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Guest Editorial: Scott Kveton

Rick Turoczy on March 3, 2008

[Editor’s note: Continuing the Silicon Florist’s guest editorial series, we welcome Scott Kveton, a well-known force-of-nature in the Portland technology community. And, as you’ll see, the de facto Chamber of Commerce for the Portland startup scene.]
Made in Oregon

Image courtesy Modified Enzyme under Creative Commons

Falling in love with Portland again and again

Last week was amazing. I spent most of it with Luke Sontag here in Portland, meeting with folks, spreading the good word about Vidoop and generally being in the city.

Having grown up in-and-around Portland, it’s always fun to see the reaction to everything-that-is-Portland from someone who doesn’t live here. (Oh, and the weather we had last week didn’t hurt either.)

I got a chance to talk a little bit about this at Ignite Portland 2, but I’ll say it again: This is the beginning of a fantastic renaissance period for Portland. It’s such a vibrant, eclectic, talented and diverse city with so many things going on, that it inspires the mind and spirit around every corner you turn. Even more, I think Chris Logan had it right: it’s time for Portland to step up and take its place.

There has been some talk about how “if you don’t live in the Bay Area and you’re in tech, you’re basically a wuss.”

So be it. The very last thing I want is for Portland to turn into the Bay Area or Seattle. I want it to be Portland. I want other cities to be saying “wouldn’t it be great if we were more like Portland?” I simply want Portland to come into its own in tech, in the arts, sustainability, green, etc.

But, how do we get to that point?

Well, it takes a bunch of us, it takes some time and, ironically, the city does most of the work for you.

For the past couple of years, I’ve made it a point to try to help people who are considering a move to Portland. I’ve spent countless days taking people around the city, introducing them to others in the city, and generally trying to give them a “locals’ view” of the city.

Now, the tour I take folks on covers a bit of ground and I’m seeking some input on the route. A couple of places I go to:

  • Tour of SW waterfront area with gondola love
  • Sellwood district (possibly for lunch, definitely for dinner at Saburo’s if it’s a weekday night)
  • SE towards 78th or so … Marshall has been kind enough to meet me more than once at the Bipartisan Cafe… soooo PDX
  • Alberta or Killingsworth… I used to live at Billy Reed’s at the turn of the century and I can’t believe how much it’s all changed since then
  • Pearl District for coffee (Caffe Umbria is amazing) or drinks (the Vault or even the Clyde Commons)
  • NW on 21st or 23rd… just too much to do, to eat, to see

Where would you take a touring visitor to get a taste of Portland from a local’s point-of-view? Bear in mind, I’m not looking for just a tech-person view on this. I’m all about diversity here.

The key to all of this, and the thing that I keep in mind at all times, is serendipity. Yeah, yeah, I know. Hard to quantify, huh? Well, I’m not the cheerleader type unless I really, really believe in it. Portland I can believe in. This city, the people, the places. It’s easy.

If you’re not predisposed to drink the PDX Kool-aid, then you’re probably not the type of person I’d want here anyway. And, if you’ve ended up in my Inbox or with my phone number, odds are, there’s a reason.

I’ll put this out there; if you have a friend or colleague that is thinking about making the move to Portland I’ll offer up my time for coffee or even the full-fledged tour to introduce them to the city and the people I know. It’s just the right thing to do. And, I’d challenge you to do the same.

Again, it’s not about trying to make Portland something it’s not… it’s about embracing serendipity and helping Portland realize its potential.

P.S. – first round is always on me … 🙂

Scott Kveton is a digital identity promoter, open source advocate, and Chairman of the OpenID Foundation. He has worked at Amazon, RuleSpace.com, JanRain, and MyStrands, and founded the Open Source Lab at Oregon State University. He is a regular speaker on the topic of identity and open source. Kveton currently serves as the Vice President of Open Platforms for Vidoop, a company he recently wooed to the Silicon Forest.

Silicon Florist gets some sprucing

Rick Turoczy on March 3, 2008

While it may not be obvious to those of you reading the feed, the Silicon Florist site has undergone some long-overdue “sprucing up” over the weekend.

Call me crazy, but it seemed like it was time to step away from the slightly tweaked default template. Because quite frankly, gentle reader, you’re worth it.

