Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
I just heard that Oregon Media Insiders—arguably the de facto resource for all things mainstream media related in Portland—is no more. Writer Lynn Siprelle has decided to hang up the pen after the site led to the destruction of a friendship.
A post entitled “I’m done” outlines Lynn’s reasons behind the shutdown. Read More
Side project beget side projects. At least that’s the case with OpenConferenceWare, an impressive proposal and scheduling system developed Igal Koshevoy and Reid Beels.
While the name may of the system—affectionately dubbed OCW—may not be familiar to you, it’s pretty likely you’ve come into contact with it.
Why? Because It’s the system that Igal and Reid developed to help them manage a couple of other side projects with which they’ve been critical components: Ignite Portland and Open Source Bridge. Read More
I’ve made no secret about my appreciation and affection for the Strange Love Live crew. I’m dead serious when I say it’s the best podcast in Portland, if not the world.
That said, if I have one piece of feedback for them, it’s “Get out of the basement!” And that’s exactly what they’ve begun to do. Now, they’re making regular appearances at local conferences—and getting interviews with some really cool folks.
At this year’s WebVisions, they had the opportunity to catch up with Chris Messina. During the interview Cami Kaos chats with Messina about the evolution of Twitter #hashtags, his affection for comics, and more. Read More
We all realize that there’s a ton of stuff happening in town. New startups, exciting side projects, crazy cool events. And every day it seems like we’re learning about more and more opportunities to draw the community together—or cool new technologies to test drive.
This leads to two issues. First, how do we keep track of all this stuff? And second, how do we filter all of this stuff?
Silicon Florist wiki to the rescue, my friends! Well or you can refer to it by its more common name: AboutUs. Read More
A incredibly insightful woman once said, “Encourage your community to take time to step back and enjoy their work.” And since I just read her saying that today, I thought I would stop for a second to emphasize just how lucky we are to have the community we do. We’ve got events going every night and practically every weekend. We’ve got good chatter online and off. And we’re creating and building a lot of cool stuff—sometimes purely through volunteer efforts.
Two of those amazing volunteer projects are Calagator and Open Source Bridge. And two of the awesome people behind those efforts are Selena Deckelmann and Audrey Eschright. Read More
From the sounds of things, choosing presentations for Ignite Portland 6 was a bit of a doozy. But the Ignite Portland team managed to soldier on and select a group of presenters to take the stage on July 16.
There were almost 70 proposals—and all of them were really good. So who made the cut? Read More
Well, how about reminding you about all the ways you can consume Silicon Florist content and interact with the awesome startup community here in the Silicon Forest?
It may be a short week, but it’s not a slow news week. That said, it is the Friday of a short week. And posting about really cool startups or important news may get lost in the haze of moving into the weekend.
What to do? What to do?
I’ve got it! How about taking care of some housekeeping around the ol’ Silicon Florist?
What kind of housekeeping you ask? Well, how about reminding you about all the ways you can consume Silicon Florist content and interact with the awesome startup community here in the Silicon Forest? Read More
“Times are tough” is the understatement of the year. We get it. Pinch and save. Every penny is important.
And yet, you’re busting your ass to work your day job and then staying up all night to work on your side project. Or you’re out there hustling full time to make your startup dream come true.
You could use a break, if only briefly. But you need it to be as affordable as possible.
Technology can get us there, my friend. And leave it to Portland, the home of more brewpubs per capita, to come up with the very application of that technology to help you out. Happy Hour prices, here we come. Read More
For every Oregon company that has had success attracting capital for their pursuits—Jive and AboutUs come to mind—there are hundreds who struggle with where to begin and how to engage the Angel or VC community.
It’s a difficult issue. And no one seems to put his or her finger exactly on the problems or how to solve them. Some say buck up and play the game. Others say the game needs to change. People talk about staying in Portland and figuring out how to bootstrap. People talk about leaving Portland in order to get funding.
Start talking to entrepreneurs and side project startups in Portland—or throughout the Silicon Forest in Oregon—and the conversation will inevitably turn to one topic: venture capital or the lack thereof.
For every Oregon company that has had success attracting capital for their pursuits—Jive and AboutUs come to mind—there are hundreds who struggle with where to begin and how to engage the Angel or VC community.
It’s a difficult issue. And no one seems to put his or her finger exactly on the problems or how to solve them. Some say “buck up and play the game.” Others say “the game needs to change.” People talk about staying in Portland and figuring out how to bootstrap. People talk about leaving Portland in order to get funding.
What’s the answer? Read More
As last week drew to a close, the Portland tech community was rallying to help the de facto hub of our community, CubeSpace.
The fervent out-welling of emotion and support continued throughout the weekend—even resulting in coverage from traditional mainstream media.
While there isn’t a great to deal more to report at this point—and Eva and David are understandably choosing to remain silent until a decision has been made—I’ve been getting a number of emails, IMs, and tweets about the issue. So I thought I’d round up what I could. Read More