers mobile security usually takes a back seat to features, convenience and time-to-market. Ken Westin, the Founder and CTO of GadgetTrak, will lead a spirited discussion touching on mobile security and privacy.
Paul Graham writes “Raising money is the second hardest part of starting a startup. The hardest part is making something people want: most startups that die, die because they didn’t do that. But the second biggest cause of death is probably the difficulty of raising money. Fundraising is brutal.”
Jason Harris writes “This weekend, the best social media/web culture conference of the year, Gnomedex gets underway in Seattle. For those of you unaware, Gnomedex is a 2-day social media conference hosted by Chris and Ponzi Pirillo. This conference is not driven by a corporate message, rather it’s just a bunch of geeks getting together to talk about our craft(s) and geek out.”
Julian Chadwick writes “Luckily, I was able to meet up with Heather of Strands.com this week. Lucky for you that is because Strands is giving away MusicFest NW wristbands–those are like $50…all because we/they love you.”
Oregon Media Insiders elicits a string of comments after mentioning oregonlive.com’s pending redesign “So, the Big O has been listening to us – and are preparing a re-launch of the website. Of course, they’re getting the re-launch after several other newspapers in the chain get the makeover. The good news: it looks different. The bad news: it looks the same.”
So, come on down all you WordPress-o-philes or WordPress curious types. And get all signed up to spend a full day discussing the WordPress platform, plugins, themes, RSS, and more with some of the Portland WordPress faithful.
WordCamp Portland will be held at CubeSpace on September 27th. You can head over to the Agenda page to check out the details, but we’ll kick things off with a couple large-group speakers including Lorelle Van Fossen as our keynote speaker. The middle of the day will feature several small-group breakout sessions with a variety of topics. Attendees can pose WordPress questions to our “Ask the Experts” panel before dinner [featuring yours truly in my ever popular “nodding and smiling but not really saying anything” role]. After dinner, we’ll have a bunch of rooms available for unconference-style sessions to be determined by the attendees on the day of the event.
This all-day conference will cost you a mere 10 dollars – which includes a t-shirt, meals, and beer. Yes, there will be beer – in fact, Our PDX Network is more than happy to be ponying up for a keg (or two) to help support WordPress Portland…!
I know I speak for all the sponsors and organizers when I say that we’re looking forward to having you at WordCamp Portland. So why not take a couple of seconds to register? Space is limited. First come, first served.
Via Silicon Valley Insider highlights a new mobile product that has some deep Portland ties. “Yes, newspapers are screwed. But that isn’t stopping some of them from coming up with some really interesting digital projects. So far we’ve seen the New York Times release a slew of cool gizmos and gadgets. But the Wall Street Journal’s Mobile Reader is easily our favorite to date.”
It’s not often that Portland gets random “Internet famous” types swinging through town. I mean, yes, we have quite a few Internet famous types who live here, but we’re not often on the “swing through” route for those that don’t.
“Wait a second,” you’re saying. “On the Silicon Florist podcast, you said this gig was Monday Monday Monday!”
Well, you’re right. It was originally scheduled for Monday. But schedules being what they are, the event had to be moved up to Sunday. Same bat time, same bat brew pub. Just a different day.
But let’s get back to Sarah, shall we?
Lacy has been a reporter in Silicon Valley for nearly a decade, covering everything from the tiniest startups to the largest public companies. She writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek.com called “Valley Girl” and is co-host of Yahoo! Finance’s Tech Ticker.
And the book? It’s been incredibly well received.
“Happily, one intrepid reporter, Sarah Lacy, stayed on — and she now has given us what will likely be the only real record of what happened during that remarkable era. Her portrayals of the founders of companies such as Facebook and Twitter are dead-on, and her reporting will no doubt be a vital source on this amazing time for generations to come. ”
– Michael S. Malone, author of Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company
So, much like the opportunity we had to meet with Garyvee not too long ago and like the missed opportunity with Charlene Li, I see this as a big opportunity for the entire Portland tech community to put its best foot forward in welcoming Sarah to town.
But there’s another important aspect to this. As much as I hate to admit it, there simply are not enough women’s voices in tech. Sarah is one of those voices, and a strong one at that. One that holds its own with the likes of Tara Hunt, Li, Kathy Sierra, and Kara Swisher.
Likewise, in Portland, I’ve always been terribly impressed by the number of incredibly strong women’s voices we have in our own tech scene. Voices like Dawn Foster, Audrey Eschright, Selena Deckelmann, and Amber Case to name just a very, very few.
And, this event—in my opinion—would be a really, really good opportunity to shine a spotlight on that wealth of female tech talent we have in town. And I would really like to see that happen.
In my opinion, this is one of those rare opportunities to give some new folks a view of what makes Portland so special. An opportunity to share our town. And an opportunity to give a brief glimpse into the incredible tech community in this town.
