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Silicon Florist: Share your project so I can share your project

Rick Turoczy on February 8, 2008

I try my best to stay on top of what’s happening in Portland—and the Silicon Forest, as a whole. But much to my chagrin, I must admit that I’m still haunted by the feeling that I’m not covering all that I could be.

I get the feeling that there are still a whole bunch of cool side projects, new Web apps, interesting blogs, amazing companies, and brilliant people that aren’t even on my below-the-RADAR RADAR here in the Silicon Forest.

So, I’m going to ask for a little bit of help.

I’ve thrown together a quick submission form to capture some information about what you’re doing. So that I can add you to my watch list.

You know your project well enough. It should only take a few minutes. So enlighten me.

Even if I happen to have covered you or your projects before, I would encourage you to spend a few minutes filling out the info. Maybe I flubbed your positioning? Maybe you’d prefer another URL? Maybe it would be nice to have me following you Twitter?

Whatever it is, please take a few minutes to share your project with the Silicon Florist, so that I, in turn, can share it with all of the folks who are deeply interested in that cool project upon which you’re working.

Thank you. I look forward to hearing about what you’re doing.

Waxy.org: It’s back and now it’s part of Portland

Rick Turoczy on February 8, 2008

A few of us here in the Portland area use a little event planning and RSVP service called Upcoming. Actually, at least 600 of us. You might remember Upcoming as the place where Ignite Portland was the second most popular event, next to SXSW. Or you might not.

Either way, what does Upcoming have to do with anything? Isn’t that a service owned by Yahoo!?

Well, yes. But—stick with me here—before it was purchased by Yahoo!, it was one of Andy Baio‘s projects. But not his only project. Another one of his projects has been waxy.org, a popular tech blog. And while publishing was a little haphazard during Baio’s stint at Yahoo!, postings are back on now.

So what does this have to do with Portland? Well, Baio lives in Portland now. So waxy.org is officially a Portland pub. So you should be reading it.

At least that’s the story with which I’m going.

(Hat tip Marshall Kirkpatrick)

Beyond the Forest: OpenID adds Microsoft, Google, Verisign and IBM

Rick Turoczy on February 7, 2008

With the wealth of OpenID thought here in the Silicon Forest—thanks to folks like JanRain and, soon, Vidoop—any efforts surrounding OpenID are likely to have a significant impact on our tech scene.

When you add names like Microsoft, Google, Verisign, and IBM, [Update: And Yahoo! says Scott Kveton] (I linked all of those, in case you haven’t heard of these folks) that purported impact becomes a foregone conclusion. With today’s announcement, you can rest assured that if you’re in tech, OpenID will affect you. No question.

Scott Kveton, Chair of the OpenID Foundation, has a great roundup post on all of the folks covering this announcement.

Some of the highlights?

Portland’s own Marshall Kirkpatrick advises that the news, while momentous, should be taken with a grain of salt:

All of that said, big vendors have a lot of short term interest in controlling identity silos. It won’t be easy to get their long term interests in openness to prevail. Fortunately, they are participating but are in the minority on the OpenID Foundation board.

Allen Stern of CenterNetworks (Who, as luck would have it, recently featured a brilliant and insightful article on the Silicon Forest… Um. Ahem. Where was I?) maintains that, despite these heavy hitters, the problem for OpenID to solve remains less technical and more educational:

I continue to stand firm that what OpenID needs is marketing more than technology. Yahoo’s implementation of YahooID last week is a good move towards adoption of OpenID across the Web.

And Michael Arrington of TechCrunch offers that for all the excitement, how “openly” the solution is implemented will be the true test of the commitment of these tech giants:

But it’s not clear that any of them are in a hurry to become a “relying party” (allowing users with third party OpenIDs to log in to their sites). OpenID looks like it’s going to be a winner, so big companies making their user accounts OpenID compatible is a good hedge. Everyone, of course, wants to be an ID issuer, since they get to “own” the user. Less attractive is allowing users from other sites to log into your services, so don’t expect that functionality to come for some time.

