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All posts by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy

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Venture to the ‘burbs for Lunch 2.0 at OTBC on Wednesday

Rick Turoczy on January 12, 2009


It’s been a while, so I’m sure your appetite for good grub and conversation has been whetted.

In case you’ve forgotten, we’re off to the OTBC in the ‘burbs (Beaverton) for the first Portland Lunch 2.0 hosted outside city limits. I saw Steve Morris at End Bloglessness this past weekend; he’s looking forward to showing off the new digs the OTBC recently inhabited in the swanky Beaverton Round.

If you’re sitting in Portland, lamenting the trip West, never fear; turns out the OTBC’s office is only about 100 feet from the MAX Blue Line Beaverton Central stop. And, Todd has graciously organized a Party Train to Lunch 2.0. So, you’re going to need a better excuse than usual to avoid going West.

But wait, there’s more. Wm Leler wants to take advantage to show off his new Open TechShop, and he’ll be organizing a side trip during the lunch for anyone interested. So much good stuff.

Update: A blurb from Wm himself:

Many people have heard about TechShop Portland opening up soon, and since it is close to OTBC we are arranging a tour of TechShop and OpenTechSpace after Lunch 2.0, so people can see how it is coming along and find out how they can help. If you are going to take MAX out to OTBC, we will be carpooling to TechShop and will return you to OTBC. Lots of progress is being made — TechShop had their first class last week, and OpenTechSpace has workbenches and is starting to acquire equipment and tools. TechShop has a new blog at http://portlandtechshop.com and OpenTechSpace is at http://opentechspace.org

Convinced yet? Just be sure to head over to Upcoming to RSVP and make sure to include a comment if you’re vegan/vegetarian. This will ensure Steve has enough of the right kinds of food for you.

Hope to see your smiling face there.

In other PDX Lunch 2.0 news, thanks to Aaron Hockley, our semi-official photographer, for the plug at WorkCamp Las Vegas this past weekend. Aaron was one of three Portlanders who were invited to speak (along with Geoff Kleinman and Lorelle VanFossen), and you can watch his session “Beyond Beer and Blog” here.

Also, AboutUs, our host for the very first PDX Lunch 2.0 last year, will be hosting our one year anniversary lunch in February. They have lots to celebrate, having just closed a round of venture funding last week.

Upcoming Portland Lunch 2.0s

Big thanks to all the hosts who have hosted or plan to host Lunch 2.0. I hope we can keep the Lunch 2.0 train rolling this year. Drop a comment (or tweet @jkuramot) if you want information about hosting one. It’s easy.

Ignite Portland 5: Five minutes of fame or 15 seconds of flame?

Rick Turoczy on January 12, 2009

Ignite Portland

Things are starting to heat up with Ignite Portland again. It’s almost time for Ignite Portland 5. Or as I like to call it, “el Cinco.”

This time around, Ignite is offering two ways to get your burning ideas in front of the crowd—five minutes of presentation magic or 15 seconds of screen time. Well, there are actually three ways to get your ideas in front of the crowd. But these are the two that are free.

Want five minutes? There’s still time to pitch your burning idea to the Ignite crew. You’ve got until January 24 to submit your talk idea.

Maybe something shorter and far less terror-inducing is more your speed? There’s a new format for Ignite Portland 5—“15 Seconds of Flame”—that may appeal to you:

Do you have something to share with Portland? Can you share it in 15 seconds? If so, here’s your chance to get your 15 Seconds of Flame! Send us a video of yourself sharing your “Flame”, and if it’s selected we’ll show it during Ignite Portland 5 on February 19th.

What can I share? Anything! Share an idea, a skill, a poem, or something you’re passionate about. Silly or serious- it’s up to you. Tell us your plan to save the world or why you love living in Portland, do shadow puppets, sing a really short song, bust a dance move or show Portland that you really can tie a cherry stem with your tongue. Be creative and be interesting.

What can’t I share? Nothing gross or “spammy” (promotional). We also tend to shy away from politics, religion and high pitched squealy noises.

