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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday, December 22, 2008 from 7–11pm

DorkbotPDX Meeting

Lucky Labrador Beer Hall
1945 NW Quimby
Portland OR 97209
US

Website
http://dorkbotpdx.org/

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

See original posting on Calagator

Sunday, December 28, 2008 from 1–5pm

DorkbotPDX Open Lab

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

Website
http://dorkbotpdx.org/

RSVP on Upcoming

Friday January 2, 2009

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

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

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

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

Monday January 5, 2009

souk’s Birthday

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

Website: http://www.soukllc.com

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

RSVP on Upcoming

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

Mobile Love, Android Style #8

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

RSVP on Upcoming

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

Lunch 2.0 at the New OTBC Office

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RSVP on Upcoming

Wednesday January 14, 2009 at 11:00am

Lunch 2.0 Party Train to OTBC

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

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

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

Chuga Chuga Choo! Choo!

RSVP on Upcoming

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

Masterbacon: A day for bacon lovers

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

Website: http://bacongeek.com/masterbacon

Have you ever wanted to get together with a bunch of other bacon geeks and just geek out about bacon? What if there was an event specifically catered to bacon geeks to be able to share their favorite bacon treats with the world? Wouldn’t it make sense to make it a competition complete with trophy and prizes? Of course it would.

Masterbacon is just such an event.

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

Tuesday January 13, 2009 at 7:30pm

Portland Arts and Lectures: Michael Pollan

Portland Center for the Performing Arts - Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 Sw Broadway
Portland, Oregon 97205
Category: Education

Buy Tickets

Wednesday January 14, 2009 at 6:00pm

Drinking and Drawing

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

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

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

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

Ticket Info: $5

RSVP on Upcoming

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

PDXCritique

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

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

RSVP on Upcoming

Thursday February 19, 2009 at 7:00pm

Ignite Portland 5

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

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

RSVP on Upcoming

Friday February 20, 2009 - Sunday February 22, 2009

RecentChangesCamp 2009

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

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

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

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

RSVP on Upcoming

Tuesday February 24, 2009 - Thursday February 26, 2009

“Secrets of Agile Teamwork: Beyond Technical Skills” Workshop

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

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

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

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

Ticket Info: $1500
Buy Tickets

RSVP on Upcoming

————-

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

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

We need a kids tech camp.

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

Twitter Responses:

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

Venue:

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

Conclusion:

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

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

Dear Everyone,

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

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Wednesday November 26, 2008

Beer and Blog - Turkey Day at the Green Dragon

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

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

Official Beer and Blog website

RSVP on Upcoming.

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Dorkbot Series: Making Noise with the Arduino

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday, December 1, 2008

Morning Meeting: Legal (Weekly Series)

9:00am - 10:00am

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

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

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Wednesday, December 3rd

PNCA Noontime Chat: Louis Marchesano

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

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

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

Ticket info: Free and open to the public.

Official description on the PNCA website.

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Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Web Analytics Wednesday

Host: Ryan Summers

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

Sponsor:
Event sponsored by ISITE Design, Inc.

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

Share:

Invite friends to join you at this event

Link to this event

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

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Wednesday, December 3rd

State of Portland Tech - Web Innovators

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

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

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

RSVP on Upcoming

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Friday, December 5th, 2008

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

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

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

Free and open to the public.

Official details at PNCA website.

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Friday, December 5th

CyborgCamp Re-Party at Vidoop

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

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

RSVP on Upcoming
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Saturday, December 6th

CyborgCamp PDX 2008

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

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

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

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Sunday, December 7th

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shelly Farnham: Dorkbot Dorkbot Dorkbot + Seattle

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

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

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

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

Event is Free. RSVP on Upcoming.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2008

Internet Marketing Conference

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

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

ThrivePDX (2nd Edition)

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

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

Register…
Deadline
12/10/2008

ThrivePDX Event on Upcoming.

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Thursday, December 11, 2008

CubeSpace Holiday Party

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

Come celebrate the holidays with us!

RSVP on Upcoming.

——————–

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday Nov 19, 2008

PDX 501 Tech Club/Net Tuesday: Nonprofit Tech Extravaganza

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

Description

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

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

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

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

Email questions to Anna at anna@nten.org.

CONNECT ONLINE

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

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

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

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

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

The Showdown in Stumptown: 2008 PAF Rosey Awards

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

Website

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

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

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

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

Show: 7:30pm

Members: $91./Non Members $106.

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

WordIgniteBarCampCampCampCampPalooza… PDX

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

RSVP

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

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

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

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

Non-Profit Networking

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

Website

http://www.cnrg-portland.org

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

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

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Thursday Nov 20, 2008

SAO: Life Inside an Iteration

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

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

Buffet Dinner is included.