Obviously, as with all new digs, we’re still working out some of the kinks (like resurrecting the OpenID comment log-in). So your patience is appreciated. As is your feedback. We tried to implement this quickly, over the weekend. And we’ll continue to iron out the rough spots over time.

Before you start lobbing critiques (and I do appreciate the critiques), I’d encourage you to first lob congrats at Justin Kistner of Metafluence, whose Conversation theme for WordPress and design recommendations served as the foundation for the Silicon Florist redesign.

Word around the campfire is that a few other folks are already using the Conversation theme—or are preparing to implement it soon. And, I can see why. I’m still learning my way around it, but I’m really liking it so far.

A heartfelt, “Thank you,” Justin, for offering this theme up for use, sweating through the tweaking over the weekend, adding some incredibly nice features to the blog, and—last but not least—putting up with my nitpicking. I cannot thank you enough.

Hopefully, all of you will like this new direction as much as I do. I mean, I can only read my own stuff so much. So keeping you readers around—and happy—is of utmost importance.

And please, rest assured, that despite the snazzy new look, the writing around here remains fair to middling, as always. 😉

I’m looking forward to your feedback.

So, that’s that. Enough navel gazing. Without further ado, we now return you to your regularly scheduled Silicon Forest startup news, already in progress.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on March 3, 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.

A Great Time at Beaver BarCamp at Fast Wonder Blog

One of the highlights of the event for me was a tour of the Open Source Lab (OSUOSL) where they host the servers for some key open source projects: kernel.org, Apache, Drupal, and many more. The lab also does quite a bit of work with the OLPC (XO) laptops, and is currently working on improvements to the media player.

Pithering in Portland

Portland, Oregon, from a guest’s perspective. “So, after a couple of weeks of planning, I’ve arrived in Portland Oregon for three months. I’m here on a ThoughtWorks project, making use of the company’s perk of being able to move around.”

Oregon Startups: GoSeeTell Inks Deal with the Arizona Office of Tourism

The Phoenix Business Journal reported that Beaverton-based GoSeeTell inked a deal to create a website for the Arizona Office of Tourism: GoSeeArizona.com

Twitter on PortlandSmallBusiness.com

For those of you addicted to twitter, you can now tweet your friends when you post on portlandsmallbusiness.com. Just log into PortlandSmallBusiness.com account and associate your twitter account.

SplashCast Open Gym app springs to second

Quick update: the Open Gym splashcast is the 2nd most popular sports application on Facebook at the moment. After just 4 days since it launched, it’s been added to about 8,500 profile pages, and has about 6,000 daily active users.

Metroblogging Portland – Time for the Upgrade?

Could this be the new platform/infrastructure that’s been long needed? Might we see the end of minute-long waits for comments to be posted? From Aaron Hockley of VanPortlander, “Could there be comment feeds? One of the reasons I left as a writer for Metroblogging was that their blog infrastructure was downright painful to use. I’m excited to see what will be revealed after the redesign, and I hope that it involves performance and feature enhancements rather than just a new pretty face.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on March 1, 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.

AboutUs pagecount tops 11 million*

As of midnight last night, Portland, Oregon time, AboutUs pagecount stands at 11,003,771. Unfortunately, our Mediawiki statistics are broken…. So, it’s a ballpark figure and your mileage may vary. And it’s still fun to say we have 11 million pages.

PU.Camp is tomorrow [March 1]!

It’s not too late to sign up to present… in fact it will only be too late when the last person leaves and we turn off the lights at McKay Cottage. So if you get there and get inspired (maybe by the other speakers, or maybe by the beer*) there is still time to come up with a topic!

Jama Software adds Cadria

Although Cadria is not a typical customer for Jama, the meat of how their using Contour is really much the same. Marketing agencies like Cadria are experts in creating that certain thing that resonates with your audience. Managing the complexity, keeping alignment and consistency, and delivering within scope are all things that demand a disciplined process……which demands a tool to manage that process.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

paidContent and mocoNews mobilized by FreeRange

Rick Turoczy on February 29, 2008

Portland-based FreeRange Communications has announced a partnership with ContentNext Media that will have FreeRange designing and delivering mobile versions of paidContent and mocoNews, currently the 439th and 4,146th most authoritative blogs in the world according to Technorati.