From the vantage point here in Portland—especially with our wealth of OpenID expertise here—I maintain that this could herald the start of a very important upswing for our community. One in which Portland and its OpenID providers have the opportunity take a leading role on an international stage.

I, for one, am anxious to watch this story develop.

Silicon Forest and the Identity Management Working Group

Rick Turoczy on February 7, 2008

Sometimes, I get pretty focused on OpenID-flavored identity management. But there are other startups in town working on a different type of identity management. The kind that involves your offline existence. (If there is a such a thing.)

The Santa Fe Group, a respected consultancy focusing on fraud reduction, has just announced the formation of its “Identity Management Working Group.” Among the group’s top concerns will be the growth of business identity theft, in which bogus entities use existing business names to compromise business accounts.

And the group has two Silicon Forest ties, one direct and one tangential.

First, the direct. Rick Kam of ID Safeguards, a Beaverton-based startup focusing on the identity fraud protection and compromised identity recovery, has been named the chair of the new organization.

“Collaboration is a critical component of curbing identity theft ,” said Kam. “This group will work together and with the industry at large to share knowledge that will find new and effective ways to protect us all.”

Second, the tangential. CheckFree, parent company of recently acquired Hillsboro-based startup Corillian, is also part of the working group.

Interesting news for the Silicon Forest, and perhaps the early rumblings of an opportunity.

What if all of the “identity” focused folks here in town got together and started working on this whole problem? I’m thinking these fraud protection folks, the Portland-based OpenID folks like JanRain, and the soon-to-have-a-Portland-office, rethinking-online-credentials Vidoop folks could have a pretty interesting conversation.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on February 7, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

Keiretsu Forum for Portland, February 15

Venture capital firm Keiretsu is starting to make inroads in the Portland VC scene. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

The start-up – doing the right things well

Thanks to Ignite Portland, I’m now reading Chris Logan, a recent Bay-area transplant. Here’s an example of his passion for startups: “I don’t understand why people make startups so complicated. Successful startups do the right things well. This means there are only two things to do: (one) figure out the right things; and (two) do them well. All the other stuff doesn’t matter. “

Seed Oregon about to bloom

Florists love blooms, you know. Mark your calendars. The finale of Seed Oregon is set for February 13th at the Bridgeport Brewpub. This round will determine the overall winner of the Seed Oregon competition and will also determine who goes on to compete on March 5th at Angel Oregon 2008 where there are serious investment prizes at stake.

Metroblogging Portland Meetup – Feb 20

the Green Dragon has some of the best fries in Portland. And we’re springing for food!

Portland Metblogs Meetup.
Green Dragon
SE 9th/Yamhill, 1 block south of Belmont
Wednesday, Feb 20, 5:30ish to whenever.

Businesses for an Environmentally Sustainable Tomorrow

Via Kevin Spence at Portland Small Business: The BEST Business Center, from Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development.

Portland-based Lunarr gets TechCrunch coverage

There are essentially two value propositions to Lunarr: first, the wiki-like functionality and second, the document-associated messaging system. In both the short and long runs, the messaging system provides more competitive value than the wiki functionality.

CenterNetworks: What Web Life Is Like In Silicon Forest

Thanks to Allen Stern of CenterNetworks for offering me a guest spot on his blog to showcase some of the interesting things about the Silicon Forest for a much broader audience than I tend to reach.

JanRain releases code for accepting self-issued InfoCards

Today JanRain released an important piece of code to help enable web applications accept Microsoft Information Cards. It’s a Python library and PostgreSQL database interface that uses libxmlsec and OpenSSL. This code does not depend on any Web framework, and the database implementation should be easy to generalize.

My secret is a dashboard for each side of the firewall

Jive Software’s Sam Lawrence shares a secret: “One of the biggest questions I get is how I manage to do my job and seem to stay on top of the blogosphere, Twitter, employees, breaking news, and competitors. Assuming you believe I’m actually doing my job, I thought I’d share how I stay on top of all the rest.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

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.)

