Today I was excited to speak at BoCo, a great new conference developed by the Boulder Tech Community, especially Andrew Hyde. Rick Turoczy was there, among other awesome Portlanders, San Fransiscans, and Boulderites. It  was a sunny day and there were beautiful mountains all around. The morning sessions dealt with food and music and were very wonderful to listen to.

I spoke about Cyborg Anthropology, which is the study of human computer interactions and how technology affects the way in which we communicate with one another.

We Are All Cyborgs

When you read this, you are acting as a low-tech cyborg, because you are using a computer to view text that I have written. My writing is stored here in my website, part of my actor network of external technological devices that, when taken together, comprise my technosocial self. As cavemen, we began skipping evolution by crafting spears instead of growing teeth. We began making hammers as extensions of our fists.

My social self is part technology and part human. My technological self does a lot of networking for me through my social networking profiles and my Google search results. So do yours (if you have them). My technosocial avatar of a self networks for me when I’m not there.

Distributed Social Selves

Each piece of my distributed social identity leaves a geological trail of past self that my present self can interact with. These all comprise my future self, which your future self or selves will most undoubtedly interact with. The online optimization of self, when coupled with the analog optimization of self (i.e. real-life networking, person to person) is the creation of a stable identity that is uniformly distributed and presented all over the web.

Technology Resembles Magic

Technology is almost magical. Like the scrying pool of the past (or of fantasy novels), the iPhone or computer monitor allows us to view anything anywhere in the world through YouTube and Twitter, News sites and Facebook. We can summon up an image with a simple spell (a simple text entry into Google search or Twitter search) and we can extend our speech and ears across very large distances in seconds with the mere touch of a button.

Technology Gives Us Superpowers

Technology, when used well, gives us amazing superpowers. We are like gods, until we forget to charge our batteries. We are like gods, until we forget to upgrade our devices to the most recent operating system or device number. Our external prosthetic devices turn against us when they get old. Our old clothes go out of style. Our brick phones make us get laughed at in the streets.

From Physical Transportation to Mental Transportation

In the same way that cars transport our physical bodies, computers and cell phones transport our spiritual bodies. Don’t like the word spiritual? Use the word mind instead. We’re increasingly entering into a world of mental machines - mental transportation devices. These devices transmit our thoughts invisibly to others. They are taking up smaller amounts of space, until vehicles, who require increasingly large highways.

Mental Traffic Jams

We have traffic jams, too. Mental traffic jams. Jams on Twitter. Twitter fails. Rush hour around important events and deaths and wars and crises. We can now have multiple views of the same event.

Telephonic Schizophrenia

When telephone technology first came out, people felt it was crazy. The idea of going into a room and speaking into a machine sounded schizophrenic.

More

There is more: enough to fill up a hour and a half speech, but I’ll leave that to you to see the next time I speak. Until then, you can follow me on Twitter @caseorganic, or you can check out BoCo.

What’s happening with the business of advertising? What will the post-consumer economy look like? What is going on in sustainability?

Jelly Helm is the first to admit that he doesn’t know. But that doesn’t stop him from speculating about it in public, especially to audiences of excited listeners.

Last night, Jelly treated a number of us to a great presentation was full of existentialist introspection, personal narrative, and show-stopping poetry. He also gave us a sneak peek of the new work he’s done with the Oregon Council for the Humanities, and shared his excitement for Wikipedia, his newest client.

It was a fun-filled tour de force that could’ve lasted for a few hours more.

About this Transcript

If you were unfortunate enough to be sitting near me, you probably heard me typing very furiously, first in the audience, and then respectfully (hopefully) off to the side. Transcripts are important because they allow something amazing to be shared with a larger audience, but the resolution of experience decays as one abstracts the essence of the event through a digital means. I hope that this account preserves something of the excellent speech that was given last night.

I’m sorry there are not many images. I didn’t have a camera with me. Undoubtedly, there will be a thousand errors in punctuation and grammar. If it is something you enjoy doing, please feel free to point out any and all of them in the comments below.

Location

The event was held in the Cleaners at the Ace Hotel, a space often reserved for events such as this. Eric Hillerns, of Pinch. A Design Office., organized the event as part of AIGA’s Designspeaks.

“The Design Speaks series was developed as a voice for the creative community”, he began, “It was basically established to be a series of small talks intended to inform and inspire”.

How Eric met Jelly

Eric Hillerns met Jelly after his presentation at the 2008 Creative Conference.

“I knew that he was a high profile guy with arguably the best agency in the world”, said Hillerns, “Though our chat was brief, we had some common realationhips - and we left it at that”.

But later, while vying for the same buisness pitch - Jelly won it. Hillerns wasn’t pleased, of course.

“But I understood,” he admitted, “after all, Jelly was one of the more creartive strategists in the business”.

So Hillerns sent an E-mail.

“And at the end of the E-mail, I said - ‘We’re interested in watchng the brand evolve. We’re rooting for them, we’re rooting for you - don’t fuck it up’ .”

There was laughter from the aduience.

“Needless to say,” continued Hillerns, “he certantly hasn’t fucked up. I’m inspired by his approach to problems. He approaches them in a reverent manner”.

About Jelly Helm

Hillerns explained that Jelly Helm was a writer, designer, film director, creative director, and teacher. His clients include Imperial Woodpecker, Oregon Humanities, Infectious Diseases Research Institute and Wikipedia. He was formerly an executive creative director at Wieden + Kennedy, and founder of W+K 12, an experimental school inside the agency.

Jelly’s Presentation

Jelly Helm arrived at the podium. Behind him was the beginning of a PowerPoint screen that held an image of the word “Story” in a typewritten font. It looked like Jelly had typewritten his PowerPoint and scanned in each slide.

Jelly: Well, that certaintly was pleasant. I’m glad you all came. I didn’t expect you all to come, but thanks.

For me, all of my work, whether in design, writing, film directing, ect. — has been about the narrative; about story.

I left Wieden+Kennedy to take a sabbatical with no clue as to what would happen next. I took six months at first and then took one year because it was good to sit and think about why I do what I do for a living.

Tonight, before I got up here to give this speech, I saw Dave Allen. He said, “are you prepared?” And I said, of course, ‘this is my script’. This is me.

Jelly then tried to turn the slide, but it doesn’t work — it’s stuck.

Jelly: I hope you like this slide.

*laughter*

So, while they’re getting that, are there any questions you’d like to ask?

Audience: Where are you teaching at right now?

Jelly: I’m not teaching right now. I taught in two places, and then started a school at Wieden+Kennedy called 12.

*changes slides*

David Kennedy, who is kind of a crazy guy, has all of these little papers, which he cuts up and carries around with him. I used to be confused about why he did this, but now I’m doing it.

“This slide shows the time humans have been on Earth compared to how long the Universe has existed. It’s taken 12 billion years from the beginning of the Universe, and 5 billion since the beginning of the Sun. And then a tiny dash at the end shows us. Here we are, barely begun - the race of humans.

He showed the next slide, which was a picture of the Earth with the acronym “wtf” typewritten above it.

The Birth of the Story

The beginning of human life is inexplicable. There’s animals chasing you; you’re living in the cold without any clothes; picking foods that occasionally posion you….

And around 30,000 years ago we started doing something. We started telling stories. And people linked this up with the birth of the human spirit.

The reason we told these stories was to understand what was going on.

–

Karen Armstrong writes:

“We are meaning-seeking creatures.
Dogs, as far as we know,
do not agonise about the canine condition,
worry about the plight of dogs in other parts of the world,
or try to see their lives from a different perspective.

But human beings fall easily into despair,
and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting,
that revealed an underlying pattern,
and gave us a sense that,
against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary,
life had meaning and value”.

–

We still use stories to make sense of the world, to:

-Create order
-To find our place
-To discover meaning
-To determine actions

“I think story is the operating system of being a human being.”

So…

Story.
Story.
Story.

I can’t remember what slide is next.

*click*

The slide changes to read “I am a storyist”.

So I’m a storyist.

I’ve played in a rock band, I’ve been an actor…

[But] underneath it all is a passion for telling stories and how they shape us and what they mean to us.

I Read Poetry

If any of you were at the Creative Conference you know I use poems. I use this particular poem to understnad my role - because, like you, I have the same chaotic experience.

This is the same poem that Willy Wonka quoted from. It is from the time of the Civil War.

—

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

– Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1884-1881)

—

Jelly’s recitation of the poem left a sort of stunned atmosphere in the audience.

“You don’t explain poems, right?” he finally said, “That’s the rule?”

“But sometimes I need help,” he continued, “I think it describes what it is like to experience the endless cycle of us as the leading edge of the universe.

The story that holds togehter for me is the story of growth - unfolding and exploding. And I think that’s what the world is about - unfolding and exploding and exploring new growth.

—

Spiral Dynamics Model - The Theory of Human Development

This graph shows a more analytical way to describe what Arthur said in his poem. This model was created by taking every model and puting them on top of each other. Maslow, and Jung, ect. Is there any pattern to them? This is mappnig human development over time?

At the bottom there is there is this tan area - this is pure terror - this is waking up as humans and having this rude self-awareness. And the next layer is purple. It is the idea that, ‘I exist and you exist - and if we cooperate, we can do things together’.

