We’ve been lucky enough to develop a tightly knit community with the “Web oriented” folks here in town—those startups that focus on Web technologies, Twitter types, bloggers—all of us brought together by a common interest in technology and the potential it holds for Portland.
As lucky as I feel to be a part of that community, there are times when that community starts asking questions that the participants are unable to answer. Questions about business or funding or more established technology companies.
But here’s the thing: there’s a wealth of information like that in other tech communities here in town. And there are organizations that have those groups of people talking.
So why not get everyone talking together?
That’s the idea behind Thrive PDX, an attempt to get more people talking and sharing ideas about how we can all work together to ensure Portland continues to shine throughout any economic condition.
Dawn Foster describes the idea behind Thrive PDX far better than I could:
For some reason, it seems to me like there is this wall between these two groups of people, and it doesn’t feel healthy to me. I’ve been working with the SAO for months (way before we even suspected that we were heading into times of economic uncertainty) to find ways to break down this wall and get these two groups of people together. With the economy taking a hit, we decided that now was the time to do something about it. We felt a real need to get these two groups of people together to find ways to help each other through tough times. Our ultimate goal is to have Portland emerge out of the downturn with a technology industry that is stronger than ever.
If you’re feeling the same way, I’d highly encourage you to join us on Tuesday, November 11, at Kells. Maybe bring someone along who’s never been to one of the tech events in town? Maybe you could tell some friends in more traditional tech pursuits? Or maybe you could just show up and talk to some people to whom you don’t usually talk?
To get an idea of who’s coming—and a visual example of the divide we’re attempting to bridge—take a look at the Upcoming RSVP and the SAO RSVP. It looks like we’re going to have a good cross-section of folks there. And it would be great to have you as part of that mix.