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

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

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

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for September 26

PDX #powerballVC: Fund startups using the lottery

Nate Angell writes “Based on an idea by @linuxaid, we announce the first PDX Powerball venture capitalist (#powerballVC) group. Our own Legion of Tech has been nominated as the trusted #powerballVC steward and will receive 10% of any winnings to support their awesome work to grow and nurture the local Portland community through free, educational, community-run technology events. Anyone who gives/pledges $5 no later than noon tomorrow (ie, 12pm PT Saturday 27 Sep 2008) can join the final draw and I’ll collect your contribution later if necessary. All entrants will split the winnings equally, minus LoT’s share.”

Hazelnut Tech Talk Episode 11 | On The Road With The Infovore | Hazelnut Tech Talk

Via Hazelnut Tech Talk “This episode features Troy Harlan, wherein we talked about information gathering, filtering and consuming (naturally,) human factors, trilobites, reading at 2,000 words per minute, INTP’s, striving for objectivity, The Black Swan, hunches, and why it’s better to “have no map at all than have the wrong map”—all recorded on the road from St. Johns to downtown Portland.”

Shizzow Blog · Tweaks of the Week: Nearby People on the Place Page

Via the Shizzow blog “We released a couple of new things yesterday. As always, this our way of proving that we like you and actually listen to all of that feedback you post on Get Satisfaction.”

Changing of the guard: Legion of Tech board elections announced

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.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for September 25

JPV PDX: Articulating KlatchPDX

J.P. Voilleque writes “I feel like we’re missing the chance to get people with different backgrounds and experiences into a room for talks about stuff that matters. Even more, I feel strongly that cool chats are at least as useful as cool talks. There’s also the potential to record these and provide some additional shoutouts to the PDX tech/creative community.”

WhereCamp PDX: bringing the electronic world into the physical

Via the WhereCamp PDX blog “I think that Wherecamp PDX may be the most important unconference in Portland this year.”

OSU’s Open Source Lab names well-connected advisers – Silicon Forest – The Oregonian – OregonLive.com

Mike Rogoway writes “Oregon State’s Open Source Lab named seven from the tech industry to form a new advisory council for the lab. Advisers are charged with helping connect the lab to open source communities and to create opportunities for OSU students.”

Brandon Philips » Linux Plumbers Conf- huge success and looking to 2009

Brandon Philips writes “Linux Plumbers Conf was a huge success due to the huge amount of effort put forth by the organizers and the great turnout of attendees. Thanks to everyone!”

Strands Social Recommender to power Web-based virtual warehouse DollarDays and its retail customers

Via the Strands blog “We are happy to announce that Strands Social Recommender™ is now powering personalized product recommendations at DollarDays, the online wholesaler and closeout company that hosts a Web-based virtual warehouse at http://www.dollardays.com.”

Thought Propulsion | iPhone & Web Apps Built About You

Bill Burcham launches Thought Propulsion. “At Thought Propulsion™ we develop joyful Web applications using whizbang technology like Ruby on Rails and Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud. Got a native iPhone app in mind? We can help with that too.”

Announcing Jama Contour v2.4: Building great software products just got a little easier.

Via the Jama Software blog “Each year in the U.S. alone, over $30 billion is wasted on failed software development projects. And, the major causes for why these projects fail consistently tie back to requirements management. Jama Software’s mission is to eliminate that failure by enabling companies to take a more collaborative, customer-driven approach to product planning and development.”

WordCamp Portland: We’re Going to Rock the House! | Our PDX Network

Betsy Richter writes “Sure, I may be speaking. Yes, I’m a sponsor (and am helping to facilitate the beer acquisition and delivery, woo-hoo!) But I have to shamelessly say that WordCamp Portland will absolutely, positively rock it.”

Coffee With An Expert- PDX Coffee Clinic at CubeSpace at CubeSpace (Monday September 29, 2008) – Upcoming

Via Upcoming “Our September 29 Coffee Clinic will focus on angel/VC fundraising. ‘Startup Expert’ Carolynn Duncan will be available to address your questions and help resolve areas where you may be stuck.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for September 24

Justin Kistner – WordPress ecosystems at WordCamp Portland

Justin Kistner writes “Oh man am I looking forward to this Saturday’s WordCamp!! @ahockley and crew have really pulled together something special. Jane from WordPress will be there to give us an early look at WordPress 2.7. How sweet is that!?!”

Beer and Blog the WordCamp edition at Green Dragon Bistro & Brewpub (Friday September 26, 2008) – Upcoming

WordCamp Portland is this Saturday and we’re pre-funking at this week’s Beer and Blog!

Strange Love: all things aaron…

Via Strange Love Live “On another long crazy Friday night we had the ever distinctive Aaron Hockley over to answer questions about the upcoming Word Camp Portland. I’d suggest that you rush over to register for what’s sure to be an outstanding conference/un-conference hybrid but it’s already sold out. If you’re one of the lucky 150 registered to attend you can get some inside info on what’s going to happen.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for September 23

Iterasi Moves to the Heart of Downtown Portland

Pete Grillo writes “We moved here for two primary reasons: better proximity for many of our employees’ commutes to work and to get closer to Portland’s exciting and thriving high-tech community.”