And you know, I’m all about making people appreciate what’s happening in the Portland tech scene.
I realize that it’s Sunday (trust me, I’ll be busting my hump to make it back to town after Gnomedex). And I realize that you may already have some stuff planned. And the shift in time doesn’t help.
But let’s try to make this happen, Portland.
So please join Sarah Lacy, me, and (hopefully) a full patio of people at the Green Dragon, Sunday, August 24 at 6:00 PM.
One of the regular fixtures of the burgeoning Portland Web tech scene has been Troy Harlan (@theInfovore), a recent transplant from the Bay Area.
And time and time again, I would hear the inevitable small-talk question arise. “So… where do you work?” And time and time again, Troy would respond that he was “looking for the right thing to come along.”
Last week, Harlan hinted that the wait might be at an end, but that he “didn’t want to jinx it.”
Well, it looks like the waiting has paid off. And how.
Troy will be joining Portland-based Vidoop on September 2nd as Senior Sales Engineer. He will serve as a primary technical resource for Vidoop’s newest customers, helping them through their integration testing and shepherding them into production.
Mitch Savage, Troy’s new boss, shares that Vidoop was eager to work with Troy because of “his strong technical chops and his broad experience with system integrations.”
“The hardest thing about bringing Troy on is that his start date occurs during Vidoop’s all-company move to Portland,” said Savage. “But we’re making it work. That’s how much we wanted Troy on board.”
Congratulations to Troy on his new gig. And congrats to Vidoop on continuing to snap up the best and brightest in town.
Via the iterasi blog “Come join iterasi as we travel on a converted school bus from Portland’s verdant valley to the maritime climate of Seattle for Gnomedex, arguably the best geek event you will ever find. Check out our Facebook page for the full details.”
Via Portland Octopus “On Saturday, August 23, Free Geek Community Technology Center will celebrate eight years of operation with a Street Party. Geek Fair 2008 Is a free event for all ages.”
Suspend your disbelief about the fact that Paul Biggs needs to get out more as he states “I am so excited. Hunkered down here at the Jive HQ (Club Fed), our whole team has been cranking like never before. Engineering, Marketing, Product, Sales, you name it — everyone has been heads down building, testing, re-mixing, and giving feedback on our Clearspace platform.”
Dawn Foster writes “I’ve found that many of the Twitter search services are unreliable, and they return different results when searched. Even Twitter’s own search misses some tweets. This pipe currently combines three separate Twitter search engines into one result with duplicates filtered out and everything sorted by date.”
Josh Bancroft writes “The coolest thing about all of this? The idea for Ignite Portland was hatched at last year’s Gnomedex. They highlighted some of the previous evening’s Ignite Seattle talks, and I loved them. The energy and excitement were off the charts, and I immediately started thinking (and Twitter-ing) about how awesome it would be to do an Ignite event in Portland. Connections and plans were made, venues were filled to capacity, Legion of Tech was born, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
It’s a release that marks a decided step forward for one of the darlings of the Portland startup community.
In my opinion, it’s always a smart move to “let people work where they’re comfortable” while providing tools that extract and share data with the enterprise as a whole. Clearspace 2.5 does this in spades, ensuring that Clearspace has a more deeply integrated position among a number of traditional enterprise communications tools.
Just as important, the release marks a decided move from Clearspace as a tangential and “nice to have” social media service to the role of aggregator and “nerve center” for all communications within the enterprise. A role which Jive’s CMO, Sam Lawrence, describes as moving from a presence in the organization to full-fledged “ubiquity.”
But what exactly does that mean? Well, let’s let Jive tell it:
[HTML1]
According to VentureBeat, these seemingly straightforward improvements are all the more powerful in combination:
None of the features are all that innovative on their own, but collectively they mark a smart move forward. For one thing, users can now participate in discussions, check updates and more via text message or email, so Clearspace becomes more accessible and useful outside the office. In addition, Clearspace now integrates with customer relationship manage (CRM) service Salesforce.com, so a Salesforce customer account page can show relevant activity and information from within Clearspace. Finally, it’s now much easier to enable Clearspace-managed customer comments on any webpage by just adding a few lines of code.
We have to stop thinking of social software as an island. It’s going to be part of the fabric, and that requires integration points, connectivity to the way people create business processes, and flexible enough to fit within an organization’s existing business styles. I saw lots of that in Jive’s latest release, and Sam talked about the company’s further efforts in that department for future visions.
I know the Jive team—quiet as they have been—has been very much “heads down” working on this release. And, as a testament to that focus, they’ve released some very impressive features. What’s more, those features definitely embed Jive’s products more deeply into the enterprise environment.
Hopefully—for Jive’s sake and for Portland’s sake—we’ll see some forward thinking organizations jump at the chance to have this kind of social media interactivity behind the corporate walls, informing the actions of the employees. I’d like to think it could happen. And I hope it happens sooner rather than later.
.