Red is our development of our sense of power an dominance. The idea that there are others our there and we have to kill them.

The blue layer is order and not letting violence be the top level of culture.

And then the next layer is the layer of science.

Then there’s green - what you think of as green sustainability - we need to protect the least of us. It is about relativism.

And beyond that is yellow. We’re entering this emergent culture and we’ll talk about more of that momentarily.

Sustainability

I’d like to talk about this word and what it stands for. It’s not enough.

The idea that my grandkids are buying the same sustainable couches as me makes me want to gag. I think we can aspire to more than that.

What would more than that look like? Yes-we can understand those values of sustainability.

The emergent culture is the green meme is a little suspicious of technology.

There’s an entire chart here of emergent culture, where multicultural/fairness/equity, technology/science, heirarchy/order, competition/power/ego, and trival/local — they’re all at odds with each other.

So right now we’re merging into this yellow culture which will embrace all of these values.

That’s kind of the typical thing that hppens.

I think we have our first emergent culture that’s happened right now.

*applause*

That’s an easy applause line. But it’s true. We see it here in Portland.

The Zoroastrians’ Visions

So I was watching Rick Steves on PBS a while ago. It was one of those travel episodes where he was in Iran. The first thing he says was, “they’re not Iraqis — they’re Persians!! They don’t speak Arabic, they speak Persian!” Like it was obvious.

I though that was interesting, and I wanted to learn more, so I went to Wikipedia, which is what everyone does now when they don’t know soemthing. There was a link to an article on Zoroastrianism, the oldest religious community of Iran.

Apparently the Zoroastrians had predected that the future of civilization would be so spiritual that humans would not even cast a shadow.

And this is not about IKEA making everything sustainable. It’s about soemthing else.

And it’s a great thing to say. People usually say ‘woah!’, when they hear this. But if you say it too much you begin to sound crazy.

So we seek out, in branding - the things that expand our own stories. The brands I who are successful are the brands who align with who we are and the story of the world.

I don’t know what to call them. People-powered brands. Because they’re not controlled by an agency. Emergent brands. Because they’re not controlled by a style guide. Post-consumer brands. Because many brands are based on a consumer way of happiness while not being actually okay for the earth.

Emergent Brands

-Apple
-Google
-Wikipedia

They allow us to experience our full humanity. Our full creativtiy.

Emergent Brands?

-McDonalds
-PhilipMorris

Are these Emergent Brands? McDonalds’ Stock keeps going up right now. I don’t really go into McDonanlds and I don’t get eat there, but those times when I go into McDonald’s, I find that the menus are a hundred times healthier than they were before. I can go in there and my kid can get celery sticks, a grilled cheese sandwich and an apple juice.

I also hear that they’re the number one distributor of apples in the country. Is this true?

(Someone in the audience confirms).

If you’re working with a company who can’t answe rhte question of ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Why are you here?’, then run far, far away.

Value vs. Profit, Abudance vs. Scaricity

It will never work if a company extracts more than it takes.

I think that successful post-consumer brands create value before they reap it, which is much better than abudance vs. scarcity - which is the opposite process - where a brand decides to reap value before creating it.

See “Conspiracy of Science - Earth is in Fact Growing” on YouTube. It’s a really hilarious video where a guy says, “these continents can’t be moving around over time! What are they moving on? The only solution is that the Earth must be expanding! Check it out. You should really watch this video.

—

There’s kind of a folly of being a human being.

Where do you create value — where is your abundance?

Where is your joy?

I’ll leave that thought with a poem. It’s a Robert Frost — one he wrote towards the end of his life.

This last one was sort of him throwing up his hands at the progression of humans.

“Yet for all this help of head and brain,
How happily instinctive we remain.
Our best guide upward further to the light,
Passionate preference such as love at sight.”

I was so suspicious of Bill Gates in the beginning.

His comment was “when I’m ready to give away money, “you’ll know about it”.

He was really a good person in the world. And he’s really pulled his mind to it.

My frame is growth.

We expand - and we’re an endless source of growth.

We’re all abundant, whether in storytelling or elsewhere.

The key is going to it from that frame of thought. Thinking, ‘Where am I abundant? Where am I good?’

Usually it is the opposite. One asks the self, ‘why am I not like other people? I need to do things like they do!’

This is why I had Philip Morris next to the McDonald’s logo in that earlier slide. When they bought a bunch of food compainies - I said, “good job, Philip Morris - I’d rather you be selling food than cigarettes…”

Large soft drink companies are having a difficult time selling that brown (explicative) any more — becuase it is posion — you drink that shit and you die.

You must instead ask, what is the prupose of your brand?

And if it is to continue lining the pockets of shareholders — then it is not the right purpose.

Audience: Who is your favorite philosopher?

I didn’t do school - so I don’t know many philosophers. I heard Bertrand Russell was pretty cool. I have a lot of people tell me that, so he’s probably great.

I like people who tell the truth and tell a good story so I can read about it.

I like anything that tells me a story that quiets my mind and opens my heart.

So I like Mad magaizine.

Audience: What makes you mad?

I didn’t feel very good today so I felt mad.

I’m not as good at being mad as I used to be.

Audience: What is it you push against?

Jelly: Nothing. I mean - it’s great - what is there to push agaisnt?

Audience: Will there be anything to be angry push agaisnt when we no longer cast a shadow?

Audience: It’s that the Myans that think it is the end of history.

Jelly: It’s hard to look at that slide of 13 billion years and think anything it intense or unordinary. Anything can happen. We haven’t been here for very long.

Growth is natural. How do you connect to it? You just have a good itme.

You know Danial Payne wrote that book Collective Intelligence. He wrote about how incentives dont’t work in this new work. I totally agre. You cannot invent a world voice. It is so counterintuitive. I think joy might be the solution.

Jelly: I dont know if anyone feel a little bit ripped off about ho tey were raised.

So story is how we connect our culture, for sure.

I think of the stories I grew up with. We’ve had 50 stories that have been carved in granite for 150 years and now they’ve all crumbled. I think, ‘these are bad stories!’.

Audience: When was the last time you had your hair blown back?

Jelly: Well, Obama, right? I feel bad about going on about Obama - but it is an amazing story.

Also, I’m a fan of Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell’s stories can be overlapped and they become a pretty good story. They’re about peopel falling down and getin back up…which is what all of humanity is about.

Are you laughing at me or with me?

The Infectious Disease Research Institute

Let me show you some work. I’m working with some organizations right now. One of them is this Infectious Disease Research Institute, which is a really bad name.

But it is a really neat story. Basically it is this guy name Steve Reed in Seattle who made this non-profit institute to prevent disease.

Then there’s a non-profit Biotech. There are some great people. Chris Hornbecker. These scinetists who are great.
And then there’s this company. (shows an image of the Wikipedia logo) And this is it - I cant beleive I’m working with this company.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is written by 150,00 volunteers in the world. They have now assembled the lastest amount of material in the world. Jimmy Wales just wanted to start an online encyclopedia that anyone could write. It was called Newpedia.

He recounted his experience at Wikimania, a conference for wiki users. It sounded like a wonderful time.

“Did you know that inventor of the Wiki lives in Oregon?”, asked Jelly.

Some of the audience shook their head.

“His name is escaping my mind right now. It was…”

“Ward Cunningham!” I shouted from the audience. (Not only does the inventor of the wiki live in Portland, but he’s an extremely kind person too. Wickedly intelligent, approachable, and very involved in the local tech community).

Yes! Ward Cunningham. And Pete Forsyth, another Portland resident, is also a very dedicated contributor too.

Oregon Humanities

Here’s how I got involved with Oregon Humanities. They called me up one day and the first thing I thought was, “woah, did I forget to turn in an essay or something?” But instead they started telling me about what they do.

For instance, they told me about a series they have called “Think and Drink”, and I said, “uhh…”. So they were like, well ‘we’d like to talk to you about what the humanities are’. Humanities are no longer concerned with a white haired dude at the front of the auditorium telling us what to do.

So Jelly worked on the name. It got shortened to O. Hm, which is the sound of leanring a new idea. Oh! Hmm! or, O. Hm. Oregon Humanities. That’s part of the campaign. There’s more. Lots more. If you live in the Portland area, there’s no doubt that you’ll see more of it.

Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam

We were there, and working on a campaign to get people to drink (a certain soft drink which will not be named here) during the holiday. Someone said, ‘how about we associate it with a holiday? Have people opening that drink and enjyoing it during the holidays’. And that campaign was so successful that they said, ‘next year we want to own Ramadan and Passover’. Own! Especially when one reads Joseph Campbell and gets to understand how important these traditional holidays are to the cultures they’re associated with. No one talks about the purpose of the buisness. They just want to make moeny.

I just guessed I looked under a rock a few too many times.

Early on, there seems to be an overview of the aesthetics of what we did visually, but not the purpose of it.
But,

when I work with clients who have a purpose — I LOVE it.

Like Timberland. If it is a good story to tell, I still want to tell it.

Audience: A year ago, at Cre8con, you were really down on Chompsky — and I didn’t read him becuase of that.

Helm: You can read him — I just dont think you’ll enjoy it.

Audience (Crystal Beasley): What do people most often get wrong about story?

Jelly: I don’t know.

What do you think?