Again, both options are absolutely free. What better way to share your ideas with more than 500 of your closest friends?

Flame or Fame? The choice is yours.

Submit a video by uploading it to a video site—I’d recommend Vimeo given their Portland connection—and tagging it “Legion of Tech”, “Ignite Portland” and “15 Seconds of Flame.” Then, send a link to the video to IgnitePDX@gmail.com. Make sure it gets there by February 3.

More into delivering your message in person? It’s an Ignite presentation for you, my friend. Submit a talk proposal by completing the proposal form. Again, the deadline for talk submissions is January 24.

I’m looking forward to seeing you on stage—in person or virtually—on February 19.

Jive Software hires McCracken as Senior Vice President of Sales, Lanfri joins Board

Rick Turoczy on January 12, 2009

Jive SoftwarePortland-based Jive Software recently announced that they have hired John McCracken as Senior Vice President of Sales. McCracken comes to Jive most recently from Inovis, a maker of supply chain management solutions. Prior to Inovis, he worked for Jive board member Tony Zingale at Mercury Interactive. Mercury was acquired by HP in 2006.

Jive CEO Dave Hersh says, “John is a hugely talented sales leader who has worked with most of our other execs during his time at Mercury.”

The company has also announced that Bill Lanfri has joined its Board. According to his bio:

Some of his more recent experience includes Operating Partner at Accel Partners from 2000 – 2003, during which time he served as CEO of the Accel / Sequoia investment Big Bear Networks from 2000 to 2001. Before joining Accel, he served in 1998 and 1999 as CEO of Avanex Corporation (NASDAQ: AVNX). Prior to Avanex, he was a founding investor and key advisor to RedBack Networks (NASDAQ: RBAK). He has served on numerous boards in both advisory and initial funding capacities, including network security company Network Alchemy, acquired by Nokia Corporation in early 2000.

For more on Jive’s leadership, see the bios of the management team and the Board.

Legion of Tech leadership shuffles a bit

Rick Turoczy on January 11, 2009

Legion of TechLegion of Tech—Portland’s benevolent free-tech-event organizer—has been refreshing the organization as of late with new Board members and a new Advisory Committee.

Now, they’re shuffling the upper ranks a tad.

What’s changed? Former Treasurer, Todd Kenefsky, has been elected Chair. Former Chair, Dawn Foster, is now Secretary. And Adam DuVander, who led the organization and management of the last Ignite Portland, has been named Treasurer. Raven Zachary, former Secretary, remains a member of the Board.

Congratulations to the new Officers! Err… Officer. And congrats to the old Officers in their new positions.

Portland presents at WordCamp Las Vegas

Rick Turoczy on January 10, 2009

WordCamp Las VegasThis weekend, a number of Portland folks made the trek down south for WordCamp Las Vegas, a gathering of WordPress users akin to our own WordCamp Portland.

Three members of the Portland tech community—Aaron Hockley, Geoff Kleinman, and Lorelle VanFossen—took to the stage to present. Which is a really big deal, given that the attendees at this event are very much a who’s who of the WordPress community and the world of blogging, including Matt Mullenweg (the creator of WordPress), Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss… the list goes on and on.

Aaron Hockley’s talk “Beyond Beer and Blog,” described the growing Web tech scene here in town and highlighted some of the key factors that contributed to building such a successful community.

The presentation was so exceedingly good—and so well received—I’ve embedded it below for your viewing pleasure. It’s the weekend. Kick back and spend a few minutes hearing about how we got where we are today.

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Geoff presented on techniques and tips for managing team blogs with large numbers of contributors. You can watch his presentation on the WordCamp Las Vegas Ustream channel.

Unfortunately, at the time of this post, the always incomparable Lorelle had not yet had her presentation archived. (I’ll link it up when it’s available. [Update] Or not. See Aaron’s comment below.) She presented on measuring traffic and what it means to bloggers. No doubt with a mention or two of Woopra.

