If you’ve never been to a Portland Lunch 2.0, now would be a good time to start. If you’ve been to a bunch of Portland Lunch 2.0 gatherings, this one will be completely different.
I mean, sure, a lot of the same gang will be there. Which will be great. And you’ll have some interesting conversations and some “Hey! I haven’t seen you forever!” encounters. And of course, you’ll also get free grub while you chat.
We’re getting awfully close to WebVisions, the premier Web conference that has graced Portland, Oregon, for nearly a decade by bringing incredible Web thinkers, designers, and developers to discuss their craft. It’s such an amazing show, I can’t imagine not paying for it.
WebVisions is quickly approaching. It’s coming up next week already, May 20-22 at the OCC.
Time to stop procrastinating and register. Better yet, take advantage of the package deal WebVisions and Open Source Bridge are offering, i.e. full access passes to both events for $300. Jump on that deal before May 18, and you’ll save $200.
Look at it this way. If you have an interest in either conference, you’ll get the other for a song, i.e. $50. Or maybe you’re a Web designer who wants to attend WebVisions who has a Web developer buddy who wants to attend Open Source Bridge. That’s a pretty sweet split cost. (Hint, hint)
Have you seen the speaker lineup for WebVisions? It’s jam-packed with local and international talent, assembling to talk about the future of the Web design, business strategy and user experience.
Oh, and Silicon Florist is a sponsor so the turoczybot commands that you attend.
WebVisions—the awesome event that brings some of the best and brightest Web types to Portland every year—is hosting Beer and Blog Portland this week. And like many hosts, they want to do something that makes the event memorable.
So they’re standing up and presenting? Not exactly. They’re hosting Twitter Wars between technology factions. The prize for he or she who dominates all contenders? A free pass to WebVisions.
What are the topics about which the warring factions will argue for dominance? Well, there will be:
Now, I’m fairly confident that I’ve got a good understanding of the topics over which the folks will be fighting. But then I get a little foggy on how the whole “Twitter War” thing works. (Me == Not so bright.) But I’m sure that once I’ve had a beer… Oh wait.
Anyway, it should go something like this:
Each panelist will have one minute to state their case, followed by 3 minutes of free-for-all. People can comment and vote via twitter the entire time.
To Vote: Tweet !v and a comment with the #hashtag and/or @panelist included. This will vote for a hashtag, panelist, or both. A person can only vote once for a hashtag or panelist, subsequent votes will be ignored, but their comments will be saved. A user can vote separately for a hashtag and a panelist to write a longer comment.
To comment: To comment only, leave out the !v and just tweet your comment with the #hashtag and/or @panelist included.
Got it? Good. Explain it to me when you get there.
Who will be on the panels? Well, that’s up to you, my crowdsourcey friend:
Nominate yourself or someone else for a panel by tweeting “@TWarsBeerBlog I nominate @username for #Topic.” (But, seriously? Whatever you do, don’t nominate @username for anything. That guy has a temper. I’m just saying.)
What do you win? A free pass to WebVisions is up for grabs for each of the battles. Not feeling battleworthy? Do you feel lucky? Well, do you? Because you also have the chance to attend WebVisions for free by answering one question. And I won’t battle you, at all.
As always or almost always, Beer and Blog will be at the Green Dragon. Hope to see you there (so you can explain the whole Twitter War thing to me). Visit Upcoming to RSVP.
The winning entry will receive a WebVisions conference pass plus a pass to the workshop “Mental Models” with Indi Young of Adaptive Path. The runner up will receive a free WebVisions conference pass. Third place? You’ll get a WebVisions t-shirt. So that you can pretend you attended WebVisions.
Come to think of it, even if you don’t win, you’ll want to pay to attend. Why? Because WebVisions features more than 50 incredibly cool speakers, like Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing.net, Jared Spool, Indi Young of Adaptive Path, Jeff Croft of Blue Flavor, search engine guru Vanessa Fox, Molly Holzschlag of Molly.com, Chris Pirillo, and Armin Vit of UnderConsideration.
As previously teased, WebVisions will be hosting a Lunch 2.0 on May 20, the first day of the conference. WebVisions runs May 20-22 at the Oregon Convention Center.
This Lunch 2.0 will be free to all, even if you’re not planning to attend the conference. Of course, if you are interested or are attending, this will be an excellent opportunity to get a sneak peek at the conference.
Now I’ve guilted them a little, accidentally. Did I mentioned that Jason’s presentation at last year’s WebVisions was outstanding? He even brought Voodoo Donuts, which tipped the scales over Scott Kveton‘s session, which had to be at the same time.
Anyway, these are the types of speakers you’ll get at WebVisions.
Here’s the official conference about:
Discover the future of Web design, user experience and business strategy for three days of mind-melding on what’s new in the digital world. Get a glimpse into the future, along with practical information that you can apply to your Web site, company and career.
Please RSVP on Upcoming so the hosts can get an idea of how much grub to get. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, drop a comment on the event page for planning, unless you don’t want to eat.
This will be the first Portland Lunch 2.0 hosted by a conference, and it should be an interesting mix of conference attendees, many from out of town, and Portlanders.