I think about it when I watch a movie and they don’t have the heart piece right.

Audience: Some people don’t have a point to their story. In the end there’s nothnig to gain from it.

Jelly wrapped up his speech after that and got a lot of applause. It had been an excellent evening.

There was also some nice wine and beer. Thanks to those who served the crowd, 52Ltd, AIGA, Designspeaks, and everyone who attended.
—-

About the Transcriber

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and new media strategist living in Portland, Oregon. She currently works at Wieden + Kennedy and tries to participate in as many tech and design events as possible. Her clients range from small to large companies, and she can be contacted through Twitter at @caseorganic, or through E-mail at caseorganic [at] gmail [dot] com.

About 52 Ltd.

52 Ltd. is Portland’s homegrown matchmaker of talent and employers in the arena of creative services. They received recognition in the 2008 and 2009 lists of Fastest-Growing Private 100 Companies by Portland Business Journal.

52 Limited provides contract freelance employees, full-time placement and custom project teams to a diverse client roster which includes: advertising agencies, design houses, interactive firms, brand marketers, health care organizations and others. For more information on how 52 Limited can help you find work or find talent, please visit
http://www.52ltd.com

About Designspeaks

The Designspeaks series, developed by Portland AIGA and in partnership with 52 Limited, showcases the most intriguing designers in the Pacific Northwest. Some of our guest speakers in this quarterly series will be stars and some will have mana
ged to maintain a lower profile, but we can assure you; all will challenge you to think a bit differently about design and its impact on community. We’re continually tweaking this series as an intimate venue for the creative community to connect to others, to see what they are doing and how they’re doing it. There is no specific format for Designspeaks. Basically, it’s a series of small talks gathering intended to inform, inspire and engage.

—–
Thanks much. Please leave comments below if desired.

It’s that time again. After taking a break from posting events (due to the amazing Portland weather we’ve been having), it’s again time to post all of the interesting events in Portland that are amazing opportunities to go to. There’s a ton happening this month and next, which means plenty of opportunities to connect with great people, new and familiar!

With a list like this, there’s sure to be something you’ll enjoy. If not, let me know what you’re interested in, and I’ll work on finding an event for you.

Happy networking - and let me know if I missed anything. I can always be reached in the comments below, or on Twitter at @caseorganic. If you’re a fan of E-mail, I’m at caseorganic at gmail dot com.

—

Mobile Love, Android Style #15

Monday September 14, 2009 at 6:00pmLucky Labrador Brew Pub

915 SE Hawthorne Boulevard
Portland, Oregon 97214
The Google Phone, the Open Source Mobile Operating System. The one and only Android.

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4225653/

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HTML-PDX Meeting

Monday, September 14, 2009 from 6:30–8pm

Nedspace Old Town
117 NW 5th Ave. Suite 210
Portland OR 97209

Website http://groups.google.com/group/html5-pdx

Description: Reid Beels @reidab is going to cover webkit 3D transforms.

See full event on Calagator: http://calagator.org/events/1250457669

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IxDA Portland: Meetup / Design Practice

Tuesday September 15, 2009 from 6:00pm - 8:00pm

About Us
107 SE Washington St. Suite 520
Portland, 97214

Join us for a design practice session! We will start with a description of the design problem followed by work in small groups on design ideation and solution sketches. At the end, the small groups will present their ideas and sketches back to the rest of the meeting attendees.

This is a casual, non-sponsored workshop. Feel free to bring your own snacks or dinner.

IxDA Portland is the local chapter of the Interaction Design Association (http://www.ixda.org/).

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4416829/

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PDXPHP September Meeting : Overview of PHP 5.3

Tuesday September 15, 2009 from 6:30pm - 8:00pm

NedSpace Old Town
117 NW Fifth Ave. (btwn Couch and Davis)
Portland, Oregon 97209
Meeting Desc:

High level overview of PHP 5.3 which is a major milestone in PHP releases.
This discussion will center around:
# Support for namespaces
# Late static binding
# Lambda Functions and Closures

Also, Peter Schmalfeldt will give a tour of a project he is working on and looking for developer help.
He is looking for a few PHP developers to help build http://www.localreuse.org,
the next generation of the current non profit site http://www.gigoit.org.
Website: http://pdxphp.org

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4414444/

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Portland Java User Group: Grid Packet Computing for Java

Tuesday September 15, 2009 from 6:30pm - 8:30pm

Oracle
1211 SW 5th Avenue, Suite 800
Portland, Oregon 97204

This month’s topic: Grid Packet Computing for Java (GPC4J)

GPC4J is a computing paradigm that breaks a partitionable problem into GridPackets, which are routed, processed and re-assembled into the solution to the original problem. This presentation will cover the use of the system and design of the project’s web application. The application is built using REST (Jersey), Maven, Hibernate, JPA, MySQL and GlassFish.

Speaker: Lyle Harris

Lyle Harris is a Software Engineer working in World Wide Operations at Sun Microsystems, where he develops internal Java applications for automation and customer-facing web applications.

PJUG meetings start with some time to eat and socialize (pizza and beverages are provided), followed by the featured speaker, then Q&A, discussion, sometimes a drawing to give away swag.

Though we like knowing how many people to expect, you don’t *have* to RSVP, on Upcoming or otherwise. Go ahead and just show up!

Many people also go for a drink and further discussion following the meeting, at a location determined ad hoc (lately, the Market Street Pub at 10th and Market: http://mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=24 ).

http://twitter.com/pjug
http://pjug.org/
(join our mailing list, linked from the website!)
Website: http://pjug.org/

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1441297/

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Lunch 2.0 at eROI

Wednesday September 16, 2009 from 12:00pm - 2:00pm

eROI
505 NW Couch, Suite 300
Portland, Oregon 97209

We’re headed back to eROI for Portland Lunch 2.0.

A lot has happened since they last hosted Lunch 2.0 back in April 2008, including the launch of their new event registration service, eROI Event.

To showcase their new system, eROI wants your suggestions on what they should raffle off at their Lunch 2.0. So, head over to the Lunch 2.0 event, register and suggest something.

You’ll get a chance to test-drive eROI Event, and the winner will be selected from those who register there.

If it’s not too much trouble, please also RSVP here or only here, if you don’t want to win free stuff. As if.

Lunch 2.0 is a Valley phenomenon that you can read about at lunch20.com, and we’re putting a PDX stamp on it.

You can follow all things Portland Lunch 2.0 an the Silicon Florist.

Are you vegan or vegetarian? Please leave a comment so we can plan food accordingly. Thanks.
Website: http://siliconflorist.com/2009/08/15/lunch-20-erm-201-eroi/

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4230647/

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TiE Oregon - Cloud Computing

Wednesday September 16, 2009 from 6:00pm - 9:00pm

Intel - Ronler Acres Campus Auditorium
2501 NW 229th Ave
Hillsboro, Oregon

Cloud Computing ties hardware virtualization and software innovation to offer economic choices for deploying and scaling software services. Cloud Services are being offered in different flavors and for different segments by a variety of vendors.

TiE Oregon is hosting a Cloud Computing flyby, with a panel of evangelists, experts and entrepreneurs representing the key providers as well as usage and deployment perspectives for a spectrum of service layers including IaaS, PaaS and SaaS.

Join us on Sept 16th, to learn, explore and get answers to your questions regarding the technical and operational issues, financial trade-offs and business risks and opportunities offered by cloud computing.
Ticket Info: $15 - $30

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4238939/

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Raven Zachary: iPhone applications For the Presidential Election

Thursday September 17, 2009 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Note that this event is not in Portland, but it concerns one of the coolest Portlanders around and his accomplishments. Thus, it is worth noting. Raven Zachary is always worth noting.

Michigan League
911 N. University
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

The brains behind the team that developed President Obama’s official iPhone application for his presidential campaign – Raven Zachary – is at the top of an industry that never existed up until two years ago. Zachary will travel to Ann Arbor in September, to inspire Michigan residents to reinvent and innovate. Ann Arbor Ad Club, in coordination with University of Michigan American Advertising Federation Student Chapter, is honored to introduce this luminary on Thursday, September 17 from 7-9 p.m., at the Michigan League. Active networking, refreshments and cash bar are available. Raven spoke at Advertising Age’s Creativity and Technology Conference in New York where tickets where $395/person.

Last year, Raven Zachary’s iPhone application generated hundreds of nationwide news stories and was quickly named among Apple’s coveted Top 10 List. His application furthered President Obama’s successful social media initiatives, which helped seal his Presidency. Marketing pundits attribute social media’s instrumental role in helping President Obama communicate with his supporters. Raven will discuss reinvention and innovation - themes that touch the heart of Michiganders - from automotive companies to Detroit’s drive to rejuvenate the city.

Today, as President of Small Society, Zachary works with big brands, established companies, investors, and startups on iPhone strategy and product development. He’s impacted Whole Foods Market, Zipcar, Clif Bar, and Air New Zealand, and founded iPhoneDevCamp, a not-for-profit iPhone developer conference. Raven’s iPhone app for Whole Foods is featured in Apple’s “There’s an App for That” TV commercials. As Contributing Analyst with The 451 Group, an IT industry analyst firm, he works with O’Reilly Media on iPhone and mobile technology events and coverage. Regularly quoted by media, he is a frequent speaker.
Ticket Info: Entry into this event is free for members, $35 for the public, and $10 for students.