WordCamp Las Vegas continues through Sunday. It is being streamed live if you’d like to tune in.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 09

Rick Turoczy on January 10, 2009

Report: Community Platforms Market Led by Jive Software and Telligent

Via ReadWriteWeb “Communities have been a staple of the web 2.0 era and over the past few years a lot of enterprise community products have come onto the market. The Forrester report, authored by Jeremiah Owyang, notes that even in this down economy there is still demand for online community platforms – because they are a cost-effective way for companies to market their products and reduce support costs.”

Beer and Blog on KGW

Via Beer and Blog “This weekend’s workshop, End Bloglessness, was featured on Live @7PM. KGW is Portland’s NBC affiliate and has had an increasing connection with the local tech scene. Again, much thanks to them for the coverage and hope that it helps bring more blogless Portlanders to CubeSpace this Saturday!”

Write Right All Right

Melissa Lion writes “This two-hour class is an introduction for crafting narrative for the internet from idea to execution, with some glamorous grammar thrown in. Writers will learn to use the elements of narrative for various social media sites, gain confidence and tap into latent creativity necessary to generate words daily. This class is geared toward people wanting to improve their web presence, draw an engaged audience and create compelling content.”

How to: Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet for Any Topic – ReadWriteWeb

ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick shares the recipe for finding and following the leading thinkers on any topic. Follow this series of steps and you’ll soon have access to the experts on practically anything you can imagine.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Legion of Tech announces Advisory Committee for 2009

Rick Turoczy on January 9, 2009

Legion of TechToday, the Legion of Tech—the completely volunteer force behind a number of the free and amazing tech events here in Portland, Oregon—announced a new addition to their organization, an Advisory Committee to help guide the efforts of the LoT.

Specifically, the Advisory Committee works with the Legion of Tech Board in an effort to “provide feedback on Legion of Tech activities, act as a few more eyes and ears in the community, and get more people involved in Legion of Tech.”

The 12 inaugural members of the committee are:

Congratulations to everyone who has been named to the Advisory Committee!

For me, it’s an humbling honor to have been selected to serve with this group of incredibly intelligent and creative folks. I’m looking forward to doing all I can to help the Legion of Tech volunteers and the new LoT Board continue to build one of the most beneficial tech resources in the Silicon Forest.

AboutUs secures $5 million in funding—and they could be hiring soon, too

Rick Turoczy on January 9, 2009

Big news today for Portland and the world of wiki. Portland-based AboutUs has secured $5 million in Series A funding led by Voyager Capital. And in equally good news, the company plans to use the infusion of cash to expand their staff.

It’s always impressive when a Portland company lands funding, but given the current economic conditions, this is especially welcome news.

Quoting heavily from my post on ReadWriteWeb:

How does a small startup secure capital in such turbulent economic times? Being profitable helps – something AboutUs achieved by mid-year 2008. The company is forecasting continued growth, this year. Ray King, CEO, said the company is targeting $5 million in revenue for 2009. The primary source remains advertising, but the online marketing services AboutUs sells – including content creation and custom page development – continue to gain traction.

Another reason for investor confidence? The staff. AboutUs holds a special place in the world of wiki as the employer of Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the wiki, and they continue to attract new talent. They recently hired a number of new employees, including CFO Jack Williamson. King hopes to use the new funding to increase the size of the company to around 50 employees by the end of 2009, up from its current staff of 32.

The company also received a nice write-up in the Portland Business Journal today. But, of course, the Business Journal being what it is, you won’t be able to read it unless you’re a subscriber.

For more on the news, see Mike Rogoway’s post on the Silicon Forest blog.

Other good news? The celebration for this announcement has already been set. Don’t forget, AboutUs is buying us lunch—or rather Lunch 2.0—next month.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 08

Rick Turoczy on January 9, 2009

Watch Me Present: Beyond Beer and Blog

Aaron Hockley writes “On Saturday at 10:45am (PST) I’ll be presenting Beyond Beer and Blog: How Social Media Lit Up the Portland Tech Scene at WordCamp: Las Vegas. I’ll be speaking about the Portland tech communities and how we’re using social media to drive all sorts of good things both online and offline. The event is being streamed on Ustream, so feel free to tune and listen.”

