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Category: Portland

Time to find that creative spark: Ignite Portland 4 submissions are open

Rick Turoczy on September 29, 2008

Ignite Portland

Well, well, well. I was just thinking about how it was almost October. And that meant that it was almost November. And that meant it was almost time for the next Ignite Portland.

And lookie what just got announced today: Ignite Portland 4 presentation submissions are now open!

If you want to share your passion with some of the most brilliant minds in Portland (and all 500 of them,) here’s your chance.

Submit An Ignite Portland 4 Talk!

We’re going to close submission at midnight on October 14, and announce the selected talk lineup on October 20.

So there you go, kids. It’s open! Get going!

I’m looking forward to seeing what you propose.

For more information on the incredible experience that is Ignite, visit the Ignite Portland site.

WordCamp Portland (#wordcampdx) 2008: Ironically, words escape me

Rick Turoczy on September 29, 2008

WordCamp PortlandI’d love to prattle on and on about how great and amazing and inspiring WordCamp Portland 2008 was. But I can’t.

I’m simply at a loss for words.

Yes, it was that good.

And I remain ever so proud to have had the chance to sponsor and participate.

What was WordCamp Portland, you ask? Well, it was a very long day of love and learning focused on WordPress—a popular open source blogging platform and content management system. Throughout the day, more than 150 WordPress enthusiasts and soon-to-be enthusiasts shared their ideas, their problems, and their insights.

And, perhaps the most amazing thing? It was almost single-handedly willed into being by Aaron Hockley, following a conversation at Beer and Blog. And with the support of team of volunteers and sponsors, he and his team turned WordCamp Portland into a truly incredible event.

I’d love to tell you more, but honestly, I can’t really do it justice. So—as is my general wont after these types of things—I’m going to round up the stuff that other people are saying.

Let’s let them do the talking:

  • Twitter posts tagged with #wordcampdx (It was the topic on Twitter throughout the day.)
  • Flickr photos tagged with wordcampdx
  • Thank YOU (WordCamp Portland)
    “We’re wrapping things up here at WordCamp Portland, but I wanted to post a quick thank you to everyone. Thanks to our sponsors for providing cash and services that helped make this possible. A big thank you to all of our speakers, some of whom traveled quite a distance, for sharing their expertise and helping to facilitate a ton of great discussion. Thanks to all of our attendees – hopefully you learned something, and we appreciate all of your knowledge that you’ve shared.”
  • Presentations Links Roundup (WordCamp Portland)
    “Many of the WordCamp Portland presenters referenced links, information, or slides which are shared online. Here’s a roundup of pointers to the presentation information, roughly in the order presented…”
  • Liveblogging WordCamp Portland (Critical Games)
    “8:33am: We’re all set up in the main conference room at CubeSpace, bagels and coffee in hand… slide on the project points out that if you want to search on twitter or flickr or anywhere, the hashtag to look for is …. “
  • Liveblogging WordCamp PDX (Eric Stoller)
    ” The tag/hashtag for WordCamPDX (only 1 p) is wordcampdx. Aaron Hockley is kicking off the event promptly at 8:36. Very diverse group of attendees.”
  • WordCamp PDX (superfancy)
    “Anyway, the reason I attended was for information overload! And I was not disappointed in the least.”
  • WordCamp PDX! Resources and Morning Recap (Hazelnut Tech Talk)
    “Saturday morning cartoons and sleep were replaced with a hundred bloggers at CubeSpace. We woke up collectively to a series of speeches, tips, and new friends we didn’t expect.”
  • What I learned from WordCamp Portland (OurPDX)
    “Sitting in the sold out room for WordCamp Portland I was struck by just how dynamic and exciting the internet community in Portland has become. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to write about it, doesn’t want the rest of the world to know about our little secret (but I think the secret is already out). Big things are happening here in Portland. When I say big things, I don’t mean some major Internet company is going to be opening its doors, and I don’t mean there will be some huge announcement of some grand Oregon based product. The magic of what’s happening here is that it’s a million little exciting things that all add up to a very significant and flourishing community.”
  • I survived WordCamp Portland (My Whim is Law)
    “Yesterday, I met other people who are in the business of changing lives – their own, or those of the audiences or organizations or causes they represent. I added several more people to my Twitter stream, or shared my knowledge with them (and vice versa.) My life is immeasurably richer because I blog. It’s immeasurably easier because I use WordPress.”
  • WordCamPDX Wrap-Up (Critical Games)
    “The short of it: it was a REALLY fantastic event, and I’m very glad I went (it would have been worth coming down from Seattle for were I still in Seattle, let me put it that way). As can be gathered from my previous post, there was a virtual wealth of information regarding blogging, and thats not even getting into the deluge of tweets on Twitter regarding it — at several points in the day, we were anywhere from the number one to the number three item in Twitter Trends, even beating out the political stuff the day after the debates. And the attendance was just 150 people(ish), so that should be saying something on just how much everyone was tweeting. I about doubled my Twitter Follows/Followers.”
  • #wordcampdx Changes Lives (TechnoEarthMama)
    “Today I attended the excellent conference/unconference WordCamp Portland, and was amazed.”
  • WordcamPDX (Vin Thomas)
    “If you don’t know by now, I use wordpress for this blog. I love it! It is really one of the great developments in open source web development.”
  • I learned a little something (Moody Meow)
    “Entering Wordcamp I was almost overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. They announced that they would let more people in, and I’m glad. I almost registered too late, intending on going, but trying to convince myself not to go because I wouldn’t know a soul there.”
  • chrysalis (Cami Kaos)
    “On Saturday I attended WordCamPDX which answered a lot of questions that needed answering and raised about 6,000 more that I’m looking in to. I’ll have an entire post on my experience at word camp later in the week but for now I leave you with this picture of Verso and I taken by Jane Wells.”
  • At WordCamp Portland 2008 (BoxedTofu)
    “Yes, I am a tech / blogging geek. That is why I’m spending the day in a sketchy part of Portland, listening to people talk about WordPress (an awesome blogging platform). If you’re looking to start a blog, it is what you should probably use (open source, plugins, community support, so good).”
  • Wordcamp PDX is over… time to go home (BoxedTofu)
    “Wordcamp PDX was a smash hit. I made some new friends, learned a few new blogging-related things, and saw a lot of people with iPhones. Although I dont’ have much else to say, I did want to show a couple of images.”
  • Josh’s Lifelog for 2008-09-21 (Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls)
  • Tying your tubes (Steel Bridge Rag)
    “Just joined FriendFeed. Now we’re onto LifeStream, which sends anything I do to one place. These geeks move FAST! Overload!!!!”
  • What is it about blogging platform conferences? (Develonizer)
    “I’ve been to many tech confrences, the only two that have really creep-eeed me out have been Drupalcamp and now wordcamp. I think that they evangelizm is all with good intent, and I’m not trying to be cynical, but think about it. Everyone who has payed $10, and showed up @ 840, so I think that we can assume that there is some level of love for the topic of the day, wordpress(wp).”
  • Unlucky in photo competitions, lucky in radishes (Gwyn’s Blog)
    “It was cheap, cheerful, informative & well-organised. I am proudly wearing my free T-Shirt today. More conferences should have kegs of beer available from lunch time onwards too. Talking of which, I learnt about a Portland institution called Beer and Blog with weekly Friday meetups in PDX, so I might investigate that too.”
  • At Wordcamp Portland Today (Viper007Bond)
    “13-14 hours later I’m home. What an awesome day. I’d write more, but I’m burned out and not big on word anyway. See me on Twitter as well as the #wordcampdx tag for a summary. So totally going next year.”
  • WordCamp Portland Wrapup (Thieves Like Us)
    “More than any nugget of information I got during a talk, I think the most valuable thing I took away was a general sense of what is possible to accomplish with the framework in general.”
  • Finding voice (Art Wells)
    “I went to Wordcamp Portland yesterday. Though I couldn’t stay for the whole event, and I’m far from a wordpress power user, it was still quite inspirational. I met good, positive people and saw some shining examples of people doing what they loved with good tools.”
  • WordPress Presentations from WordCamPDX (Webmonkey)
    “WordCamp wrapped up in Portland over the weekend and all signs point to it being a success. Apparently the #wordcampdx hash tag made the front page of Twitter, if that’s any indication. Perhaps a better measure is the huge list of presentation wrap-ups, including slides, notes, videos, and more.”
  • The Fairy BlogMother Lorelle (Liz Strauss)
    “On the Worldwide Day of Play, Lorelle VanFossen gave her Keynote at WordCamp Portland as the Fairy BlogMother. Amazing in every way!”

That’s what I’ve got, so far. Did I miss your post? Please, by all means, link it up below.