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4240480/

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SAOpdx: The Act of Making Clouds: What Every Developer Should Know

Thursday September 17, 2009 at 12:00pm

Portland State Business Accelerator
2828 SW Corbett Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97201

The Software Association of Oregon Dev Forum has partnered with the Portland State Business Accelerator and the Portland SIG of TiE Oregon to bring you the most comprehensive and in-depth technical discussion in Portland about Cloud Computing yet.

This program is specifically designed for developers and architects. In one afternoon we intend to host a collaborative best practice exchange aimed specifically at the top things developers and architects need to know in order to make the right Cloud Computing platform evaluation and implementation decisions.

REGISTER: https://sao.yourmembership.com/events/event_details.asp?id=68684

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WordCamp Portland

Saturday September 19, 2009 - Sunday September 20, 2009

Webtrends
Pacific First Center Building 851 SW Sixth Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97204

Note: This event is now sold out, and there are 50 people on the waiting list. However, I’ve listed it here because it is an important event to keep in mind. If you’re feeling like you missed out, try WordCamp Seattle on Sept 26th, 2009. More information on the WordCamp Seattle Website.

WordCamp is a gathering of people interested in WordPress and blogging. Topics will focus on a wide range of audiences from the new blogger as well as those with more of a technical background.

Follow the WordCamp Portland website for details including speakers, sponsorship, and ticket information
Ticket Info: 20.00
Website: http://www.wordcampportland.org.

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LinuxCon 2009

Monday September 21, 2009 - Friday September 25, 2009

Portland Marriott (Downtown)
1401 SW Naito Parkway
Portland, Oregon 97201
1st Annual LinuxCon

September 21 - 25, 2009 - Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront, Portland, OR

This event is co-located with the 2nd Annual Linux Plumbers’ Conference.

LinuxCon is a new annual technical conference that will provide an unmatched collaboration and education space for all matters Linux. LinuxCon will bring together the best and brightest that the Linux community has to offer, including core developers, administrators, end users, community managers and industry experts. In being the conference for “all matters Linux”, LinuxCon will be informative and educational for a wide range of attendees. We will not only bring together all of the best technical talent but the decision makers and industry experts who are involved in the Linux community.

LinuxCon will feature over 75 conference presentations divided among five tracks and three audience types (Developers, Operations and Business), tutorials, BoF sessions, keynotes, roundtables, a product & technology showcase and sponsored mini-summits, as well as countless networking opportunities in developer lounges and evening events. LinuxCon offers a unique conference experience that encourages collaboration, progress and interaction.

With top notch educational content and collaboration opportunities, those that attend LinuxCon will leave more knowledgeable and better positioned for success in the year to come.

Register on the LinuxCon website: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1746434/

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Portland Open Source Geospatial User Group

Wednesday September 23, 2009 from 6:30pm - 8:00pm

OpenSourcery
1636 NW Lovejoy St.
Portland, OR 97209
[Or, if you prefer: 45.529986, -122.688206]

Monthly meeting of the Portland area open source geospatial user group.

We meet the 4th Wednesday of every month from 6:30-8:00 PM at OpenSourcery in NW Portland. No need to RSVP, all are welcome- our group ranges from the geo-curious to the überhackers. [Please arrive no more than 10 minutes early, as the developers at OpenSourcery are working up until the meeting time.]

RSVP through Google Groups: http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-osgis or Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4409628/.

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Linux Plumbers Conf 2009

Wednesday September 23, 2009 - Friday September 25, 2009

Portland Marriott (Downtown)
1401 SW Naito Parkway
Portland, Oregon 97201
Linux Plumbers Conference
23-25 September 2009
Portland, Oregon USA

The goal of the Plumbers Conference is to solve problems. The conference is arranged as a series of microconferences, each on a topic that is narrow enough to identify specific problem areas and brainstorm workable solutions. Each microconference is led by an expert in the field and organized to encourage discussion and problem solving. Microconferences will be scheduled so that representatives from related subsystems can attend other microconferences. In addition to the microconferences, there will be a general track for discussing issues that don’t fit into microconferences, or come up during the conference.

Register on the Linux Plumbers Conference Website: http://linuxplumbersconf.org

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1857378/.

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SAOpdx: ConnectPDX

Thursday September 24, 2009 at 4:00pm

Blitz bar in the Pearl District
110 NW 10th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97209

SAO ConnectPDX is a new kind of networking, relaxed, open, and the kind that fosters real connections.

You’ve been to enough networking events to know that they’re usually a frantic business card swap, with shallow connections.

ConnectPDX is different. We provide a low key environment, in a fun space, where meeting people comes naturally.

We encourage professionals from different industries to attend, so everyone’s networks can expand.

Free registration + great happy hour + great PDX connections = time well spent!

Blitz (Pearl) is open to minors until 9pm.

Where to park: If you’re lucky, you can get metered street parking, but if you want a cheap garage, use Smart Park.

There is no registration for this event - just show up!

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Refresh Portland

Wednesday September 24th, 2008 from 6:30pm - 7:30pm

Jive Software
915 SW Stark
Portland, Oregon

Refresh Portland is a monthly event (held every 2nd Wednesday of the month at Jive Software) for designers interested in refreshing the creative, technical and professional culture in the Portland area.

Anyone interested in those subjects (not just designers) is encouraged to attend.

Refresh Portland is part of the Refreshing Cities Movement.
Website: http://refreshpdx.com

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WhereCamp PDX

Saturday October 3, 2009 from 9:00am - 6:00pm

Metro Regional Center
600 NE Grand Ave
Portland, Oregon

WhereCampPDX is a free unconference focusing on all things geographical. This informal meeting of minds welcomes all geo-locative enthusiasts, anyone who asks “where am I” or feels the need to “know their place”.

An unconference is a conference planned by the participants, we all convene together, plan sessions, and have break-outs into sessions. This gives everybody an opportunity to bring to the table the things that interest them the most and lets us talk about new topics that are still new and exploratory. Part of what is important to hearing new voices and getting new ideas is lowering barriers to participation – this event is free and it is driven by the participants.

WhereCamp PDX runs all weekend: we’re also having a Friday night opening party and Sunday game day. Check http://wherecamppdx.org for details as they’re announced.
Website: http://wherecamppdx.org

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4409467/

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What’s CHIFOO? (It’s the Computer Human Interaction Forum of Oregon, and it is amazing! ).

CHIFOO Meeting: The Ebb and Flow of Activity Streams

Wednesday October 7, 2009 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Jive Software
915 SW Stark St., Suite 400
Portland, Oregon 97205

Ever feel like you’re being hit with a firehose of information?

In the last several years activity streams have infiltrated the enterprise collaboration space. While they promise to alleviate some of the frustrations of email and other communication software, they can also have some interesting side-effects (such as the “fire-hose effect”). In this talk, Joshua Porter will describe the ebbs and flows of activity streams, how they work and don’t work, and how we might design better ones going forward.

Joshua Porter is an interface designer and consultant focusing exclusively on the design of social web applications. Josh wrote the book Designing for the Social Web and speaks regularly at web design conferences and events around the world. Since 2003 he has written the popular design blog bokardo.com.

Ticket Info: FREE for CHIFOO members, $5 general admission, everyone is invited to attend.

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4416668/

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Startupalooza II

Saturday October 10, 2009 at 8:00pm

Startupalooza II is coming. Save the date.
Details later.

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2563394/

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OEN PubTalk™ - Seed Oregon - Round 1

Wednesday October 14, 2009 from 5:15pm - 7:00pm

BridgePort Brew Pub
1313 Nw Marshall St
Portland, Oregon 97209

OEN’s Seed Oregon PubTalk - Call for Applications - Due Friday, September 18 at 5:00 PM

OEN’s Seed Oregon is a unique competition held during four consecutive PubTalk events. The competition is for Oregon and Southwest Washington seed-stage companies who are seeking capital within the range of $100,000 to $2,000,000. One winner from each preliminary round will move on to a championship round, where a finalist will earn a coveted presenting opportunity at OEN’s Angel Oregon, the premier angel investing event in the Northwest.

Nine presenting companies in total will be selected to compete in the 2009-2010 Seed Oregon tournament. Each will have 10 minutes to present their concept to the PubTalk audience, followed by a 10 minute Q&A session. Three companies will compete at each of the preliminary rounds, with the audience voting for the winning presentations to move to the championship round.

Online registration for this event closes Tuesday, October 13th. Please register at the door after that time

Date and Time: October 14th, 2009, 5:15 pm - 7:00 pm
Location: Bridgeport Brewpub - 1313 NW Marshall, Portland, Oregon
Registration to attend: OEN Member: $15, Non-member: $25

Price to submit application:
Member: $75 (includes entry at one PubTalk and the Seed Oregon application fee)
Non-Member: $174 (includes entry at one PubTalk, a discounted one year OEN individual membership {$26 savings}, and the Seed Oregon application fee)

Sign up here through the Oregon Entrepreneur’s Network website.

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Lunch 2.0 at Elemental Technologies

Wednesday October 21, 2009 from 12:00pm - 2:00pm

Elemental Technologies
620 SW Fifth Avenue, Suite 400
Portland, Oregon 97204

Elemental Technologies is our host for the 22nd iteration of Portland Lunch 2.0.