Andy Baio joins Kickstarter board

Via Waxy.org “I wanted to take a moment to announce that I’ve joined the board of directors for Kickstarter, a brand-new startup based out of Brooklyn and Chicago…. Ultimately, everybody should be able to support themselves doing what they love using the web, and I think Kickstarter will be a great way to get there. Expect to hear more on Waxy.org as launch day gets closer.”

3 Tips for a Great Landing Page

Guidance from StepChange Group “every time we build a Landing Page or a Microsite, we see campaign conversion rates that are substantially higher than the main site – plus higher-quality referrals due to better targeting and qualification. Since most targeted Landing Pages can be put together in a couple of weeks, they are nearly a ‘no brainer’ for an online campaign. Based on our experience, here are some tips for creating a great Landing Page that converts well.”

Clearwire lurks – Silicon Forest – The Oregonian

Mike Rogoway writes “While walking to work last week, I passed this Clearwire truck parked on the street downtown. It’s got Oregon plates, which makes me think the company’s pretty well set up in Portland — though it’s still not offering service here.”

OTBC picks new home, new model – Silicon Forest

Mike Rogoway writes “The Open Technology Business Center has picked a new home, at The Round in central Beaverton.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for September 22

Strands, students, and haXe: Taking Web development to the next level

Via the Strands blog “As you might remember, Strands has organized the Strands Summer 2008 haXe Project (also see the announcement post), an opportunity for students to receive funding for open source development focused on the web based programming language “haXe“. Today, the Strands Summer 2008 haXe Project has officially come to a close.”

Happy OneWebDay!

Via the AboutUs blog “Today is OneWebDay, an international event celebrating online life on the 22nd of September each year. On OneWebDay.org it is explained as ‘a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet’s future’ and an ‘Earth Day for the internet.’ OneWebDay was founded by Susan Crawford in 2006, and has since spread all over the world.”

Linux Plumbers Conference: Mission Accomplished

Via Still Life with Chicken “I couldn’t have been happier with how the Linux Plumbers Conference went last week. I went back and looked at the original proposal that we had Arjan, Greg, and Randy present to the Linux Foundation, and we seem to have hit all our original goals.”

Walker Tracker in the blog world today

Via the Walker Tracker blog “It’s a busy day at Walker Tracker. We were chosen as a Kim Komando cool site of the day. Thanks, Kim! We were blogged on Crooked Timber, by Eszter Hargittai. Thanks Eszter! And we signed our first Private Level in New Zealand.”

Smart Phones for the Masses

Peat Bakke writes “Which gets me thinking — in ten years it could cost under $10 to build a mobile device equivalent to the iPhone, thanks to Moore’s Law. With an open source operating system (like Google’s Android), and an open hardware platform (like the Neo FreeRunner), a remarkable new level of capability and opportunity will be available to the people and communities who can only afford bare bones mobile phones today.”

Creating community: Tips from the community master, Dawn Foster

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.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for September 21

WhereCampPDX Blog » Equilibrium: The Human Mash Up

Via the WhereCamp PDX blog “To kick off WhereCamp PDX, on Friday night, October 17th, we’ll be taking part in an interactive art installation entitled ‘Equilibrium: The Human Mash Up’ taking place at the Olympic Mills Building at 107 SE Washington St Portland, OR 97214.”

Success as an Entrepreneur: Why It’s Not About You

Via Get Rich Slowly “Peter Hamilton is not alone. In interview after interview throughout Japan, Asia, and North America, successful entrepreneurs told me the same thing, in different words and in different languages: ‘It’s not about the money.’ What, then, is entrepreneurship about? Exploiting a market opportunity? Fame? Fortune? Proving yourself? “

451 CAOS Theory » Pressure, progress flow at Linux Plumbers Conference

Jay Lyman writes “This week’s Linux Plumbers Conference in Portland was a great opportunity for many of the Linux kernel community people to get together, challenge one another, hash out some differences and hone their similarities and synergies. What strikes me as perhaps most interesting is that while there was some discord felt throughout the event among the different Linux camps, this conglomerate of developers representing a range of different vendors in a variety of different ways all do one thing common to all of them: push the kernel forward.”

Creating Startups in Gray Areas

Via CenterNetworks “I am by no means some kind of business rock star. I didn’t attend Stanford or know anybody. I just focused on creating what didn’t exist, both then and now. Many refer to this as ‘gray areas,’ and they can be very good for business. Here are my five rules for finding them”

Win Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 1.6

Via the ExpressionEngine blog “We’re giving away 2 copies of Building Websites with ExpressionEngine 1.6. To enter all you have to do is post to the Discussion thread linked at the top of this post before Tuesday (September 23), 3pm Central.”

Strange Love Live – a set on Flickr

Curious about the inner workings of Portland’s favorite tech podcast? Let the lens of Aaron Hockley take you behind the scenes of Strange Love Live.

All of My Flickr Photos Now Have Creative Commons Licensing » Hockley Photography

Aaron Hockley writes “After some consideration, I’ve changed the licensing on my Flickr stream; all of my work there is now available under the Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial – No Derivative Works license. In short, you may use and share the photos for non-commercial purposes, unaltered, as long as you provide attribution to Aaron Hockley as the photographer. A link to hockleyphoto.com is always appreciated.”

We got a map | Clicky Blog

Via the Clicky blog “We re-organized things a bit, you may notice a new ‘Locale’ tab. This is where all the country, city, language etc stuff has been moved to. We also added a new sub-tab, called ‘Regions,’ but data only started tracking yesterday for it.”