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.

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.

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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.

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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.

“One of the things that gets me excited about cloud computing is the access to resources and processing capabilities for very large data sets,” - Thomas Lockney, one of CloudCamp Portland’s earliest supporters.

CloudCamp was held June 30th, 2009 from 5:30-10:30 Pm on the 16th floor of WebTrends in Downtown Portland. The unconference was set up for people who work with cloud computing, were interested in learning more, or who wanted to understand what Cloud Computing was all about. You can see some of what was said on Twitter about  #cloudcamp, or #cloudcampdx.

This was a very interesting conference that dealt seriously with some very important issues. Many of us in the field will be running into these problems, or already do. The advantages and disadvantages of Cloud computing need to be recognized before they can be dealt with. In this atmosphere (not to mention the excellent weather and balcony we had) information and knowledge sharing seemed to prosper.

The conference began with socializing and then an Un-Panel composed of a handful of campers who were heavily involved in Cloud Computing, either in knowledge or participation. Then, the audience posed a series of questions which were written onto a white board. The panel gave 1-5 minute responses on the questions of their choosing. At the end of the responses and follow up questions, the Dave Nielsen asked how many people were interested in discussion the questions further in an Unconference format. The topics with the most interest became proposed Unconference topics.

This was a unique way to run an Unconfernece. It put everyone on the same page by giving background and preliminary Q+A around key topics. It also allowed experts to distribute knowledge before sessions, and it made it so that everyone got some form of information, so there was less of a liability in missing conference sessions later.

A shout-out to Mr. Walsh, whom I wish I had more time to speak with.

Abbreviation Key:

Software as a Service (SaaS). Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS).

UnPanel Questions

1. Would database as a service be also considering cloud computing?

Mark Johnson: It really depends if you’re an object guy or a relational guy. If you’re a relational guy you might think of it as a platform. If you have a really good database layer, it would be a infrastructure. If you have a business object later it would be a platform.

Dave Nielsen: There are still people who will offer SQL databases as a service, but there’s another type where people just need to store data and store it quick, not necessarily structured, and then there’s a third type where people need to store relational data like SimpleDB.

Right Scale: Your application needs to have a database because it needs to something, or you have some bit Oracle cluster and the application is the database.

Dave Nielsen: Data in the cloud was probably that most popular topic at CloudCamp San Francisco.

here, most of the audience was interested in Data in the cloud.

2. What are the security threats with company data? Solutions?

Mark Johnson: I think I’m answering a slightly different question, but the whole thing of security is — when they bring in security experts when they bring them in and get their opinion on Cloud Computing, they say “it’s not really our issue”, but I think that with cloud computing, it forces people to think about these things sooner.

Marcus: I work with government institutions.

Dave Nielsen: At cloud camp Paris I got a very specific computing. “How can I make sure my data is never seen by the NSA?”

Audience: Don’t ask that in public.

John Hartman: A project I worked on, it was much more secure in the Cloud vs. physical privacy. Easier to rob your house than to go up in the cloud and put that data back together.

3. Any examples of hardware integration?

I didn’t take any notes here. My apologies. If you have something to add, be sure to add it in the comments below.

4. How do you avoid Cloud Lock-in?

Jason Mauer: Issues with wishing to switch from Amazon to something else. How smooth is this transition? Does data get stuck? With Azure, GoDaddy could run a verison of Azure in the CLoud and there would be no issues.And I think we’ll see mroe and more vendors running certain flavors of cloud as Cloud COmputing becomres more prevalent. But I think we’re still in the infancy of cloud computing.

BrowserMob: Google provides a very specific way of turning your data to CLoud. But you have to be careful becase if you write your code to assume that certian pieces will be there, then you can be locked in. Just be careful with it.

Dave Nielsen: If you are interested in security, there’s actually a Cloud Security Alliance. Cloudsecurityalliance.org, contact Nils Puhlmann.

About half the audience was interested in security.

5. What are you running?

Dave Nielsen: how many of you are running something right now?

A third of audience raised hands.

The entire room said Linux.

What flavor?

Debian, Ubuntu, most pop. choices.

OSX!

(in the cloud?).
Laughter.

Windows 3.1!
More laughter.

6. What are the potential players right now? What do they bring to the table right now?

Dave Nielsen: Just shout them out.

VMWare, Amazon, Ubuntu, SUn wishes they were, Rackspace, possibly Google, Appengine. Some are software providers, but others are Infrastrucre as a Service. If looking at IaaS specifically, GoGrid, Flexiscale, Joyant, Engineyard is insutry - based on top of Ec2 Amazon.

BrowserMob: A small compnay called COntigex that’s rolling out their stuff any day.

Dave Nielsen: BlueLock is a VMware cloud.

7. What are the regulatory compliance issues?

HIPPA, PCI (payment card industry).

8. Are there open source cloud solutions? Cloud as a service?

Right Scale: Yes, out of UC Santa Barbara, they have a program called Eucalyptus which is very similar to Amazon EC2, and it works just like it…for the moment.

Dave Nielsen: Abiquo out of Barcelona (recently moved to SF), also 3tera.

Ed Borasky: Ubuntu, by Canonical out of the UK Intrepid Ibex contains Eucalyptus. They also have something called Nebuli, which I’m not sure what is.

Audience: That’s not part of Ubuntu, but it’s another open source project looking to build another EC2 layer like Amazon.

9. When would you AVOID cloud computing?

Sid (from Jive): When considering enterprise Dave Nielsening, which is very expensive. A lot of problems with some clients where the data can’t leave the warehouse. Also, it’s alittle more expensive because with Cloud Computing you are paying a little bit more for flexibility.

10. How soon will we be talking about connection speeds to the Cloud?

See 13. Performance Issues (question posed by Ed Borasky).

11. What’s the baseline for cloud computing? (When would you move to the cloud?)

Sid: The lead time to to get ne hardware set up can sometimes b 3-4 weeks, but we have a lot of people wh

So sometimes you can run into complicated capacity planning here, where you guess how many people will use it in the next month and then plan it beforehand.

Red Shirt: One way you can use the cloud if you have predictable spiky load, you can use the Cloud to cover it.

Dave Nielsen: Super easy example would be file storage - for images on your website to push them out tho the edge.

Reid Beels: Seems like they’re talking about finished applications. Where would the development process move from local to the Cloud.

Dave Nielsen: At what point did you in the audience move from local to the cloud?

Audience: When the client wanted to see it.

Audience: It actually was when I was steady to deploy.

@dodeja: One instance I saw was with Animoto, with these massive spikes of access. When you’re doing heavy computing it makes sense to push it out onto the cloud.

Dave Nielsen: David Chappell (writes lots of books) - talked about two high uses of cloud, one when you need to scale, and another behind the scenes.

About 5 poeple were interested in use cases of when to move out onto the cloud .

12. IAAS sems to be a popular choice. Amazon seems to be the only one in the game right now. Why does it continue to be the most popular choice?

Makes more sense to Dave Nielsen there.

13. How does an application running in the cloud get accurate performance metrics (Ed Borasky).

BrowserMob: How do you deal with application performance in the cloud? That’s something people have a lot of concern themselves about because all sorts of things, including network bandwidth is not guaranteed. If you’re expecting to get x megabits of upload speed all the time, then that’s not a good mindset. To have the idea when you go in that you don’t know what upload speed there’s going to be is a better idea. If you need better performance, go with the more powerful equipment.

@dodeja: I think it would be more interesting to know the sorts of optimizations you can do to your infrastructure to make it run more smoothly.

Dave Nielsen: but that’s too specific.

Transition to Unconference Planning

Dave Nielsen: We’ll move now into the Unconference part, in which we’ll have 2 sessions of four topics each.

Proposed Unconference Topics

Pricing for different levels of the cloud, different needs.
Say you made a decision to go to the Cloud, but you want to estimate the baseline costs, the spike costs.

Eric was interested in practical approaches to data security for individuals and enterprise level. About half people attended were interested in this.

Practical uses of Amazon. Best practices.

Scott: Deploying Ruby apps in the cloud and making them scream.

Monitoring applications in the cloud.

Adam: Automation system for servers.

Steven Walling: Is Cloud computing a return to time-share mainframe style computing that we were formerly used to? And if so, does that

Lief: was interested in portability in platforms, standards and portability.

Alex Williams: Interested in defining different types of clouds: public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds, and use cases for each.

Session Notes

I went to the session on practical approaches to data security for individuals and enterprise level. About half people attended were interested in this.

Eric: It’s not that your data belongs to you - all of your data belongs to us. These larger companies that hold data. I’ve been working on a completely text based data store, flat files. Ideally, I’d like to have everything as secure as possible.

Lets start by defining things that are nice about the Cloud? What’s nice about Software as a Service (SaaS)?

Drew: It’s just easier.