(Psst! If you’re among those who just couldn’t get enough WordCamp, I’ve got a little secret for you. Don’t tell anyone. Let’s just keep this between you and me. But, word around the campfire is that there may be a Portland contingent making the trip down to WordCamp Las Vegas in January, where Matt Mullenweg and Lorelle are already on the agenda. There might be a Portland-type speaking there, as well. Stay tuned!)

The OTBC Brings Lunch 2.0 to the ‘burbs

Rick Turoczy on September 28, 2008

It’s official. Portland Lunch 2.0 is crossing over into the suburbs, Beaverton to be precise.

As Rick blogged back in August, the Open Technology Business Center, or fondly, the OTBC, had been searching for a new home. The search has ended, and on November 1, the OTBC will move into their new digs in the Beaverton Round.

But wait, there’s more. The OTBC will also be partnering with the Beaverton Round Executive Suites to provide office space for startups on the third floor of the Coldwell Banker building, just two quick flights of stairs to and from the OTBC business offices on the first floor. There’s an elevator too, but since the OTBC provides services to CleanTech (as well as Tech, BioTech and OpenTech), I figured I should mention the stairs first.

What does all this have to do with Lunch 2.0? Glad you asked. On January 14, 2009, the OTBC will be opening its doors to host the first Portland Lunch 2.0 chapter in the suburbs.

Here are the details:

Hosts: OTBC

Where: 12725 SW Millikan Way Beaverton, Oregon 97005, first floor of the South Office building

When: January 14, 2009 from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM

RSVP on Upcoming

Did I mention the Round is on the MAX Blue Line, specifically the Beaverton Central stop? Steve Morris of the OTBC says their office is 90 feet from the station. So, if you’re in Portland, it’s only about 20 minutes from downtown. Not too shabby. You won’t have to worry about parking, you’ll get to meet some new people in the ‘burbs, possibly some people you know from Twitter.

Maybe even the elusive Josh Bancroft will make an appearance, since we’re bringing Lunch 2.0 into his neck of the woods.

I asked around at the SplashCast Lunch 2.0, and everyone seemed very positive about cross-pollinating with the suburban tech/Twitter crowd.

So, come out to Beaverton and meet some new folks, and check out the OTBC. If you’re unfamiliar with them, they help Tech, Biotech, Cleantech and Opentech startups with a variety of valuable services. Here’s their about. Interested? Drop a comment or swing by Lunch 2.0 on January 14 and find out more.

Don’t forget these upcoming Portland Lunches 2.0:

  • October 15 at the Art Institute of Portland: This space is huge, plenty of room for everyone, so bring friends and colleagues.
  • November 5 at the Eclipse Foundation
  • January 14 at OTBC in the Beaverton Round

Changing of the guard: Legion of Tech board elections announced

Rick Turoczy on September 25, 2008

Legion of TechIt’s no secret that one of my favorite organizations here in town is Legion of Tech.

Even in its youth, the Legion of Tech has done an amazing job of becoming a completely philanthropic tech organization designed to serve the greater good and make more events more accessible to more people.

I can safely say that no single organization has had such a dramatic and profound impact on the Portland tech scene over the past year.

Perhaps, for that matter, ever.

The original Legion of Tech crew has done a phenomenal job of transforming the event scene around Portland. I mean, c’mon! The oversold Ignite Portlands? Startupalooza? Big-name Legion of Talks? Legion of Tech Happy Hours? And, of course, the incomparable BarCamp Portland?

The list goes on and on and on.

So it is with some trepidation and some excitement that I report that it’s time for the first Legion of Tech board and advisory committee elections.

Interested in getting more deeply involved in Portland’s tech community? Now’s your chance: the Legion of Tech elections were just announced. There are 2 different LoT positions up for grabs, involving differing levels of responsibility

I have trepidation because the founders have done such a phenomenal job. And yet, there’s definitely excitement because these folks deserve a break—and it will be interesting to see who exactly enters the fold.

So how does this whole election thing work? Well, there’s an extensive election post on the Legion of Tech blog but here’s the short story:

If you are interested in running for the Legion of Tech board or the Advisory Committee, please contact your favorite member of the existing board to request a nomination. Keep in mind that the nominations are due on November 1 for the board of directors and on December 1 for the Advisory Committee.

It’s going to be an interesting election year.

I’m excited to see where this goes. And you can be sure that I’ll keep you in the loop.

And please, if you’re interested in participating and continuing the amazing run of tech events here in Portland, by all means throw your hat into the ring.

