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Tag: Portland

Portland presents at WordCamp Las Vegas

Rick Turoczy on January 10, 2009

WordCamp Las VegasThis weekend, a number of Portland folks made the trek down south for WordCamp Las Vegas, a gathering of WordPress users akin to our own WordCamp Portland.

Three members of the Portland tech community—Aaron Hockley, Geoff Kleinman, and Lorelle VanFossen—took to the stage to present. Which is a really big deal, given that the attendees at this event are very much a who’s who of the WordPress community and the world of blogging, including Matt Mullenweg (the creator of WordPress), Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss… the list goes on and on.

Aaron Hockley’s talk “Beyond Beer and Blog,” described the growing Web tech scene here in town and highlighted some of the key factors that contributed to building such a successful community.

The presentation was so exceedingly good—and so well received—I’ve embedded it below for your viewing pleasure. It’s the weekend. Kick back and spend a few minutes hearing about how we got where we are today.

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Geoff presented on techniques and tips for managing team blogs with large numbers of contributors. You can watch his presentation on the WordCamp Las Vegas Ustream channel.

Unfortunately, at the time of this post, the always incomparable Lorelle had not yet had her presentation archived. (I’ll link it up when it’s available. [Update] Or not. See Aaron’s comment below.) She presented on measuring traffic and what it means to bloggers. No doubt with a mention or two of Woopra.

WordCamp Las Vegas continues through Sunday. It is being streamed live if you’d like to tune in.

Legion of Tech announces Advisory Committee for 2009

Rick Turoczy on January 9, 2009

Legion of TechToday, the Legion of Tech—the completely volunteer force behind a number of the free and amazing tech events here in Portland, Oregon—announced a new addition to their organization, an Advisory Committee to help guide the efforts of the LoT.

Specifically, the Advisory Committee works with the Legion of Tech Board in an effort to “provide feedback on Legion of Tech activities, act as a few more eyes and ears in the community, and get more people involved in Legion of Tech.”

The 12 inaugural members of the committee are:

Congratulations to everyone who has been named to the Advisory Committee!

For me, it’s an humbling honor to have been selected to serve with this group of incredibly intelligent and creative folks. I’m looking forward to doing all I can to help the Legion of Tech volunteers and the new LoT Board continue to build one of the most beneficial tech resources in the Silicon Forest.

AboutUs secures $5 million in funding—and they could be hiring soon, too

Rick Turoczy on January 9, 2009

Big news today for Portland and the world of wiki. Portland-based AboutUs has secured $5 million in Series A funding led by Voyager Capital. And in equally good news, the company plans to use the infusion of cash to expand their staff.

It’s always impressive when a Portland company lands funding, but given the current economic conditions, this is especially welcome news.

Quoting heavily from my post on ReadWriteWeb:

How does a small startup secure capital in such turbulent economic times? Being profitable helps – something AboutUs achieved by mid-year 2008. The company is forecasting continued growth, this year. Ray King, CEO, said the company is targeting $5 million in revenue for 2009. The primary source remains advertising, but the online marketing services AboutUs sells – including content creation and custom page development – continue to gain traction.

Another reason for investor confidence? The staff. AboutUs holds a special place in the world of wiki as the employer of Ward Cunningham, the inventor of the wiki, and they continue to attract new talent. They recently hired a number of new employees, including CFO Jack Williamson. King hopes to use the new funding to increase the size of the company to around 50 employees by the end of 2009, up from its current staff of 32.

The company also received a nice write-up in the Portland Business Journal today. But, of course, the Business Journal being what it is, you won’t be able to read it unless you’re a subscriber.

For more on the news, see Mike Rogoway’s post on the Silicon Forest blog.

Other good news? The celebration for this announcement has already been set. Don’t forget, AboutUs is buying us lunch—or rather Lunch 2.0—next month.

Only you can prevent bloglessness

Rick Turoczy on January 8, 2009

Smokey says Only YOU can prevent bloglessnessBlogs. Everyone has one. Or do they?

Living in the bloggy world that you do, it may come as a shock to you that—are you sitting down?—many intelligent, thoughtful, and opinionated individuals are currently without a blog of any sort today. In fact, some of them don’t even read blogs, let alone publish them.

I know! WTF?

There, there. Wipe away that tear, sunshine. We’re looking to avert this tragedy. In Portland, at least.

Thanks to the good folks at Beer and Blog, we’ve got End Bloglessness, a half-day workshop designed to get even the most neophytic luddite up-and-blogging in no time flat. And as is common in the Portland Web tech scene: it’s all free.

Bloggers and would-be bloggers of all skill sets are welcome. Just show up Saturday, January 10 at CubeSpace. From noon until 5 PM, you’ll be walking through the entire blog setup process, everything from installation through promotion.

We are focusing on launching WordPress blogs for this workshop. We’re also focusing on self-hosted blogs, so you’ll need a hosting plan and your access information with you at the workshop to get assisted help. Owning your own hosting account, and therefore your blog, is important and the reason we want to do this workshop is to expand access to blog ownership to more people.