Thanks to Davy Stevenson (@davystevenson) for spreading the love to a new venue.

Lunch 2.0 is a Valley phenomenon that you can read about at lunch20.com, and we’re putting a PDX stamp on it.

You can follow all things Portland Lunch 2.0 at the Silicon Florist.

Are you vegan or vegetarian? Please leave a comment (here on Upcoming) so we can plan food accordingly. Thanks.

RSVP on Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4409951/

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Refresh Portland

Wednesday October 22nd, 2008 from 6:30pm - 7:30pm

Jive Software
915 SW Stark
Portland, Oregon

Refresh Portland is a monthly event (held every 2nd Wednesday of the month at Jive Software) for designers interested in refreshing the creative, technical and professional culture in the Portland area.

Anyone interested in those subjects (not just designers) is encouraged to attend.

Refresh Portland is part of the Refreshing Cities Movement.
Website: http://refreshpdx.com

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Craving more events? Check out the Calagator.org.

—

About

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist, consultant, writer, and analyst from Portland, Oregon. You can contact her at caseorganic at gmail.com, or on Twitter at @caseorganic.

If there’s a Portland conference this summer that you don’t want to miss, it’s Portland’s Internet Strategy Forum. Where else will you be able to meet top-level experts and analysts like Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research, or Katherine Durham, VP of Marketing at Hewlett-Packard?

For less than $200, you gain access to a class of experts that will only be in Portland for a day.

Event Tracking with StreamGraphs

Last year, I used StreamGraphs to visually track buzz around Internet Strategy Forum 2008. This method allowed me to see which speakers had the most audience support and interest. This year, I’ll be doing the same thing, and my results will be made available two days after the conference (check back here for a complete report).

Follow the Visualization

If you want to follow my progress as I track and visualize the conference, feel free to follow me on Twitter @caseorganic, or subscribe to Hazelnut Tech Talk by RSS.

Event Details

The conference occurs on Friday, July 24th from 8:30Am - 5:00 Pm, and check-in begins at 8:15 Am. If you don’t yet have a ticket, you can get one at the Internet Strategy Forum website. The conference will be located at the Governor Hotel, which is at 614 SW 11th Ave., Portland, OR 97205.

Out of Town?

You can attend Internet Strategy Forum remotely too, and the cost is just $175.00.

Need More Information?

For more information, call 971-223-3838 or E-mail events@internetstrategyforum.org

Speaker Bio - Jeremiah Owyang

Jeremiah Owyang is a leading research analyst in the social computing industry and is the author of the influential Web Strategist blog. He ranks #2 on the Twitter Power 150 list.

TOPIC: The Future of the Social Web (based on new Forrester report)
Although social networks have caught the attention of brands and consumers, today’s social landscape is a primitive series of unconnected islands. Expect new technologies to emerge that connect all systems and communities together –that allow communities to spread and share from one another. This simple technology changes the web landscape as consumers rely on their peers to make decisions, any web experience can now be personalized, and social networks become as powerful as CRM systems. Marketers must be ready for the drastic changes to come as power shifts to micro-celebrities, communities, and social networks –not traditional marketing. Jeremiah’s presentation will cover these changes in detail.

Speaker Bio - Katherine Durham

Katherine Durham is the IPG-A Vice President of Marketing. In this role she is responsible for building the HP brand and driving demand for imaging and printing products with Consumer, SMB, Enterprise and Public Sector segments across the U.S., Canada and Latin America. In addition she is responsible for Environmental Leadership — compliance, sales support and marketing — across the Americas.

Since joining HP in 2000, Durham has held a number of positions in the Americas marketing organization. From 2005-2007 Durham was the Director of Business Planning, Market Insight and Operations where she re-architected the market insight team to deliver more differentiated customer insights, established TALC (technology adoption lifecycle) for the region and built a global delivery team in India. Before that Durham was the Director of Communications for IPG’s consumer and commercial business as well as the PSG’s consumer businesses, responsible for advertising, in-store execution, on-line communications, events and more. Durham also held roles as the e-marketing manager and NA brand manager for IPG-A Marketing.

Kent Lewis recently interviewed Katherine Durham about her keynote at Internet Strategy Forum.

Credits

Photo of Jeremiah Owyang courtesy of brad_crooks.

You can register for Internet Strategy Forum 2009, or learn more at the Internet Strategy Forum website.

—–

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and New Media Consultant based in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere. You can follow her on Twitter or Contact her at caseorganic at gmail dot com. She wrote her thesis on how mobile phones and their growing role in human interaction. Read The Cell Phone and Its Technosocial Sites of Engagement.

I’ve been interested in data visualization for a very long time — it intersects with a lot of very interesting things that are going on in the world, and thus is definitely worth studying. Happily enough, we now have whole boatloads of data — because the Internet has given this to us.

We have free tools and programming skills to mess with the data so that we can relatively easily turn it into something useful or interesting without puling teeth or renting computer time from 3-6 in the morning an hour’s drive away at the nearest State University.

It is because of all of these things, and what I feel is becoming an essential next step in the development of trend prediction and the very useful implementation of data and information, that we’ve decided to start having some meetings around this sort of thing.

The first Portland Data Visualization Group will be held on Monday, March 23, 2009 from 6–8pm at Webtrends.

851 SW 6th Ave.
Portland OR 97204
(map)

View the event on Calagator, Portland’s Tech Event Calendar.

Event Description

Researchers have long said that the material published on the Web amounts to a form of “collective intelligence” that can be used to spot trends and make predictions.

Using his 20% time, a Google employee discovered that during flu season, many ailing Americans enter phrases like “flu symptoms” into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors. When he mapped this data, he was able to discover where flu outbreaks would strike up to two weeks before traditional news sources were able to report them.

This is an example of a time when merging a specific type of data to its geographical coordinates resulted in a unique insight. However, there is much more to do with data and visualization. What was found at Google is only the tip of a very large iceberg. Now that we have access to so much data on the web, we’re going to see an increasing need to understand and present that data.

Agenda:

The first meeeting of the Portland Data Visualization Group will serve as an introduction to what’s going on in the world of data viz. It will be freeform, so if you would like to demonstrate something you’re working on, please be prepared to do so. Micah Elliott will be showing uGraph and Ed Borasky will do a GGobi demo. I’ll be covering what already exists in the ecosystem and what might become useful in the future. We’re dealing with a rapid communication method here. Something that, if done well, compresses the time and space it takes for us to understand something.

If you’re interested in Data Visualization, please come to this event. It will be the first Portland Tech Event at WebTrends besides Web Analytics Wednesday. It’s our chance to try out the space and see if it is a good fit for this group or potentially for other groups in the future.

Google Group:

Ed Borasky recently started a Google group called pdx-visualization. As the name implies, it is a group for Portland-area people interested in languages and techniques for visualization of data. http://groups.google.com/group/pdx-visualization

Flickr Photos:

I’ve been collecting interesting data viz photos for a while now and posting them to Flickr. They’re all accessible on my Flickr account in this set. Most pictures contain descriptions and links to the viz sources.

I hope to see you all there!
——

About

Amber Case, (@caseorganic is a Cyborg Anthropologist studying the interaction between humans and computers and how our relationship with information is changing the way we think, act, and understand the world around us.

Originally posted on Calagator, Portland’s Tech Event Calendar.

What an epic month it has been! There was  the WordPress 2.7 Release party, the Cubespace Holiday party, a couple of Beer and Blogs and a lot of snow. Also, CyborgCamp ran smoothly (the keynote videos are up if you haven’t seen them yet).

This next week looks pretty awesome, too. If you haven’t been before, you should really attend Dorkbot. A lot of amazing people and devices usually show up, and it’s kind of like going to a museum of electronics.

Next month, be sure to check out the SOUK holiday party, as you can work there for free the entire day. And January 14th continues the epic Lunch 2.0 saga at the OTBC headquarters. If you’re heading out there on the Max, make sure not to miss the Lunch 2.0 Party Train for some on-the-go networking.

If you’re a creative type, come to Drinking and Drawing on Jan 14th at 6:00Pm, where two types of fun will undoubtedly collide in new and unexpected ways.

Finally, on Februrary 20th, don’t miss out on RecentChangesCamp. If you’re at all interested in wikis, this place will be heaven for you. It is the only event of its kind in the world.

See below for a sequential list of all of the events happening this month, with details and ticket/RSVP information.

———————–

Monday, December 22, 2008 from 7–11pm

DorkbotPDX Meeting

Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
1945 NW Quimby
Portland OR 97209
US

Website
http://dorkbotpdx.org/

Description
Come join us for an evening of socializing, talking about odd hacks and poking around with other people toys. Bring things for show and tell if you like, or just bring a willingness to share your interests. We’ll be the kids with all the coolest stuff on the table. Hope to see you there.

See original posting on Calagator

Sunday, December 28, 2008 from 1–5pm

DorkbotPDX Open Lab

Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) Room 205
1241 NW Johnson Street
Portland Oregon 97209
US
(map)

Website
http://dorkbotpdx.org/

RSVP on Upcoming

Friday January 2, 2009

Beer and Blog (weekly, every Friday from 4-6Pm)

Green Dragon
928 SE 9th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214
Category: Social
Website: http://portland.beerandblog.com/

We’ll still find a way to hang out and warm our bellies with Holiday ale! After all, even if I said we weren’t meeting, people still would show up. I love you guys for that. So, this Friday we’ll get together and toast to 2008 as we enjoy the last official Beer and Blog of the year (although people may still show up on the 26th).