Creating community: Tips from the community master, Dawn Foster

Rick Turoczy on September 22, 2008

Today, creating a vibrant and interactive community around your product or organization can be the difference between unheralded success and unimaginable failure. And no one knows that better than Portland’s Dawn Foster, one of the leading authorities on the subject.

Dawn has just completed a series of posts on corporate communities that is a must read for anyone attempting to work online with customers.

What’s a corporate community, you ask?

Corporate communities refer to any custom community created by an organization for the purpose of engaging with customers or other people who may be interested in the organization’s products and services. For the purpose of this post, custom corporate communities include communities created by corporations, non-profit organizations, educational institutions and similar organizations. These corporate communities can take many different forms: support communities, developer communities to help developers work with your products, customer and enthusiast communities, and many others.

See? I told you. How could you not fit in there?

So grab a cup of coffee (or some bubble tea if you want to be even more like Dawn) and dive into this great series of posts:

  • Custom Corporate Communities: Planning and Getting Started
    Before jumping in to create a new community, you should think carefully about the purpose of this new community including your goals and objectives, fitting your community efforts into your organization’s overall strategy, measuring success, and committing the resources required to make your community flourish.
  • Maintaining a Successful Corporate Community
    I decided to follow up my post on Monday about Custom Corporate Communities: Planning and Getting Started with this post containing tips about what to do and what to avoid doing if you want to have a successful corporate community. While some of these tips are specific to corporate communities, most of them also apply to other types of communities as well.
  • A Structure for Your Corporate Community
    I thought that it would be a good idea to also spend a little time on the things that you should be thinking about when coming up with a structure for your community. It is important to keep in mind that every community software package is likely to have unique strengths and limitations when it comes to configuring your community. From a design and architecture perspective, I strongly recommend looking at this strengths and limitations of the platform and taking them into account before starting any design or architecture work.
  • Promoting Your Community Efforts the Right Way
    In this final post for the corporate community series, we will spend some time on the right and wrong ways to promote your community efforts. Some of this advice also applies more broadly to promotion of other social media efforts as well.

For more from Dawn, head on over to Fast Wonder Blog.

Blog like a pirate: Beer arrrrr Blog in St. Johns

Rick Turoczy on September 19, 2008

Beer arrrr BlogIt’s an impromptu field-trip day for Beer and Blog as the head to St. Johns to celebrate Blog like a Pirate Day. Or Talk like a Pirate Day. Or whatever.

Um. Ahoy?

On this glorious day, Beer and Blog will be taking a field trip to the Leisure Public House. Here to tell you all about it is our St. Johns correspondent, mediaChick.

For mediachick’s five fantastic reasons for making the not-so-arduous trip north, see the Beer and Blog, um, blog. My favorite?

The miscellaneous, yet delightful, discoveries: jukebox, generous outside patio, ping-pong table, bocce, wifi, and a sleepy and snuggly pub cat.

For more information, details on the location, and to RSVP, see Beer and Blog on Upcoming.

Calagator documentation sprint this Saturday

Rick Turoczy on September 19, 2008

CalagatorPortland’s favorite calendar aggregator, Calagator, continues to improve, code sprint after code sprint.

And it’s drawing ever nearer to its 1.0 milestone.

But before Calagator gets there, it’s time for a different kind of sprint, as Audrey Eschright shares:

We’ll be meeting tomorrow starting at 10am at CubeSpace, to kick off the Calagator documentation sprint. I really encourage anyone who has been involved in the development of this project, on any level (including lurking on the mailing list) to stop by, even if you only have an hour or two free. We’ll be working on the Calagator User Guide, and talking about what’s next for the project after we reach our 1.0 milestone.

More details, time, and location for the Calagator documentation sprint can be found, well, on Calagator, of course.

Calagator is an all-volunteer effort to provide a unified calendar for technical communities and user groups in Portland, Oregon. Anyone can contribute information by importing, creating, and editing entries.

For more information, join the mailing list or visit Calagator.

Cooking up a Story takes us from Farm to School

Rick Turoczy on September 18, 2008

It’s “using technology for the greater good” day here at Silicon Florist.

First we had the Collective Software Initiative’s TriSano story, and now we’ve got news that Portland’s favorite online show about people, food, and sustainability—Cooking up a Story—is going to be live streaming an interview with Debra Eschmeyer from Farm to School.

What’s Farm to School?