Keep Bad Apples Away From Your Team

Josh Bancroft writes “I was listening to episode #370 of the This American Life podcast (which is one of my favorite podcasts), on the topic “Ruining It For The Rest Of Us”. At the beginning of the show, Ira was talking with a researcher who had done studies on the effect of “bad apple” behavior within teams. He looked at what effect someone who is a Jerk (insults other people, critical without offering a better option, etc.), a Slacker (doesn’t do any work, doesn’t seem to care, distracted), or Depressed (certain that ‘this will never work’, doomed to failure, etc.) has on the rest of the people on the team.”

WebVisions – Webvisionary Awards 2009

Via WebVisions “Now in its second year, the Webvisionary Awards recognizes outstanding work in categories that range from web apps to community sites. The entries are judged by leading visionaries in design, technology, advertising and business strategy.”

What do the iPhone, Wii, and Ignite Bend have in common?

Via Ignite Bend “Ignite Bend 1 has sold out! That’s right, all of our (free) advance tickets have been reserved. Now there are only two ways to try to get in the doors and enjoy Ignite Bend 1 live, and in person”

The PDX Gen-Y Project

InsYght Consulting has launched a research project called “The PDX Gen-Y Project.” The purpose of the undertaking is to catalog or capture the life styles of Portland Oregon Gen Yers in 2009. The hope is that by creating a place for Generation Y in PDX to really express themselves or to witness their innovation and creativity, that both clients and other generations may have an insight into Gen-Y.

OurPDX meetup next Tuesday, 1/13

Via OurPDX “So we compared our calendars, checked sports schedules, ruled out the Obama inauguration day, steered clear of all of those Wednesday events, and finally settled on Tuesday, January 13th.”

Help ORBlogs: Hit The Development Server! | Oregon Blogs

Via the ORBlogs Blog “Well, we’re all back to work now that the holiday madness has ended, and that means that development is heating up again on ORBlogs. This year, Santa dressed up as Bill Jackson and left a development server under our tree. The server is at http://haxx.orblogs.org.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Only you can prevent bloglessness

Rick Turoczy on January 8, 2009

Smokey says Only YOU can prevent bloglessnessBlogs. Everyone has one. Or do they?

Living in the bloggy world that you do, it may come as a shock to you that—are you sitting down?—many intelligent, thoughtful, and opinionated individuals are currently without a blog of any sort today. In fact, some of them don’t even read blogs, let alone publish them.

I know! WTF?

There, there. Wipe away that tear, sunshine. We’re looking to avert this tragedy. In Portland, at least.

Thanks to the good folks at Beer and Blog, we’ve got End Bloglessness, a half-day workshop designed to get even the most neophytic luddite up-and-blogging in no time flat. And as is common in the Portland Web tech scene: it’s all free.

Bloggers and would-be bloggers of all skill sets are welcome. Just show up Saturday, January 10 at CubeSpace. From noon until 5 PM, you’ll be walking through the entire blog setup process, everything from installation through promotion.

We are focusing on launching WordPress blogs for this workshop. We’re also focusing on self-hosted blogs, so you’ll need a hosting plan and your access information with you at the workshop to get assisted help. Owning your own hosting account, and therefore your blog, is important and the reason we want to do this workshop is to expand access to blog ownership to more people.

By the time you leave the workshop, you’ll have a blog that is ready to go and some direction on how to connect with other local bloggers. We are expecting people from all skill levels, including the technically challenged. Everyone will be treated with respect and will be encouraged.

Or, if you’re interested in hearing more, swing by Beer and Blog, this Friday at the Green Dragon.

Remember, only you can prevent bloglessness.

Visit Upcoming to RSVP for End Bloglessness or this Friday’s Beer and Blog.

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