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on February 6, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

Torvalds pans Apple with ‘utter crap’ putdown

Apple’s much-touted new operating system is in some ways worse than Windows Vista, says the founder of the Linux open source project (and Portland resident), Linus Torvalds.

Vidoop Hires OpenID Foundation Chair Scott Kveton

Marshall Kirkpatrick covers the Kveton and Vidoop news, saying “The addition of Kveton to its staff should push Vidoop into the public consciousness in a big way, concerning OpenID and open platforms.”

iovation, Accertify Team On Fraud Prevention

Portland, Oregon-based iovation, a provider of technology for reducing online fraud, inked a deal today with credit card fraud prevention firm Accertify.

Igniting Portland’s Tech Community

This second iteration should be triple the size of the inaugural event and will no doubt confirm that Portland deserves it’s Silicon Forest moniker. Chris Logan’s presentation in the first wave – Time for Portland to Take its place – should drive the message home.

Egosurfing: Rick Turoczy | Portland On Fire

Portland On Fire is a daily discovery of PDX people. The site introduces you to a person in the Portland, Oregon (PDX), area every day. Reach out and connect. Here’s my profile. When are you submitting yours?

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Kveton joins Vidoop, opens Portland office

Rick Turoczy on February 5, 2008

Well, here’s a double whammy.

I’ve heard rumors that Scott Kveton, open-source proponent Silicon Forest Twitterati, and local tech dynamo, has had plans to get more involved in the Portland tech scene—by moving up to the Rose City.

But I never expected that he’d bring a company with him.

Now, it’s official. Not only is Kveton headed to Portland, but he has the newest addition to the Portland tech scene—Vidoop—in tow. Starting in February, Kveton will serve as the company’s Vice President of Open Platforms and the director of Vidoop’s new Portland office.

“The tech community [in Portland] is amazing, and we hope to contribute to it in a big way,” said Luke Sontag, Vidoop co-founder and President, Technology.

What’s more? Get your resumes ready. The Portland office plans to employ a dozen software engineers within three months, said Joel Norvell, president, CEO and co-founder of Vidoop.

What’s Vidoop? Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Vidoop has created a user credential technology that replaces passwords with a dynamic grid of images that is interpretable only by valid users. Vidoop’s technology was originally developed in 2006 to secure user accounts for financial institutions and corporations and has recently been licensed by several Fortune 500 companies.

Personally, I’m looking forward to more exciting news out of this crew.

Scott Kveton is fixture of the local tech and open-source community. A digital identity promoter and open source advocate, he has worked at Amazon, RuleSpace.com and JanRain, and founded the Open Source Lab at Oregon State University. Working closely with projects like Mozilla, Linux, Drupal and Apache led Kveton to OpenID in mid-2006. He was named to Red Herring’s 2007 list of ‘25 Titans in Waiting’. Kveton speaks publicly about identity and open source and holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Oregon State University.

For more information on Scott Kveton visit his personal site or follow him on Twitter. Or come meet him and Sontag, tonight, at Ignite Portland. For more information on Vidoop, visit the corporate site.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on February 5, 2008

Sometimes, a link says more than I could ever say. Here are some fragrant little buds I’ve found recently, courtesy of ma.gnolia.

It’s Almost Time for Ignite!

Here are some helpful tips and tricks if you’re planning on attending Ignite Portland, Tuesday, February 5.

Jason Harris now writing for Web Worker Daily

Anyone familiar with the major tech blogs knows the name “Om.” And now, we’ve got a local connection to the GigaOm media empire. Web Worker Daily has recently added Jason Harris as one of its writers. Harris also writes for Download Squad and his own blog, Techcraver.

Invention 2 Venture Portland

(Sorry for the late notice. I just received the invite myself.)

February 8 and 9, the University of Portland will host a Friday evening plus all day Saturday conference on starting new ventures. The social event Friday evening will be downtown Portland and all Saturday sessions will be on the University of Portland campus. The theme of the conference emphasizes start-ups in the clean technology space.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

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