January will be Beer and Blog’s 1 year anniversary and we have some cool plans in the works. We’re pulling together the best of what we learned in 2008 and turning it into a full or half day workshop for all those who want to start a blog or improve one. We’re also going to do a mini Job Fair.

Monday January 5, 2009

souk’s Birthday

souk
322 NW 6th Avenue, suite 200
Portland, Oregon 97214
Category: Social

Website: http://www.soukllc.com

Celebration of a local small business serving the creative class - we’re 2 years old! Work for free today, or just stop by to enjoy cupcakes, cheer, Blazer tix drawing and more.

RSVP on Upcoming

Monday January 12, 2009 from 6:00pm - 7:00pm

Mobile Love, Android Style #8

Lucky Lab Brew Pub
915 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, Oregon
Category: Social
2nd monday of the month is android day. Android is the mobile phone operating system from Google. meet with local area developers.

RSVP on Upcoming

Wednesday January 14, 2009 from 12:00pm - 2:00pm

Lunch 2.0 at the New OTBC Office

OTBC in the Beaverton Round
12725 SW Millikan Way
Beaverton, Oregon 97005
Category: Social
For the first time, Portland Lunch 2.0 will happen in the ‘burbs, Beaverton to be precise.

The OTBC is moving into new space and partnering with the Beaverton Round Executive Suites.

So, to showcase their new digs and introduce Lunch 2.0 to the suburbs, the OTBC will be hosting Lunch 2.0 on January 14, 2009.

The Beaverton Round is right on the MAX line about 20 minutes from Portland. Just jump off the Blue Line at the Beaverton Central stop, and you’re 90 feet from the new OTBC office.

Lunch 2.0 is a Valley phenomenon that you can read about at lunch20.com, and we’re putting a PDX stamp on it.

You can follow all things Portland Lunch 2.0 at Silicon Florist.

Are you vegan or vegetarian? Please leave a comment so we can plan food accordingly. Thanks.

RSVP on Upcoming

Wednesday January 14, 2009 at 11:00am

Lunch 2.0 Party Train to OTBC

Pioneer Courthouse Square
701 Sw 6th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97204
Category: Social
All Aboard! We’re going to par-tay all the way down to the OTBC for Lunch 2.0.

Here’s the scoop: Meet up at Pioneer Square MAX stop and catch the Blue Line MAX at 11:27. It will arrive just a few feet from the OTBC at 11:50. We’ll all be in the rear MAX car cuz that’s how we roll.

Don’t forget to RSVP for Lunch 2.0 http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1148458/

Chuga Chuga Choo! Choo!

RSVP on Upcoming

Saturday January 17, 2009 from 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Masterbacon: A day for bacon lovers

Kveton’s
2822 SW Boundary St
Portland, 97239
Category: Social

Website: http://bacongeek.com/masterbacon

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.

RSVP on Upcoming (63 people have saved this event at the time of posting).

Tuesday January 13, 2009 at 7:30pm

Portland Arts and Lectures: Michael Pollan

Portland Center for the Performing Arts - Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 Sw Broadway
Portland, Oregon 97205
Category: Education

Buy Tickets

Wednesday January 14, 2009 at 6:00pm

Drinking and Drawing

The Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave.
Portland, Oregon 97209
Category: Media
Website: http://www.drinkinganddrawing.org

Drinking and Drawing is an evening of collaborative animation. Artists, animators, spectators- everyone is welcome, and anyone can participate!

The event is free to Cascade SIGGRAPH and ASIFA members- all others pay $5 at the door, and everyone must be 21+.

Visit www.drinkinganddrawing.org for more information about the event and how it works, and follow @DrinknDrawPDX on Twitter for updates.

Ticket Info: $5

RSVP on Upcoming

Monday January 26, 2009 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm

PDXCritique

CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214
Category: Social
Website: http://pdxcritique.com
The mission of PDX Critique is to provide a monthly forum for designers of any stripe (graphic, web, whatever) to crawl out of their work void to share information and constructive criticism.

Have something you want critiqued? Contact us via the google group or on the blog.

RSVP on Upcoming

Thursday February 19, 2009 at 7:00pm

Ignite Portland 5

Bagdad Theater and Pub
3702 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd
Portland, Oregon 97214
Category: Social
Website: http://www.igniteportland.com

Save the date! Ignite Portland 5 will happen on Thursday, February 19, 2009, at the Bagdad Theater. Stay tuned to http://www.igniteportland.com/ for more details, and submit YOUR talk idea now!

RSVP on Upcoming

Friday February 20, 2009 - Sunday February 22, 2009

RecentChangesCamp 2009

University Place Hotel
310 SW Lincoln Street
Portland, Oregon 97201
Category: Other
Website: http://2009rcc.org/

RecentChangesCamp (RCC) is the unconference for the Wiki community. Born of the intersection of wiki and Open Space (an unconference facilitation method), it is named after the “recent changes” page found on many wikis.

RCC is 100% free to attendees, and is open to everyone: from hardcore wikiholics to the mildly curious. No pre-registration is required, but it would be helpful if you could add yourself to our list of attendees on our planning wiki. You can also follow our updates at http://twitter.com/RCCamp.

RCC is held over the course of three days, with participants welcome to come and go as they please. Exact times have not yet been nailed down, but it generally starts Friday morning, continues all day on Saturday, and closes late Sunday afternoon.

RSVP on Upcoming

Tuesday February 24, 2009 - Thursday February 26, 2009

“Secrets of Agile Teamwork: Beyond Technical Skills” Workshop

McMenamins | Kennedy School
5736 NE 33rd Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97211
Category: Education

Website: http://www.agileuniversity.org/course_details.jsp?courseid=1…

Beyond technical skills, Agile success depends on productive self-organizing teams. How do you develop, grow, and maintain a functioning self-organizing team? It’s not magic, but it doesn’t just happen either. Effective self-organizing teams rely on personal and interpersonal effectiveness.

In this hands-on workshop, we’ll discover the secrets to developing the skills you need to succeed and lead on a self-organizing team.

Ticket Info: $1500
Buy Tickets

RSVP on Upcoming

————-

Amber Case can be followed on Twitter @caseorganic. She is available for new media and online productivity consulting, data aggregation, and training in blogging and Internet marketing. E-mail caseorganic at gmail dot com for inquiries.

We’ve done a lot of things in Portland, but there is one type of event that’s been missed by many people. This camp ignores a significant chunk of the Portland Tech community. In other words…

We need a kids tech camp.

• Kids need to have a great place to meet each other and experience technology.
• Parents with kids should be able to bring their children to a networking event and get to know each other.
• The venue should be fun and educational. It should allow participation and activities for kids, so that parents can have an enjoyable time alongside them, or amongst themselves.

Twitter Responses:

• Irene_S: @caseorganic That’d be great! Having kids does cut into one’s networking time.
• harrisja: @caseorganic I completely agree! more kid friendly tech events FTW!
• smb: @caseorganic kids networking tech event would be awesome. What age ranges are you contemplating?
• petsaretalking: @caseorganic What an awesome idea!
• anitacochran: @caseorganic That sounds like fun, get any nibbles?
• LeStew: @caseorganic re: #childtech YES YES YES!!!!
• snelson: @caseorganic I’m in for planning… especially if at least some of program could be targeted at GIRLS and technology
• brampitoyo: @snelson @caseorganic I know that some robotic club are connected to DorkbotPDX, and they’re open for both girls and boys.
• neophiliac: @caseorganic sounds cool. I’ve been looking for an excuse to learn (Ruby) Shoes; it’s great for kids.
• MatthewStadler: @caseorganic Yes on all-ages tech event. Key is all-ages, not just “kids,”i.e., adults drink, swear, etc., alongside kids. Venue more Backspace than OMSI
• oleoptene: @caseorganic But kids tech event awesome idea we would totally get behind. Suggest kids take part in planning of it.
• oleoptene: @caseorganic Besides bringing older offspring to Ignite (they loved cyborg anthropology) we’ve talked kidcamp @ barcamp, facility a problem.
• kmcdade: @caseorganic I’m very interested in helping plan a kids event. Also, @kidtech seems like the name of someone’s account, so #childtech might work better.

Venue:

I agree with MatthewStadler that a venue more like Backspace than OMSI is needed. Also, Oleoptene’s dea of letting kids plan the event seems really fun. All ages seems nice — but probably not too young. The cut-off age could be 6, for instance.

Conclusion:

Seems like we have enough interest to proceeed. The question is of “how”. A date would be nice. Some time in Feburary would give us ample time to plan a half day of activities and little workshops, as well as secure a venue and funding (if needed), and to gather momentum. The only question I have is whether the event should be large or small.

Yep. So we need one of these events. Reply or contact me in some way (I’m @caseorganic on Twitter) if you’re interested in helping out. We can probably get a Wiki started and get the show on the road!