One is reliability and universal access. The availability is everywhere.

Audience: Until a company goes out of business and the data no longer is there.

Aaron Blew: Scale.

Laura F.: Access.

Caseorganic: The fact that you can have one file, accessible by multiple users centrally updated, instead of 6 files, accessible by one person.

Eric: How can we get some of those benefits while still retaining our ownership of that data in the Cloud?

Cloud Solutions

Eric: Academics utilize primitive version control when they keep renaming files over and over, but they often store multiple copies on one hard drive instead of E-mail, and other storage spaces. What I’m suggesting is having a flattened data store that is diversified.

(At this point, I felt like data was becoming a grain store, and that data store needed to be safe from rats and decay so that it would store tons of grain without bursting or being susceptible to storms (data spikes)).
——–

Group on Amazon Tips and Tricks

I arrived at the group after they’d talked about large scale, heavy duty, and enterprise-level storage techniques.

Group host: For the data hobbyist, you can store all of your data on EBS - a data block. Attach it to an individual EC2 instance. You can at least do things like snapshots of it.

Audience: Klint would know something about this, especially EBS.

Klint Finley: We’ve seen big fluctuations with EBS performance. We’ve turned on CloudWatch to kind of see what’s going on.

Dave Nielsen: Do you have a recommended architecture at this point?

Kint: For now we’re trying to do more in memory. Also, caching everything so we can handle spikes in access.

(And during this session I was looking around, thinking, “this is the underbelly - the equivalent of what the printing press is to printers. What lies beneath. The structure of how things work and what things do”. In other words: the most important thing we can be having a conference about right now).

———

Second Session:

Steven Walling - Is Cloud computing a return to time-share mainframe style computing that wer wwere formerly used to? And if so, does that mean more centralization

Steven Walling: I’m sure you’ve all heard Kevin Kelly’s talk about what technology wants, that what every device will just be a window to the cloud.

@infovore: That everything is a dumb client, and that all the processing is happening up in the cloud.

Steven Walling: but i think that has some of the similar implications, that everything is running through the cloud, or just some of the really important things.

But if everything is running through the cloud there’s the idea that there doesn’t need to be storage anymore. Once everything is in the cloud, you just need a screen and an interface that, you know, you even touch the cloud with.

That entire vision is one extreme of cloud computing, as in, you don’t own anything, you just get to use the resources that someone provides to you.

That was the original idea of computing, that you’d just need a screen and a keyboard.

Bram Pitoyo: Like Thin Client.

Steven Walling: But that these actual computers were so complex and enormous

The reason we did that in the past was because it was cost convenient, and then we pushed it onto the web.

C: But this stuff - this Cloud computing - we’re doing it voluntarily - because it is easier now to store our things on the cloud and then access them from there.

Steven Walling: And what we’re doing is the same thing as before, just flipped upside-down.

Klint Finley: It wasn’t just a time function. you could have a terminal that was a small as a desk that you could access data from the mainframe with.

Joe: But we no longer have the space to be able to store the entire index of the web on your computer. You rely on Google to do that for you.

Some data is so large that you do need it on the cloud.

That was one of the big things Chris Messina was talking about at Open Source Bridge, that there is a need for those big kinds of supermarkets online that provide these large chunks of data service.

StevenWalling: Timeshare computing - too expensive to do anything but Really important science estuff .perosnal computing - anybody can have accress to it everywhere .Does timeshare cut out non-busienss use cases, does cloud cut out business comm?

Caseorganic: I think if a really important business does something online, it will be somewhat secure. But there is not really a set of standards in place for everyone.

Klint Finley: If we had a mesh wireless network it would work out if one network went down.

Jason Mauer: They did air strikes in Iraq in the gulf war to see if they could take down the Internet, and they couldn’t E-mal was used as a test to withstand attack.

Audience: What would happen is that we’d be able to pull off chunks of the Internet and have them function similarly to other chunks.

Audience: I know that a lot of people use Twitter now, or Facebook. A lot of our data is living on those networks now. There’s where I see a lot of problems. How do you get your facebook stuff out? Where does it go? It’s not even structured in the same way as your other data.

Audience: I started using Twitter and followed two people for a while. Now I follow 200. What happened? There’s too much noise. I don’t think I’m ready to handle that much noise yet. What what if I want to step in time? Filter it out? Listen to only the signals I need to?

Eric: It’s question of network structure. If you’re following 20,000 people.
You’re got a representative of every type, 5 people, totally, like Noah’s ark.
You’ve got a DBA, a marketing person. And you’ve got your neighbors, which are total wild-cards. and members of all these tribes i have. It’s about separating that data.

Lief: Yes, but aside from that issue, there’s another. If social networks are like TVs, there are only a few channels. If the channels are owned by giant organizations, then there’s no room for the next Twitter, or Flickr.

Steven :I don’t agree, because the flip side to that is that the guys in the garage don’t have to know anything about database infrastructure in order to know how to build an application. And that weakens the system if many people begin to use it.

Audience: But people are going to want to keep some private data: like family photos, or whoever knows what photos.

Mike Kaos: Consumers are king. They’re going to vote with their bits, so to speak. They’re not going to keep using a service to host their images with their friends, they’re not going to upload their data, unless it’s reliable.

——-

Conference Wrap-Up

We went over each of the Unconference topics, gathering summaries from participants of each. Since it was quite late, I did not get to take notes beyond the point.

Overall, the conference was a great success. The panel/Unconference hybrid model was refreshing and informative. I experienced only slight frustration in not being able to clone myself to watch simultaneous conference sessions. But this is usual.

—-

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and New Media Consultant from Portland, Oregon. She is interested in Cloud computing for many reasons, especially since she uses Twitter @caseorganic, and stores her collection of over 18,000 photos, screenshots, and research notes on Flickr.

Welcome to an Open Source Extravaganza. Only in Portland, Oregon.

Open Source Bridge is something unique - the first ever volunteer run, open source technology conference  It works because the structure of the Portland Tech Community works in the same way. A true community organizes, network, and build things because they’re passionate. This conference was organized out of that passion.

Open Source Bridge is a chance to experience three full days of epic open-sourceness. The kind that’s found only in Portland, Oregon.

Cyborgian Keynote on Wednesday

I’ll be giving Wednesday’s keynote at 9:00 Am on June 17 2009 - the first day of OSBridge with Kurt von Finck, Audrey Eschright, and Selena Deckelmann. My part will be on what it means to be a Cyborg Citizen. What is a Cyborg Citizen? Come to the conference to find out. Meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter @caseorganic for conference coverage and anthropological analysis of tech and the tech world.

Conference Registration

Conference passes are $175 if you register by April 10, and $250 after that date. Student passes are $99 (you will be required to show current student ID when you pick up your badge).

So, if you are at all interested in participating in something incredible, you can register right now for OSBridge. We don’t think you’ll regret it.

Follow OSBridge on Twitter and Identi.ca

For updates during the conference, follow @osbridge on Twitter. If you’re not on Twitter, you can get OSBridge updates through Identi.ca.

OSBridge Sponsors

An enormous thanks to the amazing line-up of OSBridge sponsors, including HP, Google, Yahoo! Developer Network, WebTrends, ReadWriteWeb, Silicon Florist…the list goes on and on.

All Night Hacker Lounge

So, this sweet room at the top of the Hilton should be worth the price of admission alone. Where else can you meet other people with your interests, 24 hours a day? Learn more about the 24 hour hacker lounge.

Final Thoughts

You shouldn’t miss this event. Please just don’t. If you do, you may feel sad, and people who feel sad because they miss amazingly cool Portland events make me feel sad.

—

It’s that time again. Time to list some of the amazing events coming up in the Portland Tech sphere (or universe - or fortress). These next few months are extremely exciting. Make sure not to miss Open Source Bridge, Ignite Portland 6, and the infamous Webvisions (and a note, though it is not listed below, if you’d like to meet a lot of tech people at once, make sure to come to Beer and Blog every Friday at the Green Dragon. If you’ve got more to add to this list, you can contact me on twitter @caseorganic or simply leave a comment below with your event information.

——

Saturday, May 9, 2009 from 1–5pm

Arduino Cult Induction at TechShop

TechShop Portland
10100 SW Allen Blvd
Beaverton Oregon 97005
United States

OpenTechSpace, TechShop, and Tempus Dictum will present an “Arduino Cult Induction” Workshop at TechShop on Saturday, May 9 2009, from 1 to 5 pm.

In this workshop, you will build a complete and functional Arduino-compatible micro-controller (Dorkboard), and will upload and run a program on it. The Arduino development environment is very popular with artists and other creative people, and can be built and programmed even if you have little hardware or software experience.

