Portland Web Innovators occurred at CubeSpace on Wednesday December 3, 2008 at 7:00pm.

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

Bram Pitoyo live-streamed the session, which I’ve embedded here in case you couldn’t make it.

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Event Recap

We need more resources for outsiders who don’t know the Portland tech community exists.

Calagator did not exist a year ago. We’ve been building a lot more tools to make people capable of communicating with each other and sharing information.

Traditionally, one might say, “look how much we’ve accomplished without marketing”. But we have done a bunch of marketing — we just haven’t done a lot of traditional marking. We market all of the time — but our marketing channels are each other. If you’re not within the bubble it becomes difficult for you to understand that the bubble is in existence.

There’s something magical about this being this little home brew community that has a bunch of people who do what they love to do because they love it.

Aaron Hockley: Maybe there needs to be a “how to get clued into the Portland tech scene” presentation. Short, like the Common Craft show’s “Twitter in 5 minutes”.

We just know all of this stuff is happening because it shows up in all of the tools we’re using. So what are the tools I can use to get clued in that aren’t Twitter?

There are a lot of things people need to be able to have access to.

David Kominsky: While accessibility is a great ideal to strive for, community is, to some degree, defined by exclusivity. One of the strengths of the Portland tech community is the degree to which we all see each other on Twitter, at Beer and Blog, at Backspace…ect.

SAO vs. Inner Portland Tech (Portland Tech Twitter)

With SAO, a quick Google Search brings you right into the heart of the community. We create a lot of data that is spread all over many different sites, so there no one consolidated resource

Personally, I believe communities are based on interest.

By definition, communities have boundaries. Interests create those boundaries. Additionally, Portland, more than almost any other place I’e been — does everything by word of mouth.

There’s a downside to that — there is a sort of hump to get over — in learning how to interact with the tech community.

SAO seems to have much stronger delineated boundaries that the general Portland tech community does.

Do we need a community aggregator for the Portland Tech community so that many different spokes of the wheel can join together in one viewable place?

One of the great things about Portland is that if you see something there — you can act on it. Those connections will form over time.

The weather is terrible. I feel like we should keep people out.

Steven Walling: What we need is not to build a new tool — but to use the tools we have and the community we have to reach out to these people and bring them in.

I don’t think we need to build something and expect them to come. I think we need to reach out and bring them in.

Bad news for everyone in the room: you are the most social skilled people in Portland (in tech). The reason

Or they’re not interested. they have no idea what is going on outside their walls. no idea what is going on outside of you.

Geeks in Portland don’t necessarily know what to do with money. if they even had it. - Carolyn Duncan.

Great things can happen to a community without destroying it — with the addition of money which can provide a living to you and your friends.

Funding

We need a clear infrastructure — where the types of funding are, and how it works.

VC’s really invest in companies, and for a lot of us who do this sort of freelance sort of stuff, it is not as good.

The real problem is the cultural differences.

It is really easy to change software — it is very difficult to change hardware. Paying for things in real life is justifiable, but software has a different model. It is less justifiable to have to pay for software than tangible hardware and physical spaces.

Conclusions

A lot was said, and a lot was brought to mind. One thing was certain — we’re very happy with our community. It is only to get stronger from here.

Want to attend more Web Innovators events? Have a look at the Web Innovators website.