Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Oh, Portland. For all of your well intended gathering and collaborating, it can be a bit of a challenge to figure out where to go and who to meet. That’s why I love stuff like Calagator where you can find anything and everything in a single resource. And now, if you’re pursuing a human-centered discipline, you’ve got a centralized resource of your own. Meet PDXHCD.
These days, I don’t know that many people underestimate the value of design. But many of us realize that we’re still not using it to its full potential. So if you’re one of those folks who wants to get more effective and more strategic about your design and design thinking, you might want to make time to attend the next Design Museum Mornings.
While it’s still a rarity, it’s always interesting to see Portland companies acquiring other companies. Especially when they’re other companies in town. We’ve seen it before with Cloudability acquiring RipFog. And now, we’re seeing Jama make a similar move in acquiring Notion.
I know I can be a bit of a broken record, what with my rosy outlook on the Portland startup community and all. So I always like to reference others who recognize the awesome people we have in our midst. Like when the folks behind the Zebra movement are recognized among the 30 women engaged in world changing efforts.
I’m not going to lie: I love that the increasing accessibility—both in terms of costs and programmability—of hardware is inspiring new and creative pursuits. Sometimes, they create new business concepts. Sometimes they’re just cool. And when folks give you an inside look at how they made it? That’s even cooler. Which is why I loved this LEGO Saturn V project writeup from Portland’s Asa Miller.
Startups can be hectic. And stressful. And unfortunately, that means that some very important things often get lost in the turmoil. Like culture. And managing your people and their professional growth. Worse yet, if you’re not taking care of those things early, they’re incredibly difficult to reverse engineer into your company later. That’s why, it’s great to see efforts like Human.School.
It’s a new year. Time to get out there and tell everyone about the awesome company you’re building. And around these parts, there are any number of opportunities to do exactly that. But there’s one chance to take the stage that promises a huge, international crowd of potential investors, partners, and customers: TechfestNW PitchfestNW.
Seems like Dylan Boyd started off the new year with a new publicist or something. Or maybe it’s just that folks are starting to realize what an undervalued asset he is to the Portland startup community. Either way. You get a double dose of Dylan for your weekend.