By the time you leave the workshop, you’ll have a blog that is ready to go and some direction on how to connect with other local bloggers. We are expecting people from all skill levels, including the technically challenged. Everyone will be treated with respect and will be encouraged.

Or, if you’re interested in hearing more, swing by Beer and Blog, this Friday at the Green Dragon.

Remember, only you can prevent bloglessness.

Visit Upcoming to RSVP for End Bloglessness or this Friday’s Beer and Blog.

Portland Web Innovators Demolicious: Everything old is new again (well, okay, two things)

Rick Turoczy on January 8, 2009

PDXWI Portland Web InnovatorsLast night, Portland Web Innovators kicked off its 2009 gatherings with Demolicious, the quarterly showcase of cool new products.

Of the five demos, two were products we’ve seen before—but they’ve been retooled for the new year.

Mugasha

Akshay Dodeja demoed Mugasha. Originally developed during Portland Startup Weekend, the site has gone through several iterations in development—now it’s ready to launch in private beta.

If you’re into electronica, you’re going to want to check it out. What’s it do? Basically, it parses DJ set podcasts—usually one long multi-hour track with no song info—into separate song tracks, allowing user to play the songs they want to play and actually know which tunes they’re playing.

Metroseeq

Taking a different cut on a previous iteration, Kevin Chen demoed a new version of Metroseeq, a mapping application that gives you the options to search for resources around a town, in-between two locations, or by marking your own route and allowing the service to plot resources along that route.

The new version of Metroseeq relies on the Google API and returns to the four closest resource for any search.

The other three demos showed off some new development.

Foodisms

Michael Kelly showed us Foodisms, an early version of a restaurant and food searching site with a twist: rather than searching by cuisine, you search by ingredient. Foodisms then looks for that ingredient and suggests a variety of dishes at any number of restaurants.

The current dataset is currently limited to 100 Portland restaurants (which, for Portland, is a narrow subset) but the foundational structure for the product has been established. If they can scale the data entry—dish by dish, ingredient by ingredient—this is going to be very cool indeed.

Sunago

Scott Andreas shared Sunago, community management software for nonprofits—especially advocacy groups. Its mission is simple:

“We’re tired of companies charging exorbitant amounts of money for apps that, well, suck. We’d rather you to spend your money on your vision, not software. That’s why Sunago is free for small organizations, and affordable for larger ones.”

Sunago has already been deployed with several nonprofits and Scott is constantly adding new features.

OpenLaszlo

Finally, Dave Miller demonstrated OpenLaszlo, an ECMAScript tool for building “rich internet applications” that will let the developer script structured content that can be compiled and deployed as either HTML or Flash—from the same code. Dave showed off some of the capabilities and demoed an app he had built.

Based on the beginning of his demo, I’d also offer that Dave is available to perform as a mime for your kids’ birthday parties or your next corporate function. Or not.

Demolicious was streamed live via UStream, but I’m not seeing an archived copy available yet. [Update] In the meantime, here’s some additional analysis and insight from David Abramowski.

If you missed the event, the next Demolicious will be April 1. What a fortuitous date for demoing.

Well worth the read: The Oregonian’s coverage of the Winter Coders’ Social

Rick Turoczy on January 8, 2009

It’s not often I get the chance to sing the praises of The Oregonian, but the coverage of the Winter Coders’ Social is exactly the kind of mainstream coverage this whole Portland open source community deserves.

Because much of the programming work in Portland is of the freelance or consulting nature, gatherings such as these are good for getting job leads or for simply taking a break from staring at a computer screen. But competitive Silicon Valley this isn’t. Here at CubeSpace, partygoers never get more aggressive than wearing shirts to advertise their preferred programming language — “Perl Mongers” or “Ruby Brigade.” And once the party ends at 10 p.m., plans are made to head up the street to Aztec Willies for another beer.

Silicon Florist favorites Calagator, Ward Cunningham, Selena Deckelmann, Audrey Eschright, Igal Koshevoy, and Bart Massey are all mentioned.

“The rate of change can drown you,” Eschright says. “You have to stay on top of things and get involved. Be a co-producer. Technology needs to represent who you are.”

As I’ve mentioned before, this is exactly the kind of coverage people have been asking me to pursue—shedding more light on the activities of the open source development community and user groups in the area. I’m glad to see The O beating me to the punch.

Grab a cup of coffee—or beverage of your choice—and take few minutes to read “Geekathon potlucks unite computer herd.”

SXSW Interactive 2009: Portland Meetup, January 19

Rick Turoczy on January 7, 2009

SXSW InteractiveIn a little over two months, a good chunk of the Portland tech scene will begin its annual pilgrimage down to Austin, Texas, for SXSW Interactive.