——

Monday, May 11, 2009 from 8:30am–5pm

SAOpdx: ITIL Intermediate: Release, Control, & Validation

Portland State University (PSU) - Smith Memorial Center
1825 SW Broadway
Portland OR 97201

Description:

Course Length: May 11-15, 2009

This 5-day course immerses learners in the practical aspects of the ITIL v3 Service Lifecycle and processes associated with the Release, Control and Validation of services and service delivery. The main focus of this course is on the operational-level process activities and supporting methods and approaches to executing these processes in a practical, hands-on learning environment. This training is intended to enable the holders of the certificate to apply the practices during the Service Management Lifecycle. This course is designed using an engaging scenario-based approach to learning the core disciplines of the ITIL best practice and positions the student to successfully complete the associated exam.

——

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 from 6:30–8pm

PDXPHP: Debugging and Profiling PHP Web Applications

CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave.
Portland Oregon 97214

A tour of PHP application debugging and profiling techniques using open source tools such as

- Xdebug [http://www.xdebug.org/]

- Netbeans [http://www.netbeans.org/features/php/]

- cachegrind [http://valgrind.org/info/tools.html]

Presenter: Sam Keen

@samkeen

——

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 from 7–8pm

PDX Firefox Developers Group

NedSpace
920 SW Third
Portland Oregon 97204
US

Description:

First meeting for anyone interested in hacking on Firefox or Firefox extensions.

——

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 8pm

Portland Werewolf - May Gathering

Lucky Labrador Brew Pub
915 SE Hawthorne Boulevard
Portland Oregon 97214

Description:

Come play at our monthly game of werewolf at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne. Check out the site for details (http://www.portlandwerewolf.com).

If you are planning on coming and want to play please respond with “attending”. That way we know who is coming and you are guaranteed to play.

Ticket Info: Donations appreciated, for the room rental.

——

Thursday, May 14, 2009 from 6–7:30pm

Portland WordPress User Group - May Meeting

Webtrends
851 SW 6th Ave.
Portland OR 97204

Description:

Meeting agenda to follow, but do join us for our monthly meeting at Webtrends this month.
Remember, Webtrends will be our venue for WordCamp Portland, taking place on October 19th and 20th, 2009

——

Saturday, May 16, 2009 from 10am–3pm

Cre8camp Corvallis

MadAve Collective
Corvallis OR 97330

Description:

Cre8Camp is an unconference for creative industries professionals. It is an ad-hoc gathering for participants to learn, network and share in an open environment with discussions, demos and interaction all led by the attendees.

——

Saturday, May 16, 2009 from 3–6pm

Interactive Video Community Meetup

TechShop Portland
10100 SW Allen Blvd
Beaverton Oregon 97005
United States

Description:

Northwest AudioVisualist
Interactive Community Meetup

The Northwest Audiovisualist community is here to bring together
artists in the interactive video/multimedia performance disciplines.
Our meetings consist of open exchanges of information through
demonstrations, screenings, socializing, and hands-on interaction.
More information at

http://nwav.org

——

Sunday, May 17, 2009 from 1–5pm

DorkbotPDX Pure Data Workshop - (1 of 3) - Introduction to Pd

Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA)
1241 NW Johnson Street
Portland Oregon 97209

Description:

We are excited to announce a new workshop series devoted to Pure Data (Pd).

http://puredata.info

“Pd (aka Pure Data) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. It is the third major branch of the family of patcher programming languages known as Max (Max/FTS, ISPW Max, Max/MSP, jMax, etc.) originally developed by Miller Puckette and company at IRCAM.”

Pure Data is free [FLOSS] software - meaning there is no charge for the download and it is open source, (free/libre). It runs wonderfully on Mac, Linux, Windows - so bring any laptop. Come with Pd-extended installed if possible - otherwise come a little early for installation assistance. The workshop is free as well!

We will will be doing several workshops starting from the ground up - and ranging topics as advanced as there is interest for.

Workshop One will be held May 17th. No prior Pd or programming knowledge is required, but expect to leave with functional knowledge of how to use Pd. The outline in progress can be found here:
http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/pd_workshop_2009_outline.

But we want to hear from you! We’d love to get a rough idea of how many people are interested in attending.

Do you use Pd? Do you use similar commercial software like Max/MSP? Are you interested in learning Pd? Why? What are some of your ideas?

Pd is an incredibly open-ended platform so we’re trying to get an idea of where the majority’s (if there is a majority) interests lie…. Physical Interfaces for music? Live DSP? Generative composition? Video? Dance? Robotic cat toys? Feedforward most welcome!

Bring a laptop with Pd-extended installed, if possible. Otherwise come a little early for installation help! http://puredata.info.

Seating is limited to about 35, so please rsvp at http://dorkbotpdx.org/pd_rsvp or email jason@noisybox_net or coldham@mac_com.

* When: May 17th, 2009
* Where: PNCA room 205 (Portland, OR)
* Time: 1-5pm

——

Monday, May 18, 2009 from 7–9pm

PDX Critique

CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave.
Portland Oregon 97214

Description:

The mission of PDX Critique is to provide a monthly forum for designers of any stripe (graphic, web, whatever) to share information and constructive criticism.

If you have something to show sign up here.

——

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 8:30am

SAOpdx: The Art of Agile Teams: Designing Roles and Responsibilities

Doubletree Hotel Portland-Lloyd Center
1000 Ne Multnomah St
Portland OR 97232

Description:

These courses are heavily federally subsidized (you will not find pricing like this anywhere else) and will sell out early. Register now before they fill up!

At the conclusion of this course, you will be prepared to build a successful Agile team, define roles and responsibilities for your project, and set expectations for team performance and deliverables.

Trainers: Diana Larsen + Jim Shore

——

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 from 5:30–8pm

Portland’s Pink Slip Party

Backspace
115 NW 5th Ave
Portland OR 97209
US

Description:

Portland’s companies have been hit hard by the recession and the tech crowd has seen the impact first-hand. However, there remains massive energy around Portland’s tech scene that doesn’t always find its way to the companies and individuals who can most benefit from its vitality. We believe strongly that Portland possesses the resources and the will to take care of its own.

In this dynamic and challenging economic climate finding a new job can be frustrating – companies are tending to extend fewer courtesies to job seekers and opportunities are harder to locate. The tools, methods, and resources for finding work have changed dramatically as a result of technology and the current recession. Identifying those organizations with the ability to guide and assist is tricky at best. Boly:Welch and YPOP are bringing together resources to help you through the process. The Pink Slip Party is a chance to begin the discussion and make new connections between innovative technical professionals and resourceful business leaders. Together we can make a difference.

——

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 8am through Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 5pm

Webvisions 2009

Oregon Convention Center
777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Portland OR 97232

Description:

Discover the future of Web design, user experience and business strategy for three days of mind-melding on what’s new in the digital world. Get a glimpse into the future, along with practical information that you can apply to your Web site, company and career.
Ticket Info: $150 - $195 before April 1st.

——

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 from noon–2pm

Lunch 2.0 at WebVisions

Oregon Convention Center
777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Portland OR 97232

Description:

WebVisions, yes the conference, will be hosting a Lunch 2.0 at the Oregon Convention Center during their day of workshops, May 20.

Important to note, you can come to Lunch 2.0 even if you’re not attending the conference.

Attend WebVisions if you want to:

“Discover the future of Web design, user experience and business strategy for three days of mind-melding on what’s new in the digital world. Get a glimpse into the future, along with practical information that you can apply to your Web site, company and career.”

This will be the first Portland Lunch 2.0 hosted by a conference, and it should be an interesting mix of conference attendees, many from out of town, and Portlanders.

This crowd mix should provide some interesting conversation, as well as an opportunity to network outside your normal crowd.

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.

——

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 8am

SAOpdx: Software Day at the Capitol

Oregon State Capitol Steps
900 Court St Ne
Salem Oregon 97301
United States

Description:

…check back for updates!

If your company would like to be involved, please contact
Jennifer Warren at 503-228-5401 or jennifer.warren@sao.org for more information.

——

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 from 6–9pm

Opportunities for Entrepreneurs in Health IT

BICC (Biomedical Information Communications Center) Theater
3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road
Portland or 97239

Description:

Health Information Technology Gets $19 Billion Boost, Comparative Effectiveness Research Gets $1 Billion

The new economic stimulus bill is an example of the priority and urgency the new Congress and Obama Administration gives to reforming the health care system. As part of the stimulus package, signed into law by President Obama, $19 billion is now dedicated to transforming the patient record to an electronic format and adopting standards, to be developed by Jan 1, 2010.

Heath Information Technology (HIT) standards that must be developed by Jan. 1, 2010.
Physicians and other practitioners will be eligible for up to $64,000 in incentive payments over several years for the meaningful use of an electronic medical record for patients. By 2015 all physicians will be required to use electronic records in their practice.
Hospitals will also be eligible for $1-9 million in incentives for meaningful EHR adoption.
This stimulus package is expected to create new opportunities for entrepreneurs to provide technology and services to healthcare practitioners and organizations. It will also focus on developing the health IT workforce that institutions like OHSU are already doing, creating new career opportunities in this area.

