--- title: 'Manic Monday: UX Tweetup, Open Source Bridge volunteer meeting, and Failures, Conjectures & Closure' date: '2011-04-04T10:00:18-07:00' type: post word_count: 576 char_count: 3566 tokens: 749 categories: - Events - Oregon - Portland tags: - 'alex payne' - 'open source bridge' - PIE - TweetUp - ux - 'whitney hess' --- # Manic Monday: UX Tweetup, Open Source Bridge volunteer meeting, and Failures, Conjectures & Closure Well, it must be spring. Because there are tech events cropping up all over. And this week is starting off with a bang. Problem being? Conflicts. You’ve got to pick and choose your activities for tonight. Your choices? Well, tonight, you’ve got three big ones (and probably others I’ve missed). There’s a [UX Tweetup at the Green Dragon with Whitney Hess](http://twitter.com/#!/whitneyhess/status/54757543481843712 "Whitney Hess UX Tweetup"), an [Open Source Bridge volunteer meeting at Lucky Lab Overlook Tap Room](http://calagator.org/events/1250459855 "Open Source Bridge volunteer meeting"), and [Failures, Conjectures & Closure](http://plancast.com/p/4kv6 "Failures, Conjectures & Closure") at [PIE](http://piepdx.com "PIE"). What’s that? Oh yes. It would be nice to have some details, wouldn’t it? Let’s get to that. First, Whitney… > My name is Whitney Hess and I’m a user experience designer. I make websites, software, mobile applications, and gadgets easier to use by figuring out what people really need and how they really think. > Remember that website where you got totally lost and frustrated and gave up before you got anything done? That was a bad user experience, and it’s my mission in life to erase those from the planet. Instead we’ll replace them with digital experiences that enrich your life and make you smile and allow you to do whatever you do best, whatever that might be. And she’s in town. So a little Tweetup is in order. At 6 PM at the [Green Dragon](http://goo.gl/maps/y571 "Green Dragon"). Next choice? Open Source Bridge volunteer meetup… > Come learn about volunteer opportunities at this year’s Open Source Bridge, get an update on our progress so far, and meet some of the core team and socialize with other volunteers. That’s up on N Killingsworth at [Lucky Lab Overlook Tap Room](http://goo.gl/maps/hx5u "Lucky Lab Overlook Tap Room") at 6:30 PM. And finally Update PDX: Failures, Conjectures & Closure… > Act 1: Failing – Our guests share their shame, as they tell the tale an IT failure they were personally involved in. > Act 2: Making Sense – Tim Anglade recaps the state, level & tenor of the database discussion, drawing from the fourty interviews he conducted with vendors, deployers & cool dudes for the NOSQL Tapes. He’ll cover the disjointed but slowly converging technical efforts, the confusing marketing talk, the ill-advised attempts and emerging lessons from NOSQL & beyond. > Act 3: Building – Our guests put on the ascott, dust off their snifters, grab a leather chair and join Tim for a fireside chat about what it means to use & build complex data systems today. From the pitfalls to avoid, to the rules you can live by, all drawn from their current experiences building & maintaining large data systems. Speakers include [Sarah Novotny](http://twitter.com/sarahnovotny "Sarah Novotny") of Blue Gecko, Alex Payne of BankSimple, [Bradford Stephens](http://twitter.com/lusciouspear "Bradford Stephens") of Drawn to Scale, and [Tim Anglade](http://twitter.com/timanglade) of Cloudant. It begins at 6 PM at [PIE](http://goo.gl/maps/Vd8m "Portland Incubator Experiment"). Oh. And you’re welcome for the refrain “Just another manic Monday…” stuck in your head. (I had to remind you in case you’d forgotten.) *([Image courtesy Stu Seeger](http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuseeger/88102117/). Used under Creative Commons.)*