Dear Everyone,

Here are a lot of events. I’ll be at most of them this time, as I will not be in Boston. Be sure to check out DorkBot, Beer and Blog, Web Innovators and CyborgCamp. Happy event going!

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Wednesday November 26, 2008

Beer and Blog - Turkey Day at the Green Dragon

4:00pm - 6:00pm
Green Dragon Bistro & Brewpub
928 SE 9th Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214

Since this Friday is one that most will be spending with family, we’re going to make this week’s Beer and Blog a Wednesday affair (that’s tomorrow as of this post’s publish date).

Official Beer and Blog website

RSVP on Upcoming.

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Dorkbot Series: Making Noise with the Arduino

1:00pm - 5:00pm
Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA)
1241 NW Johnson Street
Portland, Oregon 97209

As a part of the ongoing Arduino Cult Induction workshop series, this month we will be focusing on sound.

In particular Don will be going over creating sound using the Arduino’s built in Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) and Direct Digital Synthesis using resistive ladders. We will investigate using the Piezo element
as both a simple speaker and an input trigger. We will review the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) from a hardware and software perspective, and look at a couple of useful integrated circuits (the lm324 and the lm368).

The workshop will cost $25 and participants will recieve a complete midi interface board for the dorkboard/arduino and a piezo element which will be used to create a midi drum trigger. Participants will also take with them parts for an r2r ladder, an op amp and an audio amp capable of driving small speakers or headphones.

Ticket Info: $25 Buy Tickets (scroll to the bottom of the page to get to the ticket purchasing information).

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Monday, December 1, 2008

Morning Meeting: Legal (Weekly Series)

9:00am - 10:00am

CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214
Category: Education
Website: http://www.cubespacepdx.com/entrepreneurial
Come into CubeSpace between 9 and 10 a.m. on weekdays to chat with the professional-in-residence about your needs. The Monday topic is Legal issues, including questions about incorporation and doing business in Oregon.

The Morning Meetings are free and open to the public. They are part of our Entrepreneurial Series. To learn more, visit the Entrepreneurial Series’ website.

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Wednesday, December 3rd

PNCA Noontime Chat: Louis Marchesano

12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
PNCA Swigert Commons
Pacific NW College of Art
1241 NW Johnson St.
Portland, OR 97209

Louis Marchesano is the Collections Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he worked on 17th Century Italian prints, a topic on which he has published.

His recent exhibition, Drawn to Rome, was a groundbreaking work on the remarkably rich sketchbooks of young French artists who trained in Rome in the 18th Century. Louis’ upcoming exhibitions include two collaborative projects with the Getty Museum, one on the prints and painting of James Ensor, and the other on the drawings and related prints of Peter Paul Rubens. Part of Contemporary Curatorial Issues Series.

Ticket info: Free and open to the public.

Official description on the PNCA website.

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Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Web Analytics Wednesday

Host: Ryan Summers

5:30 PM
McFaddens Restaurant & Saloon in Portland
107 NW Couch St, Portland OR (Venue | Map | Group)

Sponsor:
Event sponsored by ISITE Design, Inc.

Please join your web analytics colleagues on Wednesday, December 3rd on the west side of McFaddens in the upper bar area. An assortment of food will be provided by McFaddens, courtesy of ISITE Design Inc.

Share:

Invite friends to join you at this event

Link to this event

Attendees: 16 people plan to attend, including Ryan Summers, allison, amclaughlin, ben, bohlgren, dsprick, eric.peterson, hallie, jesse, jturner, kent, labbott, mmellor, ritchiem, skemper, tyson

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Wednesday, December 3rd

State of Portland Tech - Web Innovators

7:00pm
CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214

Silicon Florist’s Rick Turoczy will lead a discussion about the Portland tech scene heading into 2009. Where are we now, how did we get here and where do we want to go?

Join us for the monthly Portland Web Innovators meeting — the first Wednesday of every month.

RSVP on Upcoming

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Friday, December 5th, 2008

PNCA+Five Series Presents Design Futuring, Culture and the Coming Age of Unsettlement

Pacific Northwest College of Art welcomes Australian designer and design theorist Tony Fry in two upcoming events centered on the sustainment of arts education and the reinvention of design. A design consultant and theorist, Fry is also an international leader in sustainable design theory and practice. His lecture, “Design Futuring, Culture and the Coming Age of Unsettlement” will unpack two crucial and linked questions: how can design, as a positive force for change, be made to happen?

12:30-1:30 Pm
Gerding Theatre at the Armory
128 NW Eleventh Avenue
Portland, OR 97209

Free and open to the public.

Official details at PNCA website.

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Friday, December 5th

CyborgCamp Re-Party at Vidoop

Time TBA
Vidoop
117 NW 5th Ave, ste 210
Portland, OR 97209

Come to the official CyborgCamp pre-party! Special guests Cami and Mike Kaos will be live-broadcasting Strange Love Live. There will be drinks and festivities before the conference in the morning. Details forthcoming. Expect a 8 or 9 Pm start time.

RSVP on Upcoming
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Saturday, December 6th

CyborgCamp PDX 2008

9:00 Am-6Pm
CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214

CyborgCamp is a hybrid conference/unconference about the future of human computer interaction, technology, and how we deal with it. Notable speakers will be Ward Cunningham (Inventor of the Wiki), Hideshi Hamaguchi (of Lunaar), and Bill DeRouchey (Ziba Design). Unconference sessions to occur throughout the day.

Additionally, the conference will be live streamed, so you can join in online.
To attend the event in person, you must register through CubeSpace. The $10 fee covers food and drink. Visit CyborgCamp.com for information and to get a ticket.

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Sunday, December 7th

DorkbotPDX 0×02: DorkbotPDX brings you Collin Oldham, Shelly Farnham and Steve Davee

6:00Pm
AboutUs offices
107 SE Washington St., Suite 520,
Portland, Oregon 97214

Come join us for an evening of geek meets art. The fine folks at AboutUs will be hosting us for this event, which takes place December 7th at 6PM. AboutUs is located at 107 SE Washington St, Suite 520. Feel free to bring snacks and drinks to share. Please spread the word!

Collin Oldham: The RT (radio trowel) and The Cellomobo

Collin spent the 2005-2006 academic year at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) where began to develop the electronic musical instruments he is presenting today.

The RT (radio trowel) uses a capacitive sensor array based on Max Mathew’s radio baton to detect the position of the trowel on the playing surface. The trowel’s movements control sound synthesis parameters, including filters which process live sound from a contact mic attached to the trowel.

Shelly Farnham: Dorkbot Dorkbot Dorkbot + Seattle

I am that rare combination of geek, artist, and scientist and when I first met Dorkbot Seattle I felt like I’d *finally* found my people — where technology is artistic medium, science is art, and geeking out is just a whole lot of fun. My one complaint was that Seattle Dorkbots were not collaborating enough, and when I took over as Seattle’s “Dork Overlord” it was my main mission — to cultivate the creative geek community.

Steve Davee: Not to kill a thought: The impact of language on curiosity, creativity and scientific inquiry.

This talk explores how easy it is, even with the best of intentions, to stifle creative thought and true learning when it comes to working with children in the areas of science, math and engineering. We will investigate examples of simple but powerful changes in language, with the intention of provoking the best of creative potential and shared inquiry.

Steve Davee is a math and science teacher at Opal Charter School and a Media Specialist for the Center for Children’s Learning at the Portland Children’s Museum. He is a recovering Biochemist with a background in physics and over 20 years of volunteer and work experience in education.

Event is Free. RSVP on Upcoming.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2008

Internet Marketing Conference

5:00pm-7:00pm
Internet Professionals SIG
Portland State University
Market Square Building Suite 1050
1515 SW 5th Avenue - Portland, OR
Cost:$55 for members $55 for non members

This event is with the Software Association of Oregon (SAO). Click here for more information and to register

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

ThrivePDX (2nd Edition)

5:00pm-9:00pm
(Location to be announced).

The second Thrive PDX. Site says: “Join us for the second meeting of ThrivePDX! Details to follow… check back soon!”

Register…
Deadline
12/10/2008

ThrivePDX Event on Upcoming.

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Thursday, December 11, 2008

CubeSpace Holiday Party

4:00pm - 9:00pm
CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave
Portland, Oregon 97214

Come celebrate the holidays with us!

RSVP on Upcoming.

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Feel free to contact me for more information on all of these events. Thanks to Yahoo’s! Upcoming, PNCA, Twitter, and Calagator for events. See you soon!

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.

There are some amazing events happening this week in Portland Tech.

I’m telling you about these events because I won’t be there to experience them. Tomorrow, I’ll be flying somewhere and won’t be able to hang out with the Portland Tech community. I’m relying on everyone to document these events so that their awesomeness is remembered for a really long time.

Here are the events you might consider attending, starting with:

Wednesday Nov 19, 2008

PDX 501 Tech Club/Net Tuesday: Nonprofit Tech Extravaganza

5:30–7:30pm
Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
1945 NW Quimby
Portland OR 97209
Map

Description

Join us to talk nonprofit technology and how 2 organizations working for your better good want to collaborate to create more useful events for you in 2009.

The idea is to provide a fuller, more in-depth series of events. Our main goal is to provide a two monthly meetups that directly relate to each other, providing introductory information and hands-on engagement. But we want to see if that aligns with your goals!

