Remember Encyclopedia Brown? He was this kid detective who could always figure out random stuff using random clues? He was kind of like the MacGyver of the youth sleuth scene.
Well we had a little bit of a mystery going on ourselves tonight in the world of the Portland, Oregon, social media scene that needed some solving:
Who had taken home the honors from the Social Media Awards—the coveted SoMe Awards?
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Hang in there, you entrepreneurial type you. You’re making progress. I know it. You know it. And now, other folks are starting to take notice. Like The Oregonian.
In a recent article entitled “Oregon’s high-tech better off now than in dot-com bust” business and tech reporter Mike Rogoway—one of the mainstream media folks in Portland who clearly “gets it”—had the following to offer about the under the radar startup scene: Read More
It’s no secret that we love the open source stuff around Portland. Tons of cool open source developers, projects, user groups, and as luck would have it, a few cool open source conferences.
And one of the latest open source conferences to call Portland home, LinuxCon, has just announced their keynote speakers:
LinuxCon combines the developer and end user communities to produce more than 75 sessions that address “all matters Linux.” The event takes place September 21 – 23, 2009 in Portland, Oregon at the Marriott Downtown Waterfront.
Speaking of announcing, um, speakers. Word around the campfire is that another open source conference in town, Open Source Bridge, will be announcing its final list of selected speakers Thursday at noon.
Well, okay, yes. I’m privy to that list. No, I won’t let you sneak a peek. More news on that as it becomes available.
(Hat tip to Mike Rogoway)
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To blog or not to blog? It’s a question with which any number of corporations wrestle. And today at the InnoTech eMarketing Summit, Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb and Josh Bancroft of Intel will answer that question—and likely many more about corporate communications, blogging, and microblogging sites like Twitter. (I’ll be on the panel as well, doing a lot of smiling and nodding.)
Here’s the basis of the discussion:
Whether out of curiosity or under pressure, you’ve likely started a company blog. Maybe you’re even letting employees blog. But making blogging a successful component of your organization’s communications and support programs? That’s another thing, entirely. Join this panel of panel of elite bloggers and microbloggers to learn how you can use blogs to increase transparency with your target market, create deeper and lasting relationships with your existing customers, and improve your company’s visibility on the Web. Attendees are sure to leave with both a renewed motivation to blog and specific steps for improving their organizations’ use of traditional blogs and new microblogging platforms.
The three of us will be providing our insight at 2 PM, today, in Portland Ballroom 256 at the Oregon Convention Center. So if you’re at InnoTech, we’d love to see you. For you Twitter types, the hashtag for the event is #emspdx.
Can’t come see us today? Well we can’t save you any… oh wait. That’s okay, but we’ll miss you. And I’d highly encourage to register to attend InnoTech on Thursday so that you can see Rahaf Harfoush talk about the Obama social media campaign.
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Our friends over at the Beaverton-based OTBC are always trying to help startups and entrepreneurs in the Portland area—like by hosting entrepreneurial speed dating sessions and sponsoring events like Portland Lunch 2.0 and Open Source Bridge.
Now, the OTBC could use a little bit of our help. In the form of feedback:
We get input at our lunches, and through our Meetup.com site, but we’d like to round that out with input from a larger sample of the Portland area tech entrepreneur community. So please take three minutes to let us know what kinds of programs you’d like to attend. These are mostly ratings of 1-to-5 to show interest level in a topic. Lots of ideas are listed, but it goes fast. Really! Three minutes. (OK, maybe four minutes at the outside.) Thanks!
I know you can help, because everyone has an opinion. They’re like… well, everyone has one.
So take a few minutes out of your busy schedule and click some buttons. The OTBC—and our entire startup community—will be better for it.
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As much as I love the startup tech community here in town, I love it even more when I see the community doing things for the greater good. One of those Silicon Forest startups that manages to accomplish this on a regular basis is Portland-based Cooking Up A Story.
What’s the latest? A partnership with the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education organization (SARE):
For those who may not be familiar with SARE, it provides critical funding grants to farmers, researchers, and agricultural educators to promote farming systems that are ecologically sound, and benefit all parties involved, including (of course) the farmers, eaters, and the local communities. Over the course of their 21 year history, they have come to the aid of countless farmers, and have provided the kind of assistance that has helped farmers to survive, sometimes by providing the means and the knowledge to branch into new production and marketing avenues for generating additional income and long-term growth.