Maybe you’re going. Or maybe you’ve been toying with the idea of going. Either way, Dawn Foster highlights an upcoming meetup that you should seriously consider: SXSW Interactive Portland Meetup.

This will give you an opportunity to learn more about SXSW from the people who organize it. If you’ve never attended or were on the fence about attending, it’s a great opportunity to learn more. For those of us who already love SXSW, it gives us an opportunity to get to know some other Portland people who plan to attend.

The event will be held Monday, January 19, beginning at 6 PM at the Fez Ballroom.

And now here’s where it gets a bit weird. If you would like to attend, you should RSVP by emailing interpress@sxsw.com with “Portland” in the subject line. Because nothing says “cutting-edge interactive conference” quite like email.

Ahem.

Okay, here. I created a Calagator entry for the event. While you can’t RSVP there, that definitely makes it a little more cutting-edge—and Portland-y to boot.

All kidding aside, SXSW is an amazing conference. A place where you’ll find yourself talking to the best and the brightest in the industry and feeling like you’re definitely among people who “get it.” What’s more, the Portland contingent promises to be even bigger this year, so we’ll be able to take that shared experience back here—and we’ll continue to benefit from it all year long.

You should go. It’s well worth the time. And I’d love to see you in Austin in March.

Masterbacon: More techie bacon love than you can shake a strip of bacon at

Rick Turoczy on January 7, 2009

Bacon!There are some things that just go well together. Chocolate & peanut butter. Beer & Blog. And, of course, technology & bacon.

What’s that? You’re not aware of the kismet-like connection of cured meats and coding?

Well, then Masterbacon is for you, my friend.

It’s all about techies doing what they do best: geeking. Only this time, rather than geeking about some obscure algorithm or arcane coding language, they’re geeking about bacon.

Have you ever wanted to get together with a bunch of other bacon geeks and just geek out about bacon? What if there was an event specifically catered to bacon geeks to be able to share their favorite bacon treats with the world? Wouldn’t it make sense to make it a competition complete with trophy and prizes? Of course it would.

Masterbacon is just such an event.

So much bacon love, even the most vegan of geeks is sure to appreciate it. Maybe.

Masterbacon will be held on Saturday, January 17, at the newly opened Davis Street Tavern in Old Town. Participation is mandatory. That means you’re cooking, judging… something.

For more information, see Masterbacon on Bacon Geek. To RSVP, visit Upcoming.

I can’t wait to see how you get your bacon on. That is, just so long as this isn’t how you get your bacon on.

Photo courtesy the bacon geek, himself, Scott Kveton. Used under Creative Commons.

Concrete5 pours the foundation for another Portland user group

Rick Turoczy on January 6, 2009

Concrete5If I had to describe 2009 thus far, I would dub it the “Year of the User Group.” And that would also make Audrey Eschright’s prediction right—already.

What is it with you people? I mean, it’s a totally good thing. But man, there are new user groups springing up left and right. First Portland Data Plumbing, then Portland WordPress, and now Portland Concrete5. And since I promised Igal Koshevoy that I would do a better job of highlighting what’s happening in the user groups and development groups in town, I’m simply trying to keep up.

What’s Concrete5? It’s an elegant open source content management system developed right here in Portland, Oregon, that rivals some other more popular content management systems out there in terms of functionality—and downright crushes them in terms of ease-of-use.

Well, something as good as C5 is sure to develop a legion of fans. And now, those fans and users have the opportunity to meet one another with the newly launched Concrete5 Portland User Group:

Earlier this summer we released our previously commercial CMS as fully “Free Beer” under the MIT open source license. The second half of 2008 was a whirlwind for us as we were named project of the month on SourceForge and saw traffic go through the roof.

As part of running what promises to be the next Drupal, local user groups are going to be a huge component to our success. We have several starting around the states and Europe this month, with the Portland one obviously being super keen as this is our home turf.

Meetings will be held the second Thursday of every month, beginning with the inaugural meeting this Thursday, January 8 at Hopworks. For more information, see the Calagator entry. To RSVP, visit the Concrete5 Portland community.

Portland WordPress User Group: Why save all the love for WordCamp Portland?

Rick Turoczy on January 6, 2009

WordPressHands down, one of the most compelling and beneficial events of the Portland Web scene last year was WordCamp Portland, where the WordPress faithful took the opportunity to gather, share ideas, and learn about new ways to use their favorite blogging platform.

So much WordPress love from the community. It seems a shame to keep it pent up all year.

Enter Portland WordPress User Group, a new event designed to help newbies get the help they need, to ensure power users get more powerful, and to generally forge a stronger community among the WordPress types here in town. And an event—most importantly—designed to occur much more often than once a year.

Apart from the assurances of “I know Beer and Blog. I’ve been to Beer and Blog. This is not Beer and Blog,” the format is still pretty open. The first gathering will be designed to help form that, um, format.

The inaugural meeting will be held Thursday, January 15th from 6:00-7:30pm at CubeSpace. To RSVP, visit Upcoming.

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