Farm to School brings healthy food from local farms to school children nationwide. These programs connect schools with local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities that will last a lifetime, and supporting local small farmers.

Cool hunh? Sounds a lot better than that freeze-dried salisbury steak and reconstituted mashed potatoes they had when I was a kid.

Tricia over at my OurPDX has joined in the fun with this challenge:

Before the broadcast, I’d like to get a discussion going about the Food to School concept. Personally, I think many of the worlds ills could be solved if people knew where their food came from and how it actually gets to the table. If we as a society could become more connected to the farms and farmers that grow our food, maybe we would make very different choices regarding our eating habits. And, if we REALLY knew how our food was produced, would we still eat it? Ok, don’t answer that.

So take a few minutes out of your lunch hour tomorrow to sit in front of your machine and listen to the interview. It will be held at 12:15 (or so) via UStream.

And if you like, you can join in the conversation, either on OurPDX or at Cooking up a Story.

Collaborative Software Initiative launches TriSano, an open-source means of tracking disease

Rick Turoczy on September 18, 2008

TriSanoIn the world of technology, we complain about having to deal with “viruses” and “infected systems” all of the time. And, as such, we have any number of tools at our disposal for tracking, managing, and eliminating these viruses.

But what about using technology to deal with the impact of disease in the real world?

Portland-based Collaborative Software Initiative may have the answer with its newest effort, TriSano.

TriSano is designed to help communities collect and share disease information within and among communities:

To provide Public Health organizations freedom and choice when tasked with making an applications decision to support their communities. We offer the opportunity to scrap the monolithic development process and custom built solutions traditionally provided through system integrators and traditional software companies. Our suggestion: engage in the power of community building and open source technology to solve complex health technology challenges for the good of public health.

It’s like your own private Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And, Utah already has plans to go live on TriSano.

But Dana Blankenhorn sees TriSano reaching much farther than that:

TriSano is written in Ruby. Rather than building 75 forms, TriSano built a form-builder. The system can be maintained by doctors, regulators, or through TriSano in the form of Software as a Service.

What it means is a faster, flexible, less-expensive system for creating and maintaining infectious disease reports. Utah will train its people first, CSI will seek to roll it out nationwide, and everyone (including you) will reap the benefits.

For all the appreciation I have for cool Web 2.0 tools, they remain—quite often—a frivolous applications of technologies that hold unlimited potential. And that’s why it’s especially exciting to see a local company tapping into that potential for the greater good of humanity.

Collaborative Software Initiative was founded in 2007 by Stuart Cohen, a veteran IT executive and former chief executive officer at the Open Source Development Labs. Cohen has partnered with Evan Bauer, financial services technology veteran and former chief technology officer at Credit Suisse, to bring together like-minded companies to build software applications at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. The company introduces a market-changing process that applies open source methodologies to building software collaboratively. For more information, visit Collaborative Software Initiative.

A Cozy Lunch 2.0 at SplashCast

Rick Turoczy on September 18, 2008

Yesterday’s Lunch 2.0 at SplashCast was nice and cozy. Maybe it was my warning that space was small, the closed guestlist, the slightly incorrect address on the Upcoming event (sorry).

Or maybe people just had other things to do, like work.

Whatever it was, in contrast to the last few Lunches 2.0, only about 70 people filtered in and out of SplashCast’s semi-new offices in the old Merchant Hotel in Old Town. This worked really well for networking, since you could navigate the entire room, bouncing between conversations, and not worry about missing anyone.

As has been typical with Portland Lunch 2.0, Kim Ramage, our host, made a brief introduction to SplashCast and welcomed everyone. Then the networking and nomming began. Unfortunately, Mike Berkley, SplashCast’s CEO and the Lunch 2.0 instigator wasn’t able to attend.

Again, there’s that pesky work thing getting in the way.

Aaron hasn’t posted his photos yet, but I’m sure they will rock, as usual. Check his Lunch 2.0 collection on Flickr if you’re interested.

Mark Colman tweeted several pictures he took, including this one of AJ and Doug in the midst of what looks like an interesting conversation about the finer points of the iPhone’s keypad.

lunch.jpg

Thanks to Kim, Mike and the whole SplashCast team for opening their digs to us.

Yearning for more? No worries about space in the next few venues, the Art Institute of Portland (October 15) and the Eclipse Foundation (November 5). In fact, they’re both large, so bring your friends and colleagues.

Better yet, if you can find uninitiated Lunch 2.0 people, bring them along to spread the goodness.

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