TIE Oregon has partnered with OHSU and lined up a great panel of healthcare industry professionals and entrepreneurs who have pioneered the developm

ent and use of Electronic Health Records, who will provide insights into this industry and how entrepreneurs can capitalize on this opportunity.

If you are looking to get into this field this is your opportunity to network and learn!

——

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 from 6:30–8pm

PDX Open Source GIS User Group

OpenSourcery
1636 NW Lovejoy Street
Portland Oregon 97209

Description:

The [not] first meeting of the newly re-grouped Portland Open Source GIS user group.

Parking is limited, but mass-transit is ample.

We’ll have some type of software demonstration, discussion about
group structure and preferences, and then adjourn to a local boozery
around 8 for more co-conspiring.

You can find out more and sign up for announcements by joining the google group pdx-osgis.

——

Thursday, May 21, 2009 from 11:30am–1pm

OEN - CEO Roundtable - Boards and Advisors: Using your external team to help drive you and your company’s success

IronStone Bank
309 SW Sixth Avenue
Portland OR 97204

Description:

Paul Gulick, formerly of Clarity Visual Systems and Planar, will lead a lively discussion that will help entrepreneurs drive their organization’s success. Come share your challenges, observations and successes with other CEOs of emerging businesses.

We will discuss why and how to structure your board of directors, advisory board, professional advisory teams (legal, accounting, etc.). Learn from other’s successes as well as war stories from the board rooms.

Open only to CEOs or Presidents of currently operating companies that have employees. Boxed lunch will be served. This program is limited to 12 participants, and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Non-member Fee (includes a one-year Individual Membership to OEN): $151.00
OEN Member Fee: $46.00

——

Thursday, May 21, 2009 from 5:30–7:30pm

PDMA: Product Strategies for Today’s Economy

Crowne Plaza Lake Oswego
14811 SW Kruse Oaks Drive
Lake Oswego OR 97035

Description:

The Oregon chapter of the Product Developm

ent and Management Association (PDMA) is pleased to announce its May Learning Event; Product Strategies for Today’s Economy: Lessons from the Front Lines. Three Directors will discuss what it’s like to be on the front lines of product developm

ent and management during the recession. Each will share insights into how their companies are adapting to new challenges and new opportunities. Learn, share, collaborate, network and have fun!

$20 at the door ($10 for members or students with ID)
Includes hors d’oeuvres, non-hosted beer and wine.

——

Thursday, May 21, 2009 from 6–8pm

Independent Consultants Meetup

Jax Bar (CLOSED)
826 SW 2nd Avenue
Portland Oregon 97204

Description:

Are you an independent consultant or thinking about becoming one? Come network with other local independents, and share success stories and tips and tricks for starting and running your own business. Contact @incanus77 or @hal_pomeranz for further info.

——

Thursday, May 21, 2009 from 7–9pm

SECP’s Event May 21, 2009 | Striving To Thriving: Sustainable Marketing Resolutions

Oregon Stamp Society
4828 Ne 33rd Ave
Portland OR 97211

Description:

SECP Advisory Board Member and Affiliate, Roberta Mac Laren of Rpm

Marketing Mentor has just published a new book with tips for Striving to Thriving—Sustainable Marketing Resolutions that are Practical and Cheap. She’s coming in May to share her tips exclusively with SECP.

Roberta will introduce integrated ways to market your services and products that are sustainable. She will cover how to strategize and create a marketing plan that makes the most of the resources and contacts you have right now to build the business that you want by maximizing different channels. The she will introduce the concept of making a ‘resolution’ to set it in your mind and make it happen.

Cost: $10 (members); $15 (non members).

——

Thursday, May 28, 2009 from 6:30–7:30pm

Refresh Portland May: User Experience and Healthcare, by Sheetal Dube

Jive Software
915 SW Stark
Portland Oregon

Description:

In the healthcare industry, Web 2.0 tools are being used to share information and connect with others. This is significant for an industry that has not taken advantage of digitization until recently.

But how does the new technology work with the user needs? How do we design products and applications that could benefit us all?

Join Sheetal Dube, a Senior User Experience Consultant at Evantage Consulting, for a conversation on:
• Designing around user needs
• Unique challenges faced while designing for the healthcare industry
• Process for doing a quick usability review

Refresh Portland is a monthly meetup on design, front-end development, usability and web standards. It’s part of the Refreshing Cities Movement, and held every 4th Thursday of the month.

——

Saturday, May 30, 2009 from 8am–6pm

Portland Code Camp

Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock
Portland OR 97202

Description:

Coders showing code to Coders

——

Tuesday June 9, 2009 at 7:00pm

Objectified Special Screening with Gary Hustwit

Cinema 21
616 NW 21st Ave
Portland, Oregon 97209

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

*Join director Gary Hustwit, director of the acclaimed documentary Helvetica, for a special screening and post-film discussion.*

Watch the Trailer:

http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/objectified-trailer/

Ticket Info: General public $20, Students, AIGA, IDSA members $15.

——

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 from 6:30–8pm

Portland Java User Group

Oracle (Downtown Campus)
1211 SW 5th Avenue, Suite 800, Room 8005
Portland Oregon 97204

Description:

This month’s topic: TBD

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 (more often than not, Jax on 2nd).

http://twitter.com/pjug

http://pjug.org/

——

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 8am through Friday, June 19, 2009 at 4:30pm

Open Source Bridge

Oregon Convention Center
777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Portland OR 97232

Description:

Open Source Bridge is a three-day open source developers conference, focused on bringing people from a range of technology backgrounds together to share their knowledge and explore what it means to be an open source citizen.

In order to create a conference that promotes cross-pollination as well as providing space for in-depth discussion, the tracks are divided into the following five areas:

Cooking: Useful recipes for software developm

ent, systems administration, and working with open source.

Chemistry: Understanding how our systems work, in order to improve and extend.

Business: Building open source businesses that thrive.

Culture: Exploring how open source extends through technology into our communities.

Hacks: Tinkering, experimenting and bending the rules to make hardware and software do what we want.

The final day of the conference will be structured in an unconference format, to allow participants to reflect and build on the previous days’ discussions.

——

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 from noon–2pm

Sweet Sixteen Lunch 2.0 at ISITE Design

ISITE Design
115 NW First Avenue, Suite 500
Portland OR 97209

Description:

We’re back in Old Town for Portland Lunch 2.0’s Sweet Sixteen at ISITE Design . At least, I think that’s considered Old Town.

Anyway, Andy Van Oostrum is bringing Lunch 2.0 to another company, and you all are invited to check out ISITE, mix and mingle with your Twitter pals and meet some new folks.

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.

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009 from 7–9pm

ECLIPSE DEMO CAMP GALILEO 2009

Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
1945 NW Quimby
Portland OR 97209

Description:

Instantiations and The Eclipse Foundation will co-host a pizza and salad buffet, including beverages. Come see what’s cool in Eclipse developm

ent, and network with your local Eclipse community!

Here are the official details and where to sign up:

Event Sponsors:
Eclipse Foundation / Instantiations

Event Title:
Eclipse DemoCamps Galileo 2009/Portland

Date: June 17, 2009

Time: 7pm – 9pm (Presenters set up at 6pm)

Location:
Lucky Lab Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby, Portland

Cost: Complimentary; attendance is limited

Registration: To register, add your name as presenter or attendee to this wiki: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_DemoCamps_Galileo_2009/Portland.

Feel free to pass this along to your colleagues, and be sure to sign up on the wiki if you would like to attend or present!

We look forward to seeing you there.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009 from 7–8:30pm

UX Book Club

Tyesha’s house (inner SE Portland)
Portland OR

Description:

Interested in user experience in all of its forms? Enjoy reading? Want to combine the two in a social setting with other smart, like-minded people, and maybe drink a beer?

Join us for Portland’s second UX Book Club meeting on Tuesday June 23. For this session, we’re reading “Mental Models” by Indi Young:

http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/

books/mental-models/

Feel free to bring snacks or drinks (alcohol is a-okay), for yourself or to share. We’ll be meeting at Tyesha’s house–the address will be posted closer to the date.

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009 from 7–9pm

Portland JavaScript Admirers June Meeting

CubeSpace
622 SE Grand Ave.
Portland Oregon 97214
USA

Description:

The June Meeting of Portland’s first JavaScript and ECMAscript users’ group. We will discuss topics ranging from client-side web frameworks and features, to functional and prototypal programming theory.

