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Category: Events

SXSW 2008: Silicon Forest contingent making the sojourn to Austin

Rick Turoczy on March 6, 2008

It’s hard to believe that the annual geek pilgrimage to Austin, Texas, is almost upon us. That’s right, it’s time for SXSW 2008. The geeky portion of the event, SXSW interactive, begins on Friday, March 7 and runs until Tuesday, March 11.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of Portland and Silicon Forest folks who make the journey down to the event on a regular basis. This year is no different. There’s even a breakfast get-together for Oregon folks organized by Portland Web Innovators.

With all of the folks in attendance, I thought it might be valuable to have a list of what companies and what folks will be down in Austin. (If you don’t appear and would like to be listed, please comment, and I’ll work on updating the list.)

Silicon Forest companies down at SXSW include:

As far as individuals headed down that way, I know of:

This list is by no means complete. Just what I know.

I mean, there are also a ton of Portland people from the creative industry headed down to SXSW. I lost count of the number of Wieden + Kennedy folks making the trip.

So, again, if you’re going down to Austin and you’d like people to know, post to the comments and I’ll continue to update this post.

And for all of you back home in Oregon, please stay tuned to SIlicon Florist for updates on the Silicon Forest contingent and their participation in SXSW. Or feel free to follow me on Twitter. There are sure to be some cool things happening.

Showdango: Find and promote Webinars

Rick Turoczy on March 6, 2008

I like Webinars, Webcasts, and online presentations as much as the next guy, but it’s rare that I attend one without having randomly stumbled upon the opportunity.Well, all that may change with Showdango, a Portland-based startup that aims to be your source for finding Webinars.

Showdango’s community-driven Webinar index also provides RSS feeds and the ability to automagically add an event to Google Calendar and/or iCal (the GCal and iCal links are included in the RSS feeds to boot).How did Showdango come about?

It all began with a webinar that we attended by Seth Godin. We were so inspired by Seth’s webinar that we decided to look for other webinars, and that is when, regretfully, we found out that there weren’t any good resources for webinars… until now. showdango is the world’s first webinar index, and our vision is to provide a valuable resource that anyone can use to share, view, and track webinars. We hope that you will help us spread the word about showdango.

Showdango was build by CartoSoft, a small geospatial startup based out of Portland, Oregon. The company’s mission is to extend the reach of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to a broader audience through the use of Internet Mapping Solutions.For more information, see the Showdango post on the CartoSoft blog. Or to try it for yourself, visit Showdango.

Meet: SEMpdx Searchfest 2008 is March 10

Rick Turoczy on February 28, 2008

Just like developers’ language- and framework-specific gatherings, there are other tangential practices and events that can play an important role for Web startups, blogs, and the like, here in Portland.

One of those tangential practices is search-engine marketing (SEM). And Portland is one of the leading cities for professionals who are exploring and extending the white-hat techniques of this oft-maligned marketing communications practice.

So, it makes sense that Portland also plays host to one of the premiere national events for SEM, SEMpdx Searchfest.

This year’s event, SEMpdx Searchfest 2008, to be held March 10 at the Oregon Zoo, will consist of:

[A] full-day search engine marketing conference featuring multiple learning sessions and expert panels to help you leverage search engine marketing (SEM) in your organization. Whether you are an SEM professional, work in an advertising agency or part of an in-house marketing department, SearchFest 2008 will connect you with the leading thinkers and practioners in SEM today.

I’ve also been advised that the event has taken a decidedly strategic turn, designed to help folks understand the benefits of adopting—and strategies for incorporating—search engine marketing into the broader strategies for the business.

Sound interesting? You’re can still get the early-bird discount if you register before March 1. And if you want an additional discount of $40, the Silicon Florist is happy to comply:

How to get the discount:

  1. Register for SearchFest at http://www.searchfest.org
  2. Enter the code SEMBD in the “Coupons/Gift Certificates” text box and click “Add.” (This is at step 3 of the shopping cart)
  3. Enjoy your day at SearchFest

For more information, visit SEMpdx. Interested in attending? Or, take the opportunity to register for SEMpdx Searchfest 2008.

Portland Lunch 2.0: Filling and good for you, too

Rick Turoczy on February 27, 2008

The inaugural Portland Lunch 2.0 kicked off, today, at the AboutUs offices in the still-being-renovated Olympic Mills Commerce Center. And after pouring through a number of tweets about the topic, this afternoon, I can confidently say that Lunch 2.0 was a definite success.