The new partnership will help Cooking Up A Story expand their video offering with more stories, more how-to videos, and more profiles of farmers whose practices have benefited from SARE grants and SARE research. What’s more, it will enable Cooking Up A Story to expand their reach to other regions.
For more, see the Cooking Up A Story post on the SARE partnership.
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I was originally going to title this post “Open Source Bridge: We’ve only just begun” but I didn’t want you to get that song stuck in your head.
What’s that? Oh. Oopie.
Anyway, the fine folks of Open Source Bridge—the 100% volunteer run open source conference being held in Portland, Oregon, June 17-19—would like to do two things: 1) Bring you up-to-speed on all of the progress they’ve made and 2) Outline the programs, plans, and volunteer opportunities for the next few months.
To make it as interactive as possible, they’re inviting all interested folks to meet tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 7 PM at CubeSpace for a Town Hall discussion:
One of the challenges we’ve recognized in organizing this completely volunteer run conference is that sometimes it is hard to consistently and effectively utilize all of the willing people who have volunteered to help. We are hoping this town hall meeting will make some of this easier with the opportunity to interact face to face.
If you’re interested in volunteering, we hope to see you there. Even if you don’t want to lift a finger for Open Source Bridge, we’d still love to see you there. Or if you’re unable to make it—or simply immune to our charms—please check out the volunteer page or join the discussion groups.
For more information, visit the Open Source Bridge Town Hall on Calagator. To RSVP, visit Upcoming.
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This Thursday, Rahaf Harfoush, Associate Director of the Global Cooperation Initiative at the World Economic Forum and part of the Obama campaign‘s social media team, will deliver the keynote for InnoTech, one of the Silicon Forest’s premier business and technology innovation conferences.
The keynote will be a great opportunity to hear Rahaf’s insights into how the Obama campaign embraced social media to affect political change—and will likely cause you to reassess your use of social media. No doubt, her talk will also include an early glimpse of some of the themes she’ll approach in Yes We Did: An Inside Look at How Social Media Built the Obama Brand, her upcoming book.
I had the opportunity to send Rahaf a few questions ahead of her arrival, and she was kind enough to take some time to answer. Here’s what we covered:
How did you get started in social media?
I have always loved technology. I guess I inherited it from my dad who is an avid science fiction junkie and technology always seems to represent unlimited potential and opportunity. I’m fascinated by how we use the web to interact and collaborate with each other. I love people and I love information and social media is the perfect combination of the two.
I don’t really remember when I got into social media, but I do remember it was before we called it social media. 😉
What brought you to the Obama campaign?
I was on the research and writing team for Don Tapscott’s book Grown Up Digital, and I was responsible for gathering research on technology, young people and the political process. My research took me to the very talented Chris Hughes, Obama’s Director of Internal Organizing who was designing a social network for the campaign.
I interviewed him and we hit it off. I was really inspired by what they were doing in Chicago and asked Chris if there was anyway that I could help. One thing led to another and I went down to Chicago for the last few months of the campaign as a full time volunteer. It was an awesome, empowering, thrilling experience.
Prior to your efforts, the strongest US online political campaign was championed by supporters of Howard Dean. What, if anything, did you learn from Dean’s efforts that informed the Obama campaign?
I think the Obama campaign heavily refined a lot of the strategies initially pioneered by Dean.
Dean was the first to use social networks (like Meetup) to organize supporters and start building the beginning of an online campaign infrastructure. He was also one of the first to experiment with online donations, particularly small amount donations.
The one main thing the campaign built on was the need for all of that online organizing to translate into offline action. This was where Dean’s campaign faltered, online enthusiasm did not turn into tangible votes or on-the-ground support.
Ultimately, everything the Obama campaign did online reinforced the need for offline organizing. Blog posts, contests, house parties, canvassing events the emphasis was always on getting supporters to get out of their house and into their communities on behalf of Barack.
(Prefacing this with the fact that a bunch of Portland people were essential to the development of the Obama iPhone app… 😉 ) In your opinion, what was the most unique use of social media in the Obama campaign?
Even if I didn’t know that, I would have to say the iPhone application. It was an extremely innovative foray into the yet untapped area of mobility. It effectively turned every iPhone into a fully functional field office. It allowed the campaign to stay connected to supporters in a very intimate way and ensured that they received the most up to date information.
That is very powerful to me. I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface on what we can do with mobile.
If I had to pick a favorite social network for Portland, it would be Twitter, hands down. In both your work for the World Economic Forum and your personal life, within which social media site(s) do you find yourself most comfortable/engaged?