Topics will be announced on the mailing list at

http://groups.google.com/group/pdxjs

. If you would like to give a presentation, or have a suggestion for a topic, please send a message to pdxjs@googlegroups.com.

Feel free to join our mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/pdxjs if you too are a JavaScript admirer. Or visit our web site for more information at http://pdxjs.com/.

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Thursday, July 16, 2009 from 7–10pm

Ignite Portland 6

Bagdad Theater and Pub
3702 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd
Portland Oregon 97214

Description:

Save the date! Ignite Portland 6 will happen on Thursday, July 16, 2009, at the Bagdad Theater. Stay tuned to http://www.igniteportland.com/ for more details, and submit YOUR talk idea now!

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Tuesday, July 21, 2009 from 6:30–8pm

Portland Java User Group

Oracle (Downtown Campus)
1211 SW 5th Avenue, Suite 800, Room 8005
Portland Oregon 97204

Description:

This month’s topic: TBD

———-

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

It is not necessary to RSVP, on Upcoming or otherwise; go ahead and just show up!

Many people also go for drinks afterward, at a location decided on the fly (more often than not, Jax on 2nd).

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Thursday, July 23, 2009 from 8am–1pm

Internet Strategy Forum Summit

Governor Hotel
614 SW 11th Avenue
Portland OR 97205

Description:

The Internet Strategy Forum Summit is the premiere annual conference from the Internet Strategy Forum, a national professional association for corporate Internet executives.

Attendees of the 6th annual Internet Strategy Forum Summit will engage with our keynote presenters from Intel, Xerox, Forrester Research and more, who will share their insights and ideas on how to best leverage the Internet and integrate it into overall business strategy.

Visit the event for a complete list of confirmed presenters.

There are plenty of opportunities for networking with corporate Internet professionals and Internet-related product and service providers.

Check out “The Road to Chief Internet Strategist”, an optional corporate Internet strategist career path symposium on July 24th, the day after the main conference.

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Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 8am through Friday, September 11, 2009 at 5pm

Inverge 2009

Description:

Inverge 2009 — Come Together

Inverge: the interactive convergence conference, is scheduled for Thursday + Friday, Sept. 10 + 11, 2009 in Portland, Oregon. It is an interdisciplinary thought-leader event that focuses on the convergence of media platforms, of virtual + physical, content + advertising, and corporate content + consumer-generated content. Inverge is part of a unique business+culture event cluster happening in Portland around the same time (see below).

Confirmed Keynote Speakers so far include*:

* Jeff Gomez, President & Chief Executive Officer of Starlight Runner Entertainment and transmedia storytelling expert.
* Andy Yang, General Manager, InstantAction.com at GarageGames
o Read the recent BusinessWeek article
* Raven Zachary, iPhone expert and the driver behind the “Obama ’08? iPhone application

If you are interested in attending, speaking, sponsoring or partnering, please complete the contact dialog at the bottom of the Connect page.

To create a unique business+culture experience for attendees, this conference is integrated with four other unique events happening in Portland over the same multi-day period:
+ Portland Creative Conference (focused on the creative process across categories)
+ Time-Based Art Festival (performance : dance : music : new media : visual arts)
+ MusicFestNW (over 150 indie bands)

* Speakers and topics are subject to change

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More Portland Tech Events

This is only a smattering of tech events compared to the immense volume of events omnipresent on various calendar sites such as Calagator, Portland’s Tech Event Calendar, and Yahoo’s Upcoming.

This morning I met with Brooks Gilley, Partner and Managing Director of 52ltd Portland’s only locally owned and operated full-service staffing resource for the creative industry. We had a great discussion on how marketing is changing, and how some companies really ‘get it’, or at least attempt to experiment with this strange new medium, while others are left behind.

We were meeting to talk about a creative event that will be occuring on May 27th at Univeristy of Oregon’s White Stag Building in downtown Portland. The event will feature four panelists from fields ranging from advertising, social media and sociology/anthropology. I’ll be on a panel discussing cyborg anthropology, new media frameworks, and changes in marketing in the digital era.

Panelists

I’ll be speaking with a variety of others, including an executive from Crispin Porter + Bogusky (the agency that worked on the infamous Facebook Burger King Whopper Sacrifice campaign).

Other panelists will include the Directory of Interactive Media for the Portland Trailblazers (whose community engagement strategy has been quite impressive), as well the possibility of a professor of Sociology from Portalnd State University, but I am unsure of his name yet. All told, the event should be a great chance for all of us to share different perspectives and strategies with each other and an audience of creatives, freelancers, and marketers.

More Information

I’ll post more details as the event nears, but it should begin at around 6:15 Pm at the White Stag Building on NW Couch street. There will be ample time for networking, so if you’re excited to meet new people, come on out. It is a free event too, so you’ve got nothing to lose. Check the 52ltd website for details as May 27th approaches, and if you’re looking to hire a creative or looking for a creative gig, consider making an appointment with them.

If you have any questions you’d like us to cover on the panel, feel free to E-mail me at caseorganic [at] gmail [dot] com, or simply reply to me at @caseorganic on Twitter.

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Prior to network culture, traditional news outlets were the first reliable source for news concerning major events. This was because traditional news media outlets have established reputations for providing a certain level of credibility and reliability.

In a global, ever-connected economy, it is finally possible to rely on citizen media outlets to receive news almost as soon as it happens, however, people often have a limited basis on which to determine validity. Online, time and space for information gathering is compressed. This also means that time and space for decision making is also reduced. This is why online social networks try to use online metrics to establish validity in as short amount of time as possible.

Take, for example, critical situations like wars, attacks, accidents or natural disasters:

• In emergency situations, traditional media sources are often too slow in providing clear, relevant information.

• In delicate political environments, standard news outlets are often blocked from transmitting relevant information.

These situations call for non-traditional data points. These data points exist in the form of social nodes in networks. The wired, network of the online world allows anyone close to the news source to have the same power as ones with bigger budgets, bigger political power or better transmission equipments like a traditional news source. Reputation in critical moments like these (such as earthquake reporting, or terrorist attack information and safety instructions) must be negotiated almost instantaneously. Unlike traditional offline news identities, there are no presuppositions of identity.

In a space where news sources are both distributed (in both sense of the word: “distribution of power” and “fragmentation”) and largely anonymous, reputation becomes the sole metric for validity. This is the problem that this paper tries to address.

Reputation is extremely complex. There is no single way to define it:

• It can take the form of a hyperlink between two places, abilities, or powers. In other words, reputation is a way of describing the link between two entities.

• It can be transitory, especially online, where reputation serves as a social construction only as long as it’s needed, depending on data flows, proximity to events, or distance between individuals. In other words, reputation is a dynamic system of situated knowledge that sorts social interactions.

• It can be a handshake, in a sense that both parties must agree to open up and exchange something valuable for a trust-relationship to happen. In the business realm, for instance, this action has been formalized in the act of exchanging business cards.

• It can be measured or tracked as an overlay on a series of data points showing relations and trust.

• It can be measured or tracked as factors that individuals share in common. More shared things will lead to more shared beliefs, value systems and judgment, and generally could better reputation.

Measuring Reputation

A new metric is thus needed in order to quickly determine credibility and reputation in the event of a crisis. Note that this paper does not aim to search for and establish the most accurate metric, but rather, one that provides the user with an idea about the situation, then leaves the ultimate value judgment in her hand. In other words, to be both economically and timely achievable, the metric has to have enough ‘fuzziness.’

“What you want is a durable perception of person”, says programmer Anselm Hook, “one that allows one to quickly understand whether a piece of information from a source is reputable or not in the fastest way possible”. One way is to wait for a backup vote. Robert’s Rules of Order say that a statement must be seconded before it can be voted on by many. But in some cases, waiting for a second is difficult, because there may be only one person next to a data source or event that is capable of reporting it.

In order to determine a valid metric, one must define a few key elements of the online experience:

Interest and Power

Power is created by interest. This is the most easily observed in online environments, where the creation of value and interest is most fluid. The fluidity of value creation and exchange.

Interest Groups

One could call an interest group a demographic. Demographics are those with specific lifestyles that influence interest, and also support those who create products or services that fulfill these interests.

Crises and Social Networks

During a crisis, interest groups tend to converge upon a single topic or news source. The creation of validity in a news source in an online social network is often very fast, and generally not a traditional news source. Network users who were formerly low-level nodes can suddenly become major nodes of traffic if they begin to provide data that has proxemic, relational, or newsworthy value.

Those nodes that can provide the fastest information have tremendous power over those who have recently turned to follow them.

Point A marks the status of normal social network conditions and interest groups.

B marks the first appearance of crisis in the social network.

C signals the ramp-up of information awareness among social groups not in the social interest group of the initial reformers.

At point D, the crisis becomes a topic of collective interest. Networks of trust re-broadcast the news to un-informed groups until the network is saturated with information from all groups capable of absorbing the information.