Justifiably classified as “must reads” by FreeRange CEO Jon Maroney, the mobile content for paidContent and mocoNews will be available at http://paid.mwap.at and http://moco.mwap.at, respectively.

Why FreeRange?

“The FreeRange platform gives our readers the latest breaking news with an attractive interface and quick load time,” said Ted Rupp, Director of Business Development at ContentNext. “FreeRange app’s vastly improve the mobile web experience, and provide an excellent outlet for sponsors as well.”

ContentNext chose FreeRange for two specific reasons. First, the FreeRange system updates feeds and content in the background, ensuring that the content is always updated and accessible—even if the phone is out of tower range. Second—and perhaps more importantly—the FreeRange mobile widgets are designed to run on practically all mobile systems, ensuring the widest reader base possible for the ContentNext sites.

And straight from the paidContent post:

The key benefits: all four feeds from our four sites are in one place, and are updated in real time so you get the freshest news. You can view the feeds at your leisure, even when you’re offline. Also, it can serve as your default mobile RSS reader, as you can add your own feeds and even your local weather. The app works on the majority of mobile devices with a data connection besides BlackBerry.

For more information on the ContentNext partnership, see the FreeRange release.

FreeRange Communications enables media companies and consumer brands to deliver their content and advertising to mobile phones in a way that is fast and easy to read. The FreeRange Mobile Publishing Platform allows publishers to have mobile widgets that work on nearly all mobile phones, extending their business models and content to mobile phone screens around the world. For more information on FreeRange and its mobile services, visit FreeRange.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on February 29, 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.

Lunch 2.0 » Portland Lunch 2.0 Launches

Yesterday, about 50 geeks and non-geeks gathered at AboutUs.org in their sweet, newly-remodeled space in the Olympic Mills Commerce Center for the inaugural Portland Lunch 2.0. The event felt very Portland with no formal agenda and no presentations, just a good lunch with good people.

PDX Tech Calendar: RSVP for March 1 Code Sprint

Another code sprint for the calagator.org project has been scheduled for Saturday, March 1. If you’re interested in joining in on the fun, make sure to RSVP here.

Beer and Blog – Update your blog software at Lucky Labrador Brew Pub (Friday, February 29, 2008) – Upcoming

It’s already time for another Beer and Blog. This week’s topic? Update your blog software – how to put your CMS on a SVN or similar automagic updating system.

March 1st is Calagator Code Sprint Time

Possible tasks for this week include: finally getting that iCalendar import working, sending polite emails to organizations that don’t currently provide a calendar feed, and drafting ideas for the full event listing UI. Programmers, designers, and other tech community members are all welcome.

GoLife Mobile framework and the imminent Apple iPhone SDK

The GoLife team are fans of Apple’s device and we’re excited by the opportunity to develop for it. The SDK poses a distinct opportunities for GoLife Mobile and developers who support our framework. Application portability benefits everyone from the developer down. Developers can devote time and resources to one medium and won’t have to worry about supporting multiple platforms. That’s the beauty of a mobile framework and thats the beauty of GoLife Mobile.

SplashCast creates “Open Gym” application for Converse (Nike)

SplashCast has announced the launch of the Converse splashcast application this week to promote the mega-sport brands’ cross-media campaign called “Open Gym”. The campaign is all about bringing great basketball facilities and equipment to urban centers across the country. Old gyms will be renovated and the kids will get free shoes and equipment for the courts. The initial Open Gym cities include Miami, Chicago, and Philadelphia.In other news, being a grammar geek, I’ve noticed some new SplashCast additions to the English language. SplashCast (proper noun) is the company while splashcast (noun) refers to the player in which the media resides, which of course makes splashcasting (verb) the act of playing media through the splashcast from SplashCast.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Meet: SEMpdx Searchfest 2008 is March 10

Rick Turoczy on February 28, 2008

Just like developers’ language- and framework-specific gatherings, there are other tangential practices and events that can play an important role for Web startups, blogs, and the like, here in Portland.

One of those tangential practices is search-engine marketing (SEM). And Portland is one of the leading cities for professionals who are exploring and extending the white-hat techniques of this oft-maligned marketing communications practice.

So, it makes sense that Portland also plays host to one of the premiere national events for SEM, SEMpdx Searchfest.