The Lunch 2.0 concept started with folks in Silicon Valley as a means of staying in touch with friends and former coworkers, while getting the chance to gawk at everyone else’s office spaces and to try out the food in the cafeteria.

And there was much gawking to be had at the new AboutUs build-out. The space was perfect for the crowd. And, by midway through the event, it was easily filled to capacity with a wide variety of folks from startups around the area.

Since its start in the Valley, Lunch 2.0 has popped up all over the map, from Amsterdam to Bangalore to (my personal favorite) Lunch Five-0 in Hawaii. Portland’s version of Lunch 2.0 was brought to town by Jake Kuramoto with help from Dawn Foster.

Thinking about attending a future Lunch 2.0? Please bear in mind that part of the appeal of Lunch 2.0 is its progressive nature of moving from one location to another—so you can start scheming about how to cowork in their space you get to see the cool spaces in town where smart people do their work. If you’re interested in having a group of hungry startup types invade your office space during a lunch hour, please comment below.

As a reminder for those of you who were taking pictures and who have plans to upload them to flickr, tagging them “lunch20” will ensure they appear in the flickr widget on the official Lunch 2.0 site.

Open Source Software meeting of the minds

Rick Turoczy on February 21, 2008

Today, I had the privilege of sitting in on an Open Source meeting of the minds at OTBC, where a sizable contingent of folks from the Open Source community in Japan—programmers, entrepreneurs, professors, reporters—shared their vision for establishing a Mecca for Ruby enthusiasts—and a hub for Open Source—in Japan.

The bulk of the Japan team heralds from Matsue, a town on the north end of the main island in Japan. They are in the midst of developing the “Ruby City MATSUE Project,” a concentrated effort to make Matsue the “Mecca of Ruby.” The OSS Society Shimane also works in conjunction with the project to promote Open Source and Ruby.

Much like the efforts around the Portland-area Open Source scene, the MATSUE project is working to foster community building around codefests and the sharing of ideas on how to apply Open Source technologies.

The community is also lucky enough to have a university that provides a full semester load of undergraduate course work on Ruby, Rails, JRuby, and applying the technologies.

Besides their dedication to and focus on this effort, the group also commands some substantial geek-cred from the participation of Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, one of the original developers of the Ruby language, who is a resident of the town.

After spending today with the OTBC and dinner with the Portland Ruby Brigade, tonight, the Matsue contingent will head down to Corvallis to visit with the Oregon State Open Source Lab.

So what’s the Silicon Forest angle here?

An hour into the meeting, the two sides of the table were already pitching ideas back and forth. Sharing concepts and benefits of pursuing Open Source development.

And that’s a thing—I’d like to think—that we’d be very happy to keep going.

This is the first—of hopefully many—meetings of the minds between the Portland Open Source community and the Matsue Open Source community that, with any luck, will develop into a “sister city” arrangement to foster both of our communities’ continued learning and development.

The next time these folks are back in town, I’d highly encourage trying to meet up with them.

Angel Oregon: Three diverse Web-tech companies vie for funding

Rick Turoczy on February 20, 2008

Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) has announced the seven finalists gunning for funding in its annual Angel Oregon competition. Among the seven are three particular companies who have decidedly focused some angle of their offering on a Web play.

And since we all know the Web is near and dear to my heart, I’m going to focus on them.

I’m not guaranteeing a win. But were I a betting man, I’d be putting my money on one of these:

OsoEco – OsoEco is positioned to exploit a significant gap in the E-commerce market for green products & services by launching the first Web-based “Sustainable Social Shopping” community w/a unique focus on local solutions. Members can connect, discover, research, and recommend green products & services to peers, interest groups and gurus.

Powermand, Inc. – Web service and solution to aggregate many small electric loads into a large virtual load for monetizing as “negawatts.” Low cost service fee per site per month paid by the negawatts customer.

Revelation – Revelation creates web software that optimizes qualitative market research, enabling companies to develop and harness rich understanding of customer experiences, behaviors and needs at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional research techniques.

For more, see the complete list of Angel Oregon participants. Visit Upcoming to RSVP for the event or register to attend at Angel Oregon.

Reminder: Marshall Kirkpatrick on RSS, February 19

Rick Turoczy on February 18, 2008

Just a reminder that Marshall Kirkpatrick, lead blogger for Read/Write Web and RSS guru, will be presenting a “Lunch and Learn” session on RSS at the OTBC on Tuesday, February 19.

