Portland, Oregon, startup news, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
I’m tired, Portland. For any number of reasons. But mostly because — after more than a decade of writing this blog on a weekly basis — this community still feels like it needs a ton of work. You must be tired, too. Because you have all made a ridiculous amount of progress against any number of odds. And you’ve created and innovated and persevered. But there’s still so much more to do. And not a lot of help to do it.
It’s always a joy to see new startup accelerator programs starting in the Portland startup community. One might say that, with this one, my tail is wagging. My tail… Ahem. *tap tap tap* Is this thing on?
In today’s world of rapid consumption, we often fail to take the time to learn the super interesting backstories of people in our community. And what motivates people to do what they do. This is especially difficult when those folks make their living telling other people’s stories. That’s why I was happy to hear that the And Uhhh… crew was grabbing some time with Malia Spencer of the Portland Business Journal.
Every once in a while, you get to be present to witness the establishment of a widespread platform. A platform that provides the means of making a market. Sometimes, it’s the first to market—like the iPhone or Roku. Sometimes, it’s a fast follower—like Microsoft Explorer or Google. We’ve seen it happen time and time again. With the Web and Mobile and Streaming Media. But it’s rare to see that happen locally.
In what now seems like ancient history, the Portland startup community used to have a gathering called Beer and Blog. Back when the community was smaller. And when people actually used to blog more regularly. Back then, it was the way to meet folks from our online community, offline.
Admittedly, I get a little cranky about the posts that appear on the Portland Startups Switchboard from time to time. But there are also a bunch of good posts that pop up there all of the time—posts that might not get the attention they deserve. So rather than focusing on the negative, I thought it might be nice to accentuate the positive.
Sometimes, I think that I miss podcasting. But then I listen to myself on a podcast. And then I realize… Yeah. Probably best left to others. Others who are more well spoken and entertaining. Oh. And interesting. Don’t forget interesting. Nonetheless, I may have said one or two compelling things. Either thanks to the talent of the interviewers or because, you know, even the broken clock is right twice a day.
Last night, the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO) held their annual Oregon Tech Awards celebration gala, their biggest event of the year. (Coincidentally, GeekWire held their big Seattle tech awards last night, too.) And the Portland startup community was well represented.
It’s that time of year. Time to start sprucing things up. And getting ready for the summer months. So it makes perfect sense that the Portland Startups Switchboard would benefit from the launch of a new user interface.