As a startup, you have to make best use of your time — your most limited and valuable resource. And when you’re making products that require partners to make it into the hands of your customers, you’re even more strapped for time. Like consumer products. That needs often needs shelves or marketplaces to get in front of their consumers. That’s why companies like Parsnip are super interesting.
Portland is no stranger to regional offices. Or being an expansion market. We’ve had more than our fair share of companies picking the Rose City as one of their locations. And now, we’ve got another one. But it may very well be one of the most Portlandy ones of the bunch. Why? Because it’s a startup that’s designed to help small business be more successful. Meet Townsquared. Read More
Yes, yes. We all know that the Bay Area is the be all and end all of startup awesomeness. And that there are any number of drool worthy companies down there. Companies that any one of us would give an arm and leg for which to work. But what about poor little Portland? Wait. What’s that? You can stay here and work for those companies? Read More
The good news is that Jive will be holding it’s first ever user group—affectionately titled JiveWorld09—October 27-29, 2009. The bad news? They’ll be holding JiveWorld in San Francisco.
There comes a time—hopefully—in every software company’s life when they develop enough of a fervent following that they feel compelled to have a user group. I’m happy to announce that Portland-based Jive Software has reached that point.
That’s right. The good news is that Jive will be holding its first ever user group—affectionately titled JiveWorld09—October 27-29, 2009. The bad news? They’ll be holding JiveWorld in San Francisco Read More
Portland-based Shizzow—the service designed to help you find and meet up with friends as quickly and easily as possible—has had a good run in the Portland area. But now, they’re feeling the need to stretch their horizons a bit.
And where better for a cool Web-based and SMS-friendly app to stretch than the Bay Area? Um. Well, nowhere, really. So, starting today, Shizzow has decided to expand its “heretofore relegated to the Silicon Forest” user base to include our friends in San Francisco and the surrounding area.
Now, granted, our friends to the south get to test this kind of thing more often than most. Why should they take a look at Shizzow? According to the folks at Shizzow—arguably the best ones to respond—there are a number of reasons their service is different.
But the one that strikes me—an active Shizzow user—as the most poignant is this one:
We developed Shizzow to solve a specific need: the desire to find our friends and hang out with them. The other services had so much clutter that we weren’t able to effectively solve our need using any of the existing location-based applications.
If you’re in the Silicon Forest and haven’t had a chance to try Shizzow yet, drop a comment below and I’ll get you on board. Same goes for our Shizzow neighbors in the Silicon Valley. Or you can always go straight to the source.
Justin Kistner, a fixture in the Portland startup, design, and social media scene (who also happened to create the “Conversation” theme that skins the Silicon Florist site), has shared with me that he will be going to work for Silicon Valley communications firm Voce Communications, starting in April.
Kistner is perhaps best known for his weekly gathering of influential Portland bloggers, Beer and Blog, and his own blog on the social media scene, Metafluence.
He will be joining Voce (in spite of Steve Rubel’s recent post) as a Social Media Strategist, focusing on:
Identifying the people, places, and conversations that are advantageous for a business to engage with and recommend an approach. Then provide engagement maintenance to keep our market position moving in the right direction.
I hear you. “I thought Silicon Florist was supposed to be about Portland news?” So, why am I writing about somebody bailing on the Portland startup community for the Valley?
Well, because he’s not bailing.
Turns out Kistner will be working from Portland—and likely still for Portland companies. And I think that makes this announcement especially interesting to the Portland startup and tech community.
Why? I have three specific reasons.
First, with this hire, Portland’s social media and Web scene gets a hint of some well-deserved “street cred.”
“They want me to stay here because they like that I’m part of the Portland tech scene,” said Kistner. “And they feel that gives them more perspective. It helps them if I’m not get stuck in the Silicon Valley echo chamber.”
Second, Portland—through Kistner—has the opportunity to expose the firm that handles social media strategy for companies like Yahoo!, Verisign, Sony Playstation, and eBay, to Portland’s way of doing things.
Third, Portland gains another diplomat for meaningful cross-pollination with the Valley—in the same vein as Scott Kveton, Raven Zachary, Marshall Kirkpatrick, and countless others—whom Portland is lucky to have acting as de facto emissaries in that important epicenter.
All of those things, in my opinion, can only be good for Kistner. And good for us.
I, for one, am interested to see how this progresses and seeing who stands to benefit most from this new relationship.