I like to think of myself as fairly RSS savvy. And I can say, without a doubt, that no one has taught me more about how to make RSS jump through hoops than Marshall.

To RSVP, visit the OTBC Meetup page on the event. The cost is $15 at the door. But you were going to spend that money on lunch, anway. And this way, you actually get to learn something.

Startupalooza: Start making your plans to attend

Rick Turoczy on February 15, 2008

Portland’s Startupalooza, the March 29th bootcamp for startups—both existing and planned, continues to expand its roster of speakers. And it’s shaping up to be quite a gathering of local startup talent.

As part of the continuing build-out of its schedule, Starupalooza has announced the addition of a Toonlet demo, a Vidoop demo, and the formation of a “Technopreneur” panel featuring Sarah Gilbert of Cafemama, et al., Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWrite Web, Justin Kistner of Metafluence, and some other guy.

Startupalooza is an interactive forum for the Portland tech startup community. Find out about cool tech startups, learn from successful tech entrepreneurs and meet local tech-business people in a candid, no-BS environment. Admission is free.

Ignite Portland 2: Let the rounding up begin

Rick Turoczy on February 6, 2008

I just returned from the second Ignite Portland.

Wow.

In terms of attendance, this one eclipsed the previous one by leaps and bounds. In fact, folks had to be turned away. More than 750 people crowded into the Bagdad, and folks still had to be turned away.

Wow.

Tons of good energy. And presentations that rivaled the brilliance of the first Ignite.

Great event.

A now, even though we’re still a bit early with the returns, I’m going to take a cue from my fellow newsies who are reporting Super Tuesday results with 6% of the precincts reporting.

Here’s what folks are saying:

  • Ignite Portland 2 was one of the best nights of my life!
    “The best moment of the night came when I was sitting in my seat, down in front, surrounded by people who had worked so hard to make this happen, and who had become good friends in the process. And we, in turn, were surrounded by all the amazing volunteers, speakers, and sponsors that made it even possible. And we were all in turn surrounded by a crowd of exited people, enjoying themselves in a very cool theater. It all just sank down on me right then, a warm, fuzzy, happy feeling. I realized that this was the coolest thing I have accomplished so far in my life.”
  • Attention Deficit Theater
    “How hot was Ignite Portland on Tuesday night? So hot that 750 people filled the Bagdad Theater in Southeast Portland, and many more got turned away. So hot that the wacky, idea-sharing event rose to the second spot on the national Upcoming Web site, trailing only the wildly popular South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. So hot that the Bagdad ran out of pizza.”
  • Ignite Portland Mercury video
    “I’ve no !dea whether Ign!te Portland actually has an exclamation mark in its brand!ng, instead of an ‘i’. But it should do. Because it’s young, and hip, and edgy, and the Mercury’s video chap, V!ncent Caldon!, was there last night, with a video camera, along with 750 other people” (I’ll add this to the SplashCast player in the Ignite Portland video post, as well.)
  • Ignite Portland recap
    “One of my favorite parts of the evening was meeting people. Some of the people I met I’ve been following on Twitter. Twitter has contributed to a sense of community in Portland’s tech and creative circles that I haven’t seen before. It’s a wonderful thing.”
  • Ignite Portland 2 rocked the Bagdad
    “There were so many great volunteers who helped make Ignite Portland 2 a success; we could never have pulled it off without their help. The sponsors also made this possible by providing the funds required to buy food, the use of the Bagdad Theater, insurance, etc. A huge thank you to everyone who helped, sponsored, took pictures / video, and more to make this event so much fun to attend.”
  • Why Deutschland loves David Hasselhoff
    “This was all his idea, and I applaud him for pulling it off. I’d be nervous as hell, as I’m sure he was, but after seeing him kill it, I’m considering being a presenter in the future.”
  • Ignite Portland
    “We were proud to sponsor last night’s networking and speaking event, Ignite Portland. We were proud not only because it’s a really cool event, but also because our very own Technical Support Lead, Kelly Guimont spoke at the event.”
  • Ignite Portland: The Talk!
    “I had SUCH a good time. Here’s an odd sentence to everyone but me: I got to meet a lot of my friends for the first time. I got to talk about pepper for five minutes. It was a lot of fun after the fact, before and while I talked I was SO nervous, it was hard to stand in front of seven hundred and something people and talk about anything.”
  • Make Connections
    “One of the reasons I had gone to Ignite Portland was to network. I wanted to talk to people about Treasurelicious. Frankly, after making swag bags, smiling, answering questions and such I was just too tired to network.”
  • About Last (ig)nite
    “So… I will just observe that I realized how many more people I ‘know’ now than I did at the first event, three short months ago, many of them mostly virtually, and that seems amazing to me, and makes me feel all in love with the place we have chosen to live.”
  • Our Super Tuesday fun
    “It was the second Ignite Portland event and John’s employer was a sponsor, we are so glad we went and look forward to many other events like this…. What a cool city we live in.”
  • Ignite Portland in one word: WOW!
    “I didn’t think that the first Ignite could be out done. I mean the first Ignite had just under 300 highly enthusiastic people who heard about it via word of mouth, twitter, and the blog scene. But this time the organizers, Legion of Tech, promoted the event through the Oregonian and on local radio.”
  • Ignite Portland
    “I presented, claiming that it is time for Portland to start some great companies. I felt a bit like a mime at a comedy night with my business focused presentation wedged in between Why Deutschland Loves David Hasselhoff and How to be an Undercover Hooker. If you are in Portland you need to go to the next Ignite.”
  • Ignite Portland
    “It was very entertaining. I’ll definitely try to attend again. I’m also going to try to present there as well. I find the restrictive format (20 slides, 15 seconds each, auto-timed) to be an interesting constraint to work in…. The only complaint I have is that the intros and housekeeping…. They should have been done in the same 15-slide Ignite format.”
  • Ignite Portland was a great event!
    “Of course, nothing it truly free, and the one downside to the event was that you had to listen to the long list of sponsors [like Silicon Florist] at the start of the event. It’s kinda like Google search: it’s free, but there are some ads in your results.”
  • Ignite Portland was a huge success
    “I drove past the theatre at 4:45pm and there was already a line. The 500 person seating limit was filled while there were still people waiting in line. I slipped in with the 250 people that were allowed to stand around the edges before they had to start turning people away.”
  • Ignite Portland 2
    “I don’t know what it is, but there is something pushing my buttons about the creativity I’m rediscovering in PDX. The arts, the crafts, the web, the social fabric that is such a part of Montavilla, Mt. Tabor, Hawthorne, Sellwood, Garden Home, NoPo, St. Johns, Macadam, Multnomah, and on and on and on…”
  • Ignite Wrapup, Things to Come
    “Wow, this Ignite Portland was fantastic — 750 enthusiastic people, a sold out crowd at the Bagdad Theater. I had a great time, and thanks to the organizers for putting together a great show.”
  • Ignite Portland 2 was a blast!
    “I met some cool people at Ignite Portland. I saw some women I had previously met at a pdx geekchix lunch. One of them told me to check out Code ‘n Splode, a group of (mostly women) programmers who get together to talk about whatever they’re working on. I met a guy (Justin maybe?) who told me about beer and blog, a newly formed group that meets every Friday at the Lucky Lab to talk about blogging.”
  • That’s Entertainment: Politics as theater in Campaign ’08
    “Ignite Portland takes place as presidential primary voters go to the polls in 24 states in what is being billed as “Tsunami Tuesday.” But what could be the decisive day for both the Democratic and Republican 2008 White House hopefuls arrives even as the transformation of American politics into theater is almost complete.”
  • What would Dr. Seuss say about online communities?
    “It was a lot of fun to prepare; I got to sit in the children’s section of the library reading Dr. Seuss books for a few hours, which is always a good time! I also had a great time giving the talk – complete with a Cat in the Hat, hat!”
  • Ignite Portland… a recap?
    “I had meant to liveblog the event last night, but I felt I was too far away to take good photos and typing on my new cameraphone just isn’t that fun. Then, with all good intentions, I had planned a post for last night, but the transit ride home took a lot out of me. Woe is me, I know. IgnitePortland was a blast.”
  • Lessons from Ignite Portland
    “There’s a good lesson here for Eclipse projects: we all want our projects to expand our projects to new communities and new users. But before we do the outreach to bring in those new people, we have to make sure that the basics of our projects are top-notch.”
  • Flickr photos tagged “igniteportland”
  • Live tweeting of the event using #ip2
  • More tweets on Ignite Portland
  • Ignite Portland on the Bagdad marquee
  • BONUS: For you history buffs, here’s the tweet from Josh Bancroft that started it all, and my URL-purchasing-addict addled response

(I’ll continue to build out this list as write-ups become available. Am I missing yours? Add it to the comments below, and I’ll make sure to link it up.)

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