At E, the discussion of crisis decreases due to crisis resolution of exhaustion of topic. The crisis falls out of common interest and formerly melded interest groups diverge once again.

F marks the final resolution or disappearance of the crisis. The crisis falls almost completely out of social network conversation.

One of the problems with social networks during crises is quickly finding the nodes with the most valuable information a voice in an efficient way, and promoting them to the top of a social network so that all that need that information can find it.

Micromeasurement

On May 11th, 2008, a earthquake that measured 7.8 on the Richter scale hit China. Several of those who experienced the earthquake Twitter user @dtan Tech Reporter Robert Scoble was able to rebroadcast the message to (at the time) approximately 40,000 followers.

But how did Robert Scoble know that @dtan’s Tweets were valid?

Was it the architecture of Twitter? A trust economy, established by the rapid exchange of everyday data on Twitter helped to. But Scoble’s reputation process takes a while.He has to first follow @dtan and through direct or indirect exchange determine the user’s reputation to report on an emergency.Of course, later on, additional reports from other people in China who also experienced the quake arrived. But it took CNN hours later to report on the event. This demonstrates the agility, relevancy and accuracy of non-traditional nodes as news sources.

As an aside, tools such as Google’s translation engine allowed @dtan’s Tweets, which were written almost entirely in Chinese, to be translated into English, and passed on to a more global

Improving Data Flows in Crisis

All individuals have social bases. There are an increasing number of individuals who use social networks as social bases. However, these bases are not necessarily the same. Social networks record relationships in different ways.One who uses the photo-sharing website Flickr as a social base interacts with data differently than a Facebook or Twitter user. Robert Scoble was able to transfer authority and power to @dtan very quickly, but rapid, local news of the earthquake was constrained to Twitter.

There was no system that looked at Twitter as a database and pulled out information. Neither was there a system that added Twitter’s earthquake updates to other relevant information coming out of mainstream news sources and other social networks.

To improve data flows in crisis, there is a clear opportunity to transcend data silos and aggregating data streams into a more accessible and unified databases, so that users of different social networks, or limited social networks, can quickly access relevant information.

This calls for either:

• The establishment of an open standard for disaster reporting across networks.

• The use and appropriation of existing open standards for reporting.

For instance: the DiSo project is an initiative to facilitate the creation of open, non-proprietary and interoperable building blocks for the decentralized social web.

Another other alternative (besides traditional media) is to rely on many ‘Scoble’s’ on each social network who talk to and inform each other on current happening at all times. This is highly impractical and very costly.

——————————

Additional Sources:

For more information and a full analysis of the Twitter Earthquake reporting, please visit: http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/05/12/twitter-and-the-chinese-earthquake/

Search Engine Reputation Management

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About

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Tech Consultant from Portland, Oregon. She studies the effects of technology on the ways in which communities are built both off and online. You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.

Today was a conference called Business Leader NW. It occurred at the Portland Convention Center. One of the highlights of the day was a keynote by Urban Anthropologist Jennifer James.

It is always exciting to meet other anthropologists, and I was introduced to her before her speech. We exchanged a rapid amount of words back and forth. Of all the things spoken, I am able to report that she was very calm before her speech. Evidenced by a lot of practice speaking around the world.

In fact, her speech was pretty memorable. She talked about all of culture being a mythology. It’s a pretty epic look at the reality. I attempted to record the speech, the results of which are below. Apologizes for the clicking noises. I tried to type quietly.

About Jennifer

Jennifer James is an urban cultural anthropologist who was for 12 years a full time faculty member of the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at the University of Washington. She left the University in 1982 to follow her interest in international business and community service.  She now lectures to audiences around the world.

Speech Highlights

“Why are all the newspapers failing? It’s because they don’t print the news. They’re not challenging anyone”.

“Let’s not teach evolution in schools — because it is only a theory. They’re right - but so is gravity. I invite someone to the roof of this convention center with me right now to prove me wrong”.

“What is adaptability? The ability to use your critical thinking skills”.

“We’re in the technological age and we still want to use mythology”.

“We’re choosing clients and consultants because we think we’re like them. Because we’ll get along with them. It’s often what we need is the opposite”.

“You must know your myths and the myths of the people you’re dealing with”.

“It’s amazing how much time we waste because we’ve ‘always done it that way’ - that’s what the comic strip Dilbert is about”.

“You have to consider what people need. It’s not just money that motivates, but a work/life balance”.

“In times of great stress/change leadership is no longer complete mastery”.

“You have to match tasks in an organization with those with the strength to do those tasks”.

“The best way to lead through times of great change is through influence — which is by telling a compelling story”.

A compelling story consists of the following things:
• A set of ideas that fit the future.
• Those ideas have to resonate to deeply held values
• The person telling the story has to be believable.

“Now you can go to Costco and buy a gallon jug of Mayonnaise that you’ll have to leave in your will — because you won’t use it”.

“Why do rich people buy seven houses? Because they can’t get over security”.

Your customers — they need a product that makes them feel that they’re moving up Maslow’s hierarchy while still feeling secure.

On the Concentration of Energy by Technology

“The minute you replace a steam engine with a microchip you have concentrated energy”.

“Economics is nothing more than the efficient use of the energy available”.

“Those who have a high amount of productivity in the workplace are those who are most trusted: it relaxes them. They can do more work. They can do better work”.

“We change the definition of intelligence — now you have intelligence retrieval”.

On the Census

“Why are polar bears white? So they can go to better schools? It is absurdity — these census categories. We can handle the economics or we’re going out of business. We understand that diversity opens our business and opens our minds. The last part is opening our systems”.

“If you offer people a business that gives them meaning — people are hungry for lives that have values — they will work harder and take less money”.

Three Parts to Civilization

• Increasing access to information
• Increasing inclusivity - the more we’re wiling to see leadership where it is, the more likely we’ll accept it
• Increasing non-violent alternatives to violence - learning to debate — learning to use soft power

The audience at this conference contained no laptops. Except for the blogging pavilion, I was the only technosocially connected one in the audience. This is one of the reasons I love business conferences. The people to talk to are not the ones that understand who you are and what you do — they’re those who are different. This situation maximizes the potential exchange of ideas between people.

More About Business Leader NW

There was a lot more to do and see than just this one speech. Want to know more about Business Leader NW? Check out the Business Leader NW conference site, or the BLNW blog. Tweets associated with #blnw are available as well. Thanks to Alex H. Williams - @podcasthotel for organizing the Blogger Pavillion which serviced people new to social media with advice on blogging, Twittering and digital marketing. Also check out the website of Jennifer James.

Where are you from? What kind of work do you do?

I’m your stereotypical fast-paced ‘East Coaster’ from the NYC/NJ area but have been fortunate to have traveled all over the world, and have lived in a few different cities in the US — and abroad — over the years.

Currently, I am the Founder and CEO of Acclimedia, a consulting firm focused primarily on online brand adaptation, helping clients acclimate their products/services and customer experience to the web environment. We take a holistic approach to this process in order to preserve — and maintain — the integrity and essence of the brand online. I also serve as President and Chief Marketing Officer for Jelly Labs, the creative agency and market research arm of Acclimedia, specializing in campaign stickiness.

As a person who thrives on collaboration, I also founded Idea Brew, a think tank for fellow entrepreneurs that churns out ideas, copy and design for start ups and small businesses, where I act as the Creative Director (but that’s just a fancy title for ‘Do-It-All Creative Grunt Worker Extraordinaire!’). As if that weren’t enough, I also blog at Jelly Flux.com, covering marketing, technology and the social web, am a contributing writer for Green Options Media on all things green, renewable and sustainable from fashion to fuel, and recently accepted another writing gig for Triple Pundit adding political review to my writng repertoire.

Lastly, I will also be hosting a weekly podcast in 2009 and have a couple of other start up ventures in the works as well. Needless to say, I’m very busy but still manage to find the time to Twitter!

How did you first hear about CyborgCamp?

With my immersion (or more aptly, submersion!) in the digital world, I’ve had an increasing interest in HCI (Human Computer Interaction), and was seeking to network with others in this area. A Twitter search on the topic led me to tweet from @CyborgCamp, and after a quick scan of the posts and interactions, I began following immediately. Through @CyborgCamp, I have been able to connect with several interesting, intelligent and savvy people from in and around the Portland area — especially Bram Pitoyo, with whom I have sparked riveting, thought-provoking discussions about the semantic web and branding.