This crowd mix should provide some interesting conversation, as well as an opportunity to network outside your normal crowd. Of course, if you want to see the Norms of the Portland tech scene, I’m pretty sure they’ll be there too, next to the Cliffs.
May 20 hosted by WebVisions at the Oregon Convention Center
As always, big thanks to all the hosts who have hosted or plan to host Lunch 2.0. Drop a comment (or tweet @jkuramot) if you want information about hosting one. It’s easy.
WebVisions, the premiere Web design and development gathering that calls Portland, Oregon, home, has continued to draw a number of influential Web types to the Rose City, year after year.
This year promises to be no different.
So who did the WebVisions team convince to come speak here this May? None other than Mark Frauenfelder, the founder of Boing Boing, which—in addition to being a constant source of strange and wonderful things—remains one of the most popular sites on the Web.
How popular? The substantial and dedicated reader base of Boing Boing always carries with it the potential of being “BoingBoinged“—akin to being “slashdotted” or hitting the Digg front page—where a simple link from the popular blog can send a server-crushing load of traffic to even the most prepared site.
This is a big win for WebVisions—and for Portland in general. Aside from thousands of local fans, Mark’s keynote is sure to draw attendees—and attention—from across the US.
So what are you waiting for? May 20 is only four months away. Get moving. To RSVP and see who else is attending, head on over to WebVisions on Upcoming. To register for the event, visit WebVisions.
WebVisions continues to serve as Portland’s premiere Web design and development conference. And, in 2009, it could be our only major tech conference of the summer.
There was even rumors that OSCON 2009 will take place in another city (The Bay Area?)– even the Burgerville staff told me about the scuttlebutt. They were understandably bummed about it as they get plenty of customers during OSCON week.
… then WebVisions—as great as it is—has the chance to be even greater, next year. The belle of the ball, as it were.
So, don’t you owe it to your geeky self to participate? That’s right. I think you do, too.
Sessions are 1.25 hours long and address topics that reveal new directions, technologies, processes or approaches for the Web.
Workshops will be held on May 20th only, and are set up in a classroom format and run for 3 hours for a half day or 6 hours for a full day and should provide more in depth coverage of a topic.
Panels run for 1.25 hours and feature 3-4 speakers including a moderator. Panels should be fun, lively and informative, not a series of mini presentations from each speaker.
Don’t stress! You’ve still got plenty of time. Submissions don’t close until December 31, 2008. But I thought it would be a good idea to get you noodling on that about which you’re going to speak.
Because you are going to speak.
Now in its eleventh year, WebVisions will be held in May 20-22, 2009, in Portland, Oregon. For some feedback on previous WebVision events, see my roundup of posts from WebVisions 2008. For more information, visit WebVisions.
WebVisions 2008 was awesome
“I’ve spent yesterday and today at the WebVisions 2008 conference, at the Oregon Convention Center in downtown Portland. I was asked to speak on a panel about Open Source and Open Content with Ward Cunningham (most famous for inventing the wiki), Deb Bryant (OSU Open Source Lab), and Bryan Jamison (Open Sourcery).”
WebVisions 2008 wrap up
“This Webvisions 2008 was the best yet. I can’t believe I’m feeling this way but I can hardly wait ’til next years Webvisions 2009.”
WebVisions wrap-up
“All in all, WV was pretty good, though it didn’t feel as inspiring as the last couple of years. After last year, I made sure to avoid the workshops. As far as the sessions go, I was entertained and picked up some great info and good tips to follow-up on, but nothing that made me want to carve out a day or so to really think through.”
WebVisions, the unkeynote, and is print dead?
“Back from Portland, OR and presenting the Day 1 Keynote there. Learned a great bit of stuff in various sessions, and met a bunch of cool people. More to come on that both here and over at my FastCompany.com blog, ‘Digital Media Diva.'”
Thoughts on Lynne d Johnson’s UnKeynote
“I wanted to talk briefly about Lynne d Johnson’s UnKeynote from Thursday and why it prompted me to modify my presentation to add a new slide.”
I’m ready for Preso 2.0
“One really interesting thing I noticed, at least from an enterprise perspective, reinforces what I saw at Web 2.0 Expo. Presentations from Web 2.0 people totally rock.”
WebVisions 2008 provides technical and political discussion
“This year’s event, held May 22-23, 2008 at Portland Convention Center, was true to form with at least one exception; the presentation by Jensine Larsen, A River Runs Through The Digital Divide: Women Using Global Communications Technology to Shift the Balance of Power.“
Star Wars Kid: The data dump
“Be warned, this is more detail than you’ll ever want about the origins of the Star Wars Kid meme and how it spread. You don’t care about this level of detail, but I’m writing this all down so that I never have to think about it again.”
Dreamweaver ‘Next’ at WebVisions 2008
“Swing by, get an early look at what we’ve been working on back in the Dreamlabs, along with a lot of thoughts as to WHY we’ve been doing what we’ve doing with Dreamweaver.”
Live from WebVisions 2008: Total Recall
“This presentation will explore the similarities and differences of effective information architecture and instructional design and will demonstrate how instructional design complements information architecture to create more thought provoking and memorable user experiences.”
Did you write something that I missed? I’d love to read it—and I’d love to link it up. Please add your post to the comments below, and I’ll add it to the list.