This year’s event, SEMpdx Searchfest 2008, to be held March 10 at the Oregon Zoo, will consist of:

[A] full-day search engine marketing conference featuring multiple learning sessions and expert panels to help you leverage search engine marketing (SEM) in your organization. Whether you are an SEM professional, work in an advertising agency or part of an in-house marketing department, SearchFest 2008 will connect you with the leading thinkers and practioners in SEM today.

I’ve also been advised that the event has taken a decidedly strategic turn, designed to help folks understand the benefits of adopting—and strategies for incorporating—search engine marketing into the broader strategies for the business.

Sound interesting? You’re can still get the early-bird discount if you register before March 1. And if you want an additional discount of $40, the Silicon Florist is happy to comply:

How to get the discount:

  1. Register for SearchFest at http://www.searchfest.org
  2. Enter the code SEMBD in the “Coupons/Gift Certificates” text box and click “Add.” (This is at step 3 of the shopping cart)
  3. Enjoy your day at SearchFest

For more information, visit SEMpdx. Interested in attending? Or, take the opportunity to register for SEMpdx Searchfest 2008.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement

Rick Turoczy on February 28, 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.

Portland Lunch 2.0: Tasty

Today was the first Portland Lunch 2.0 event, a lunchtime gathering for a group of mostly-techie Portlanders to enjoy some good food and talk with others from the community. The idea is that the event will rotate around with different companies sponsoring the lunch in their space.

Jive Talks: We’ve donated an iPhone to the DataPortability logo contest

Jive’s Sam Lawrence writes, “Earlier this week, the DataPortability WorkGroup was sent a Cease and Desist order by Red Hat to stop using their logo. Opting to take the high road, Chris Saad and the crew decided to hold a logo contest to rebrand the DataPortability WorkGroup. To show our support and to get the prize bandwagon moving, Jive was the first to donate a prize, which was an iPhone.”

Are you going to Startupalooza?

It’s brought to you by the same people who put on IgnitePortland so you know it is going to be good. Best of all–it’s FREE!

iovation Hires Sales, Technology Vice Presidents

Internet security specialist iovation reported Wednesday that it has hired two new vice presidents. The Portland, Ore.-based company said Chris Reid will step in as vice president of sales while Emmett Zahn will serve as vice president of technology.

Recipe for a High-Tech Hub

To get there, a city needs three things. Money, big companies and good weather. That last one isn’t a joke; quality of life is important. For example, many people want to live in Austin, while few want to live in Houston. So even though there are a lot of huge companies, money, and a real effort by folks at places like the Houston Technology Center and Startup Houston, building an information economy there is going to be a challenge. Blame it on the humidity. The same goes for places like Tulsa, Okla., Detroit and even Chicago, where weather or other factors such as crime make it hard to convince people to live there. (Note to the Chambers of Commerce in named cities: I said hard, not impossible).

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Portland Lunch 2.0: Filling and good for you, too

Rick Turoczy on February 27, 2008

The inaugural Portland Lunch 2.0 kicked off, today, at the AboutUs offices in the still-being-renovated Olympic Mills Commerce Center. And after pouring through a number of tweets about the topic, this afternoon, I can confidently say that Lunch 2.0 was a definite success.

The Lunch 2.0 concept started with folks in Silicon Valley as a means of staying in touch with friends and former coworkers, while getting the chance to gawk at everyone else’s office spaces and to try out the food in the cafeteria.

And there was much gawking to be had at the new AboutUs build-out. The space was perfect for the crowd. And, by midway through the event, it was easily filled to capacity with a wide variety of folks from startups around the area.

Since its start in the Valley, Lunch 2.0 has popped up all over the map, from Amsterdam to Bangalore to (my personal favorite) Lunch Five-0 in Hawaii. Portland’s version of Lunch 2.0 was brought to town by Jake Kuramoto with help from Dawn Foster.

Thinking about attending a future Lunch 2.0? Please bear in mind that part of the appeal of Lunch 2.0 is its progressive nature of moving from one location to another—so you can start scheming about how to cowork in their space you get to see the cool spaces in town where smart people do their work. If you’re interested in having a group of hungry startup types invade your office space during a lunch hour, please comment below.

As a reminder for those of you who were taking pictures and who have plans to upload them to flickr, tagging them “lunch20” will ensure they appear in the flickr widget on the official Lunch 2.0 site.

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