I am always seeking kindred spirits and like-minded innovators for collaboration, and I thought that if the people with whom I had connected on Twitter were representative of those I would meet at Cyborg Camp, I knew I had to be there. Being able to interact with these folks in person is so exciting, and I can only imagine the energy that will be emanating from their erudite minds. I must also give a shout out to Tyler Sticka, yet another Portlander with whom I’ve had the pleasure of interacting through Twitter, as I was completely blown away by the logo he designed for CyborgCamp. It’s absolutely brilliant in its simplicity and manages to effectively juxtapose the human and machine elements in a meaningful — and engaging — way. Talk about stopping power. And, of course, you, Amber, whose insights on a variety of topics always leave me pondering the philosophical elements of this space. I continue to be amazed by how Portland seems to be a hotbed for such an enlightened group of individuals and am looking forward to meeting everyone in person.

What is your dream ‘future technology’? If there was anything you could change about the current state of technology, what would it be?

I’m a total geek so I have several dream ‘future technologies,’ but in this case, environmental consciousness wins out, and I would love to see groundbreaking advancements in renewable energy become a reality, finding innovative ways to harness wind and solar power, eliminating our wasteful dependence on fuel and its harmful effects. Of course, as someone who grew up with Star Trek, The Next Generation, and an old school first-person adventure gamer, if I had to choose a more frivolous dream technology, it would most definietly be a virtual reality chamber similar to that of the Holodeck.

The one thing I would probably change about the current state of technology is the ‘on all the time,’ ‘always wired’ mentality [and applications that perpetuate it]. It’s great to be connected, and were it not for technology and the web, I would not have been able to meet the people from around the globe who have profoundly impacted my life, but I think it’s missing a human element that respects — and facilitates — offline/’unplugged’ experiences and personal growth. Our brains, cognition, and capacity for learning are increasing at staggering rates as a result of rapidly advancing technology, but what about the intrinsic human qualities that separate us from machines? I feel that those are getting lost in the process, and in some cases, diminishing in value. I think that this is a critical issue to be addressed with the Web 3.0 movement, which is being dubbed ‘The Semantic Web’ or ‘The Human Web’ by some. Marta Strickland recently referred to it as ‘The Relevant Web’ which I think ties in well with another issue of the current state of technology — too much information. In my ’spare time,’ I am working on a theory as to whether accessibility of information enhances or detracts from our relationships, or to take it one step further, does our relationship with that abundance of information enhance or detract from our human-ness?

What is the tech scene like in New York? Do you attend many tech events there?

It’s hard to say. In any city where there are mass numbers of people, there is always something brewing in tech, and NYC has been home to many Web 2.0 types of expos and the like. It’s a hub for gathering people from all over the world, so it’s an attractive spot for events, but the scene itself tends to veer more toward the social realm of the industry than deep into the geek sector. And those with successful tech start ups tend to migrate west to Silicon Valley and other more booming tech ecospheres.

Running several companies with clients — and vendor partners — throughout the world, I don’t have the luxury of attending as many events as I’d like. That’s one of the reasons I am continually exploring new technologies for participating remotely without sacrificing the experience, or being able to benefit from the key learnings just as I would as in-person attendee. Obviously, nothing can ever truly replace physically being at an event, amongst a group of people collaborating and sharing ideas, but I think that there are ways to bridge the virtual and physical worlds to make it advantageous for remote viewers to participate, share in discussions, and watch it happening real time. Pop!Tech did this very effectively with the live stream for their recent conference. While there weren’t any participatory applications to join in directly, the quality of the video was top notch, allowing you to substantively connect with the speakers and subject matter, and you could supplement the experience via sharing tools like Twitter. There are a few events where I think it’s important to attend in person; I am planning to attend SXSW in Austin, TX in March, and possibly Interactions09 in Vancouver in February.

Have you ever been to an un-conference before? If so, which conference? How was your experience?

Yes, I have attended a few unconferences, and I prefer them to big, splashy events because the intimate setting and smaller, thematic-driven groups allow for participatory learning rather than having so-called ‘expert’ speakers pontificate to a large group. The result is always inspiring and I find the experiences expand my views on a subject and enrich my thinking much more than linear, highly structured formats; plus, you are able to feed off the energy of the participants, who typically are very passionate about the topic. There’s much more of a community feel and sense of ownership to the material because it was self-created, where each participant plays an instrumental role in the process instead of watching a series of slides and taking notes. I think unconferences also stimulate action more so than traditional events, because you are excited and inspired to start applying your newfound knowledge and put your ideas into motion.

What do you think about the future of entertainment, branding, online media? How has your world been affected by new networks such as Twitter?

I think the future of branding has many challenges as brands tend to get diluted in the oversaturated web space. And I am of the thinking that not all brands need to — or should — have a digital presence.

Entertainment, on the other hand, is significantly augmented by technology, and is on the precipice of expansion in a variety of different areas. In addition to the rich visuals and advancements in CGI, more traditional network programming is able to connect viewers with their favorite TV show, or even characters with web-enabled services and extras. Even movies are enhanced by using the web to draw users into the storyline where they can make a personal connection with the film. But, in my opinion, the future of techtainment is with the continued growth of podcasting, iTV and web film-making. Major, capital-driven networks no longer control the market or drive the content. Anyone with a video camera and a dream can penetrate the space, and some of the most popular programs are web shows that are able to reach a global audience thanks to the power of the Internet medium, and even gain the exposure of mainstream media previously reserved only for big budget film houses.

Online media is another area where oversaturation makes it difficult for many new products and services to rise above the clutter, and for platforms to sustain long-term. I think in order for the online media space to advance, it needs to be streamlined, sourcing content better for relevancy and audience, and built to evolve with its users’ needs/wants/behavior/usage. A living, breathing architecture will be critical for maximizing the value of online media, and creating a vehicle for meaningful interactions that become an inherent, consistent — and active — part of the user’s daily life [with tangible impact] vs. a distraction or passive activity that wanes over time until the next ‘hot hit’ comes along. The ‘throw spaghettic against the wall to see what sticks’ method doesn’t scale. If Web 2.0 is analagous to the ‘classoom,’ Web 3.0 is the real world opportunity to put those learnings into action.

Twitter has dramatically impacted my world in a positive way. Save for the distraction and source of procrastination it can sometimes be, it has become a daily (read: hourly!) go to resource for real time knowledge sharing, product reviews, market research and even local, national and international news. It’s information with a pulse. And it has become an important part of my routine from my daily good morning exchanges with friends I’ve made to checking in with the Twitterverse on a myriad of subjects throughout the day — from their insights on project-related/client issues to their thoughts and experiences with new gadgets — even recipes and restaurant recommendations. Just about everything that touches my life makes its way into my tweetstream.

How have you built your Twitter network? What rewards have you received? What do you find most difficult/annoying about Twitter?

I am a firm believer in using Twitter to build relationships. I take pride in my network and value my connections. And I’m proud that I have been able to build such a quality network of amazing individuals each of whom bring something unique to my tweetstream — and to my life. I built my entire network organically, using Twitter search on keywords of interest to me, connecting through @ replies to individuals connected to those I follow, and by returning the follow to those who have sought me out through similar means. I always read a person’s bio, visit the link to their blog or website and read at least 3 pages of their posts before I follow. I take it very seriously and do not use auto follow scripts or try to inflate my followers. I prefer to keep my network small with even ratios of followers/following as I believe that’s the only way you can develop — and nurture — the one-on-one interactions that drive meaningful exchanges and encourage sharing.

I have made professional contacts, built lasting friendships, secured new opportunities and been exposed to new cultures through my Twitter community. In fact, my overseas partner is someone whom I connected with via Twitter, expanding my services into the European market with a creative shop in London. I will also be co-hosting a podcast with another Twitter contact and am collaborating with others on a new venture. Not to mention the personal friendships I’ve built that have come to mean a great deal to me.

Without question, the most annoying thing about Twitter is the spammers, self-promoters and get-rich-quick schemers that appear to be multiplying in droves, as well as those who are obsessed with their number of followers, using it as a misguided measuring stick for their popularity or ‘influence.’ I have always contended that the true value of Twitter is in the relationships, and the aforementioned groups are only interested in advancing their own agenda. It’s a megaphone for them vs. a sharing tool to spark two-way communication. Their misuse and flagrant disrespect for the network detracts from the experiece and devalues the service. I’ve become adept at spotting (and avoiding) the culprits, but it requires continual contact clean up to maintain a quality, spam-free community — time that could be better spent engaging with people who actually want to learn and share with you.

What is your presentation style like? What would you like to see discussed at CyborgCamp?

I recently ditched PowerPoint and any form of canned slides when presenting to clients or speaking at events, which has proven to be a much more creatively enriching experience for me — and my participants. By not stifling the flow of creativity with a highly structured set of materials, I’ve found that the group is more open and expressive, and that better ideas are generated. So, I am going to apply that same principle to CyborgCamp, allow the dynamics of the group to guide my talking points, and put a raw perspective out there for consumption, dissection, discussion and ideation.