We’re going to dedicate our November meetup to a party of sorts to help us determine what it is you would like to know and learn… and how much you’re willing to learn.

Come for this pre-holiday party with food, fun, good folks and conversation!

Email questions to Anna at anna@nten.org.

CONNECT ONLINE

Portland Net Tuesday at http://netsquared.meetup.com/13/

Net Squared, a product of Tech Soup, works to spur responsible adoption of social web tools by social benefit organizations. There’s a whole new generation of online tools available ? tools that make it easier than ever before to collaborate, share information and mobilize support. These tools include blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, podcasting, and more. Some people describe them as “Web 2.0″; we call them the social web, because their power comes from the relationships they enable.

Portland 501 Tech Club - http://groups.nten.org/group.htm?mode=gvb&igid=5273

The 501 Tech Club is a monthly gathering of people working on or interested in nonprofit technology in the Portland, OR Area. Our meetings are opportunities for anyone interested in helping nonprofits use technology to get together and talk shop in a fun, informal setting, and our name refers to the fact that most of us work primarily with and for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

The Showdown in Stumptown: 2008 PAF Rosey Awards

5:30–10pm
Antoinette Hatfield Hall (formerly the Newmark Theatre Building)
1111 SW Broadway
Portland Oregon 97205
(map)

Website

http://portlandadfed.com/events/details.php?id=33

Note: If you’re going to this event, be sure to say hello to Bram Pitoyo, who will be volunteering/live blogging it.

Step into the ring, touch gloves and cue the Rocky theme song (or Eye of the Tiger, your choice), it’s time for the 51st annual PAF Rosey Awards. You’ll see who duked it out for this years winner’s circle. Honors include awards of Merit and Excellence, and of course, Rosey. Join us to see how each contender stacked up to the competition.

Reception/Entries on display: 5:30-7:30pm

Show: 7:30pm

Members: $91./Non Members $106.

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

WordIgniteBarCampCampCampCampPalooza… PDX

6–8pm
CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave.
Portland Oregon 97214
(map)

RSVP

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1320316

Details to be given for WordIgniteBarCampCampCampCampPalooza… PDX at IGNITE PORTLAND 4 on November 13th (there may be Cupcakes).

That’s all we can say for now, but… you do not want to miss this.

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

Non-Profit Networking

6–8pm
CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave.
Portland Oregon 97214
(map)

Website

http://www.cnrg-portland.org

Are you a non-profit or someone who works with them? A volunteer looking an organization eager for your time? A non-profit wanting to partner on a project?A non-profit looking for affordable consultants or vendors? If so, then non-profit networking is for you. Come meet others who work and volunteer in Portland’s non-profit sector. Swap resources, share ideas, devise solutions and just hang out with community-minded people like yourself. Bring your brains and your rolodex; we provide snacks and drinks.

*This is a regular event that happens every third Thursday of the month.

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

SAO: Life Inside an Iteration

6–9pm
Governor Hotel
614 SW 11th Avenue
Portland OR 97205
(map)

Cost: $10 for members $30 for non members
Registration Deadline: 11/18/2008
Topic: Life Inside an Iteration

Buffet Dinner is included.

Agile software development processes such as Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, and Lean Software Development have become mainstream in many organizations, but what is “Life Inside an Iteration” really like? Find out as our panelists talk about what activities help let QA and Development work in sync, what the hand offs are and how they happen, how they have managed the inevitable change within the iteration. Our panelists include developers, testers, customers and consultants to bring a broad perspective of best practices to these issues.

Panelists

Brian Jamison, Founder and CEO, OpenSourcery
Brian is a seasoned entrepreneur with many technology-related companies to his credit. He has worked with Linux, open source, and the Internet professionally since 1995. Brian serves as President for the Portland Open Source Software Entrepreneurs (POSSE) and as advisor, mentor, or board member for numerous startups. He actively promotes safe, renewable biodiesel as a locally-produced fuel source.

Chris Jones, Engineer, Yesmail
Chris has led the adoption of agile practices on several projects and teams ranging from ‘by the book’ XP to a blend of XP and RUP. Chris is well versed in adapting agile processes to a diverse set of development organizations. He is currently contributing to the google web toolkit.

Wayne Allen, VP of Software Engineering, Integrated Services, Inc.
Wayne is the leading supplier of point of sales solutions for the Quick Lube and Car Wash industry. Wayne has a passion for the craft of software engineering that he has developed in his 20 years as a programmer, consultant, manager, executive and small business owner. This passion has led him to the new crop of “agile” software development processes such as XP and Scrum. Wayne is a regular speaker both nationally and internationally on the topic of agile software development. You can read about Wayne’s thoughts on software development at blogs.consultantsguild.com.

Sumant Vashisth, Senior QA Manager, McAfee, Inc.
Sumant had more than 10 years of experience in software development and testing having worked at IBM and Ford prior to joining McAfee. He has successfully driven testing on multiple product releases at McAfee, including one of the first large scale project at the company to adopt and follow the Agile software development process. The current agile development project for which he is managing the QA team, requires integration and testing with multiple cross site engineering product development groups. Sumant also developed the software and is co-author of the book “Software For Emission Rate Modeling Of Accidental Toxic Releases”.

Todd Whitaker
Todd has nearly 14 years experience working with teams and organizations to develop software products ranging from web and enterprise applications to desktop software. He has held positions in Product and Program Management with a number of software companies including Inspiration Software, Serena Software, Extensis, Concentrex, and Group 3 Consultants. Todd is an advocate for simple and excellent user experience, highly collaborative and adaptive product development processes, and Agile methodologies. He is a graduate of Oregon Institute of Technology, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Management with an Electronics Engineering emphasis.

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Monday Nov 24, 2008

MIT Enterprise Forum: The Future of Wireless Communication

4–6pm
OTBC (The Round)
12725 Sw Millikan Way
Beaverton OR 97005
(map

Entrepreneur Meetups > The OTBC Meetup Group

Moderated by Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal

Smart phones, but dumb approach? When will users have more control over key elements of buying and using their mobile phone? Join moderator Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, cellular thought leaders and rabble rousers as we look into the future of mobile telephony, asking questions such as:

Where is mobility really going?
Is it a phone or a TV set?
What are the limitations of our mobile devices?
When will we have more control over the phone/carrier combination?
What opportunities still exist for entrepreneurs?

Complete details may be found at http://www.mitenterpriseforum.org.

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Monday Nov 24, 2008

DorkbotPDX Meeting

7–10pm
Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
1945 NW Quimby
Portland OR 97209
(map)

Come join us for an evening of socializing, talking about odd hacks and poking around with other people toys. Bring things for show and tell if you like, or just bring a willingness to share your interests. We’ll be the kids with all the coolest stuff on the table. Hope to see you there.

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That is a lot of events! I’ll probably be attending Dorkbot this week, which rocks and you shouldn’t miss it if you’re into electronics. Have a great week!

—–

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Tech Journalist from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.

Tonight, Microsoft and others kindly sponsored a Silverlight 2 Release Party at North Portland’s North Agency.

North has a beautiful building. If you’ve never been there before, it’s located at 1515 NW 19th Ave in one of the newest and strangest areas of Portland. North is an advertising agency who, according to one of their spokeswoman, “connects brands with people using film, design and music”. North has been occupying their current location for a little over a year.

The first presenter was Tim Heuer, a Senior Program Manager for Microsoft Silverlight. The rest of the program was open, which allowed everyone to walk around to different demo stations featuring Silverlight locals Erik Mork, Kelly White, and Jason Mauer.

Deep Zoom

DeepZoom provides the ability to zoom almost arbitrarily large images in Silverlight in a really nice manner. Jason Mauer presented Deep Zoom for a series of images randing from maps to standard JPEG photos. The scaling mechanism of DeepZoom was very impressive.

DeepZoom allows mutiple images to be displayed at very small and very large scale without affecting performance of the application displaying the image. The only property affecting performance is the number of pixels to be displayed on screen.

Demo

Hard Rock Cafe has a website that uses Deep Zoom, but you have to have Microsoft Silverlight installed in order to use it. I highly suggest checking it out, though — especially if you like super-close-up images of guitar frets.

BizSpark

BizSpark is kind of like Microsoft’s version of Y!Combinator. It is a new program for supporting startups and entrepreneurs. To be eligible for BizSpark, all of the following your Startup must be:

• In the business of software development,
• Privately held,
• Have been in business for less than 3 years, and
• Have less than US $1 million in annual revenue.

To be eligible to use the software for production and deployment of hosted solutions Startups must also be developing a new “software as a service” solution (on any platform) to be delivered over the Internet.

Raffle

There was a raffle at the end for a bunch of books. Jason Mauer made a random number generator in Silverlight in order to choose raffle winners. I found that pretty cool. I picked up a book on Professional LINQ, which I am going to have a lot of fun with. I was also talking to Adron Hall about Yahoo! Pipes and doing a side-to-side comparison of Silverlight’s capabilities vs. the capabilities of Pipes.

PDXUX

The PDXUX group will be meeting the third Tuesday of every month, beginning in January. Visit the PDXUX website for details.

Thanks to North, Microsoft, and PDXUX et al., for a successful and curious event.

—–

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Tech Journalist from Portland, Oregon. You can follow her online @caseorganic.