Twitter is my favorite too! [Editor: She’s @rahafharfoush.] I love my twitter community and I always find myself going to them for their opinions and advice.
For example, some people at the Forum were interested in identifying some thought leaders in particular industries. I asked my Twitter community and within minutes and over fifteen names of experts that had come recommended by people I trust and respect. You just can’t beat the speed or quality of information.
I am weary of this sudden mainstream appeal of Twitter, particularly those people that focus only on the number of followers. For me, it’s all about meaningful conversations. I’d take that over a big crowd any day!
Finally, a softball. I know you love to travel and explore. Have you been to Portland before? What would you like to experience while you’re in town?
I have never been to Portland before! I heard you have a beautiful waterfront. If the weather cooperates I would love to sit in a nice café with my new kindle and catch up on some reading and relax.
Thanks, again, to Rahaf for taking the time to provide those responses. I’ll be looking forward to seeing her speak on Thursday. If you’d like to join me, please register to attend InnoTech, this Wednesday and Thursday.
(Photo credit: Jesse Morgan. Used with permission.)
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Without a doubt, my favorite “they’re a Silicon Forest company?!!?” startup is Portland-based SurveyMonkey, the nearly ubiquitous Web-based survey service. It’s one of those local success stories of which everyone seems to have heard—even though they don’t realize they’re Portland-based.
And while the company keeps a fairly low profile here around town, that may have just gotten a lot more difficult. You see, the former head of Yahoo! Music, Dave Goldberg, has just been named the CEO of SurveyMonkey.
As Kara Swisher reports on All Things D:
SurveyMonkey is the largest such survey company online, with competitors that include Zoomerang and Constant Contact.
The move is an unusual one for Goldberg, whom many expected to join or start an online entertainment or music company, given his background.
With changes like this, the first question that crops up is usually: But will they remain a Portland company?
According to paidContent, it appears so:
Goldberg will be based in Menlo Park, where SurveyMonkey is opening a new office. (Goldberg’s wife Sheryl Sandberg is COO of Facebook.) The company is also holding on to its Portland headquarters, where Ryan and Chris Finley will work.
Hopefully, with someone else on board to help guide the company, Ryan and Chris will finally find some free time to spend with their Portland fans (hint, hint 😉 ).
In related news, Dave is being brought in by Spectrum Equity, which has lead a group of investors in gaining a controlling stake in SurveyMonkey.
Todd MacLean, a Director at Bain Capital Ventures [one of the group of investors in SurveyMonkey] said, “We are extremely excited to partner with Dave Goldberg, a dynamic entrepreneur who we believe is ideally suited to lead the next phase of the company’s growth. We believe our experience with low-touch, viral software models will be an asset in supporting Dave and the team of talented professionals at SurveyMonkey as they grow the business. In addition, we have great affinity and respect for Spectrum, having co-invested with them in the past, and look forward to a great partnership on the Board of SurveyMonkey.”
For more on Dave, see the ReadWriteHire write-up. For more on the company, visit SurveyMonkey.
(Hat tip Adam DuVander)
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Getting nominated once is an honor. Twice in a row is impressive. But three times in succession? That’s starting to say something.
Such is the case with our own local Deborah Kerr of nominations-without-wins, Portland-based COLOURlovers, which has now been nominated for the third year in a row for Best Community by the Webby Awards.
Third time’s the charm? Wow! It is an honor and a privilege to be a part of such an awesome community. This is the 3rd year in a row we’ve been nominated for Best Community in the Webby Awards (The Oscars of the Internet). First time it was huge validation for our idea… Second time it was proof that the first wasn’t just a fluke… and this time it totally confirms that you all are the best bunch of people on the internet.
What’s that? You’ve never heard of the Webby Awards? Well, I may be showing my Internet years but suffice it to say that the Webbys are one of the most respected awards for Web types—if you’re into awards. They’re the Oscar of the Web world:
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.
The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 12th Annual Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.
Now, here’s where you come into the picture: the COLOURlovers nomination is a People’s Voice award. That means that any of us can help COLOURlovers walk away with a win.
So if you like COLOURlovers, now is the time to act. You have until April 30 to vote in the People’s Voice awards.
Who knows? Maybe this year, COLOURlovers will finally walk away with the award they so rightly deserve.
In any case, one thing is for sure: win or not, they’ll remain one of our favorite Silicon Forest Web communities.
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