I don’t want to limit the flow of creativity or expression by mandating a list of topics but I’d love to spark a discussion around what I referred to earlier in the interview as ‘The Human Web’ to get the group’s perspective on the interconnectivity of it all and how to effectively bridge/honor the dual faceted-ness of that interaction.

Connect with Gennefer

http://twitter.com/acclimedia
http://www.acclimedia.com/

One of the first things I’m usually asked when people ask me about WordPress blogging regard the types of plugins I use. In response, I’ve gathered a short list of the very best plugins that have given me the best results over time. It is my hope that you’ll find some benefit in them too.

All of the following plugins are supported by the WordPress community and can be downloaded through eh WordPress Plugin Directory. All of them have been highly rated and tested, and should not give you any trouble upon install (provided you follow the instructions given by the plugin developers). Simply click on the plugin title to go to the download page.

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Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.

Google XML Sitemaps Homepage.

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Dagon Design Sitemap Generator

Author: Dagon Design

A very useful plugin. Unlike the Google Sitemaps plugin, It creates a sitemap for your site that is readable by humans. This is not an XML sitemap plugin, but rather a true sitemap generator which is highly customizable one with its own options page in the WordPress admin panel.

Some features include: support for multi-level categories and pages, category/page exclusion, multiple-page generation with navigation, permalink support, choose what to display, what order to list items in, show comment counts and/or post dates, and much more.

I use this on my blog. It works with WordPress 2.7 but requires WordPress Version: 2.1 or higher. You can see the Dagon Design Sitemap Generator on my blog here.

For more information, including installation and usage instructions, please visit the page for this plugin: http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/sitemap-generator-plugin-for-wordpress/

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podPress

Interested in podcasting? podPress is extremely easy to use and super-powerful. It has tons of features designed to make WordPress the ideal platform for hosting a podcast.

* Full featured and automatic feed generation (RSS2, iTunes and ATOM and BitTorrent RSS)
* Preview of what your Podcast will look like on iTunes
* Podcast Download stats, with cool graphs. See below.
* Support for Premium Content (Pay Only)
* Makes adding a Podcast to a Post very simple
* View MP3 Files ID3 tags when your Posting
* Control over where the player will display within your post and what it will look like.
* Support for various formats, including Video Podcasting
* Supports unlimited number of media files.
* Automatic Media player for MP3, RM, OGG, MP4, MOV, QT, FLV, ASF, WMV, AVI, and more, with inline and Popup Window support.
* Preview image for videos
* Support for seperate Category podcasts
* Audio Comments

For the latest information visit the website: http://www.mightyseek.com/podpress.

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Redirection

Note: This Plugin is for WordPress 2.7 only!

Redirection is a WordPress plugin to manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. This is particularly useful if you are migrating pages from an old website, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation.

This is a super-powerful plugin that is especially useful if you don’t want to mess with .hta access files. Saves a lot of trouble and headache.

Existing features include:

* Automatically add a 301 redirection when a post’s URL changes
* Manually add 301, 302, and 307 redirections for a WordPress post, or for any other file
* Full regular expression support
* Apache .htaccess is not required - works entirely inside WordPress
* Strip or add www to all your WordPress pages
* Redirect index.php, index.html, and index.htm access
* Redirection statistics telling you how many times a redirection has occurred, when it last happened, who tried to do it, and where they found your URL
* Fully localized

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WP Super Cache

This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts.

However, because a user’s details are displayed in the comment form after they leave a comment, the plugin will only serve static html files to:

1. Users who are not logged in.
2. Users who have not left a comment on your blog.
3. Or users who have not viewed a password protected post.

The good news is that probably more than 99% of your visitors don’t do any of the above! Those users who don’t see the static files will still benefit because they will see regular WP-Cache cached files and your server won’t be as busy as before. This plugin should help your server cope with a front page appearance on digg.com or other social networking site.

See the WP Super Cache homepage for further information.

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Google Analytics for WordPress

Confused on how to get Google Analytics to work with your WordPress blog? The Google Analytics for WordPress will solve your problems.

This plugin by Joost de Valk automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and downloads. It also allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, track image search queries and it will even work together with Urchin.

In the options panel for the plugin, you can determine the prefixes to use for the different kinds of outbound links and downloads it tracks.

Google Analytics for WordPress homepage.

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All in One SEO Pack

Optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).

Some features:

* Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
* Generates META tags automatically
* Avoids the typical duplicate content found on Wordpress blogs
* For Wordpress 2.3 you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
* You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want.
* You can fine-tune everything
* Backward-Compatibility with many other plugins, like Auto Meta, Ultimate Tag Warrior and others.

Download All in One SEO Pack.

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WordPress Automatic Upgrade

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions.

Wordpress automatic upgrade upgrades your wordpress installation by doing the following steps.

1. Backs up the files and makes available a link to download it.
2. Backs up the database and makes available a link to download it.
3. Downloads the latest files from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip and unzips it.
4. Puts the site in maintenance mode.
5. De-activates all active plugins and remembers it.
6. Upgrades wordpress files.
7. Gives you a link that will open in a new window to upgrade installation.
8. Re-activates the plugins.

The plugin can also can be run in a automated mode where in you do not have to click on any links to go to the next step.

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WP-Polls

Note: This plugin requires WordPress 2.7 or higher.

WP-Polls is extremely customizable via templates and css styles and there are tons of options for you to choose to ensure that WP-Polls runs the way you wanted. It now supports multiple selection of answers.

All the information (general, changelog, installation, upgrade, usage) you need about this plugin can be found here: Twitter Tools

This popular tool by Alex King creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. You can choose to automatically update Twitter when you make a new blog post, or integrate Twitter into your blog.

If you use this plugin, please change the default Twitter notification text from “New Blog Post” to something more creative. It’s a bit overused on Twitter and people tend to ignore it when they see “New Blog Post” all over the place on Twitter.

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Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site. Key features include:

1. Limiting by a threshold: Peter Bowyer did the great work of making the algorithm use MySQL’s fulltext search score to identify related posts. But it just displayed, for example, the top 5 most “relevant” entries, even if some of them weren’t at all relevant. Now you can set a threshold limit for relevance, and you get more related posts if there are more related posts and less if there are less. Ha!
2. Using tags and categories: New in 2.0! The new 2.0 algorithm uses tags and categories. The new options screen puts you in control of how these factors should be used.
3. Related posts in RSS feeds: New in 2.1! Display related posts in your RSS and Atom feeds with custom display options.
4. Disallowing certain tags or categories: New in 2.0! You can choose certain tags or categories as disallowed, meaning any page or post with such tags or categories will not be served up by the plugin.
5. Related posts and pages: New in 1.1! Puts you in control of pulling up related posts, pages, or both.
6. Simple installation: New in 1.5! Automatically displays related posts after content on single entry pages without any theme tinkering.
7. Miscellany: a nicer options screen (including a sample display of the code that is produced New in 2.0), displaying the fulltext match score on output for admins, an option to allow related posts from the future, a couple bug fixes, etc.

Download Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

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IntenseDebate Comments

IntenseDebate Comments enhance and encourage conversation on your blog or website. Full comment and account data sync between IntenseDebate and WordPress ensures that you will always have your comments. Custom integration with your WordPress admin panel makes moderation a piece of cake.

Comment threading, reply-by-email, user accounts and reputations, comment voting, along with Twitter and friendfeed integrations enrich your readers’ experience and make more of the internet aware of your blog and comments which drives traffic to you!

IntenseDebate Homepage.
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WP Greet Box

Author: Thaya Kareeson

This plugin lets you show a different greeting message to your new visitors depending on their referrer url. For example, when a Digg user clicks through from Digg, they will see a message reminding them to digg your post if they like it. Another example, when a visitor clicks through from Twitter, they will see a message suggesting them to twit the post and follow you on Twitter.

You can also set a default greeting message for new visitors (not matching any referrer URLs) suggesting them to subscribe to your RSS feed. Having these targeted suggestions will help your blog increase exposure, loyal readership, and reader interaction. Best of all, this plugin is compatible with WPMU and various WordPress cache plugins (so you do not have to sacrifice speed).

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Installing Plugins in WordPress 2.7

You can find additional plugins for your site by using the new Plugin Browser/Installer functionality.

Installing Plugins in WordPress 2.6 or Older

If you run WordPress 2.6 and older, you can find plugins by browsing the WordPress Plugin Directory directly and installing manually through your favorite FTP client.

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Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist who studies new media and the relationship between humans and computers. She enjoys data visualization (click for more info on conference tracking), search engine optimization (ask), and how marketing works in the online ecosystem.

You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic, or drop her an E-mail at caseorganic[at]gmai[dot]com. She’s spoken at various conferences including MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 3, Inverge: The Interactive Convergence Conferece, Ignite Portland, and Ignite Boulder.