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

Panelists

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday Nov 24, 2008

MIT Enterprise Forum: The Future of Wireless Communication

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

Entrepreneur Meetups > The OTBC Meetup Group

Moderated by Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal

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

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

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

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Monday Nov 24, 2008

DorkbotPDX Meeting

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

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

**************************************************

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

—–

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

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

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

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

Deep Zoom

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

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

Demo

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

BizSpark

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

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

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

Raffle

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

PDXUX

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

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

—–

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

During my last semester of college, I became obsessed with the idea that I would be able to somehow put my degree in sociology/anthropology to work in the real world. When I stumbled upon search engine optimization, I was elated. When I learned that Cyborg Anthropology applied there as well, I was even more excited. And when Todd Mintz encouraged me to write my first blog post ever on the SEM PDX blog, I was so nervous that I didn’t leave my friends house for 4 hours while I composed it.

Perfectionism was a difficult thing to get over. I gradually realized that I had to allow myself to suck in order to get anywhere. At Weiden+Kennedy, there’s a massive art piece on the wall that says “Fail Harder”. I knew I had to fail harder than ever before. Oakhazelnut.com was the silliest name for a website I could think of, and the early WordPress template I used was ugly, heavy and clunky. But I kept on it.

I also realized that I wasn’t going to have a community anymore when I graduated from college, so I searched hard for one in Portland. I attended meetups relating to pretty much everything until I found Legion of Tech and Beer and Blog. Some of the first people I ever met were Reid Beals, Bram Pitoyo, Dawn Foster and Rick Turoczy. It was the beginning of an exciting and busy journey into the heart of the tech scene. But it didn’t take long to get oriented. Everyone was filled with zest for their ideas, and it spread quickly to me. I began to take small risks and write more.

Up until now, I’ve been putting in 110 hour weeks trying to do anthropological studies, blogging (which as anyone who blogs knows — is much more difficult than it looks), attending events, and learning more about seo and Yahoo! Pipes. My learning curve is strange, so it has been a long process. I’ve been given great support from people who really know what they are doing. Focused, brilliant, fascinating people.

Now that I am blogging, writing and consulting full-time, I feel like I’ve been thrown directly into the open arms of the tech community. There’s more time for coffeeshops, events, and research now. I’m excited to be able to see more faces.

It was great to be able to walk into the local Backspace coffeeshop and get high fives from all of the great people there. Bram Pitoyo said, “welcome to the life of a Freelancer”. I wholeheartedly embrace it.

My last job was excellent, and I took it after graduating from college in May so that I would be able to learn a bunch of new skills. I learned so many new things I was ready to explode. Drupal was fun, E-mail marketing was great, and new seo tools were awesome. I look forward to how that company does in the future. It’s doing very well and has an excellent business model I was excited to learn more about.

Now I have time for CyborgCamp, MIT’s Futures of Entertainment Conference, Makerlab, Ignite Portland, Refresh Portland, blogging for the Discovery Channel at Nerdabout, AboutUs.org, Dorkbot, search engine optimization, Beer and Blog and of course, Cyborg Anthropology.

Thanks to Marshall Kirkpatrick for the Discovery Channel write-up on Read Write Web. Marshall has been a tremendous help to me. In addition to showing me things like Skitch, he’s lent advice and support to me on numerous occasions.

I want to thank everyone in the Portland Tech community, but there are infinite people to thank. Perhaps I can thank an entire directory of great Tweeple at once (via AboutUs.org Portland Tech Twitter).

I think that’s about it. I am a little speechless at the support I’ve been given, and I can’t wait to share it with a wider audience.

Sincerely,

@caseorganic

Yesterday I attended WebTrends Connect ‘08 in Seattle, Washington with Ryan Summers of ISITE Design.

The event was three hours long, and fast-paced. We arrived at 9:00 Am to find a speaker from WebTrends discussing the future state of news. He asked us to consider what could happen if one used online traffic to drive what is written about in analog newspapers.

As the seminar progressed, the ability to stitch together a holistic view of customer experience became a primary area of concern. One of the first major points was that Marketing and IT need to be working together.

“There is a lot of information locked behind closed doors”, said the next speaker, who was from TeraData. “There is no way to get the data out of the web analytics solutions and into the reporting dashboard.

He proposed the idea of business intelligence tools that could access this online visitor data and put it into an enterprise data warehouse.

He pointed out that one of the current difficulties of using data is that we are making a transition from 2nd Generation Enterprise to 3rd Generation Enterprise systems.

The 2nd Generation is Closed + Proprietary, whereas the 3rd Generation is Open standard-based. You simply can’t inegrate data systems when they are separated by proprietary, closed systems.

As O’Reilly once stated, “The internet is becomnig an enormous database that can be quiried, sorted, and applied to existing models and practices to change things”. WebTrends, TeraData, and other new systems seek to integrate many different systems with Analytics. The only way to streamline the spaces between data and change is to remove the closed doors betwen that data.

He stated that tech solutions should be open source based. These technologies seek to implement solutions that bring the two together and erases the nodes between them. He also pointed out that standards need to be in place that everyone agrees about across the organization.

Data Flow and Analytics

Online data can influence customer marketing, call centers, data warehouses, CRM and merchandisers.

Business Centric
—-
Business strategy
Performance Management
People — Processes
Analytics Processes
Analytics Applications
BI Platforms
Information Management Infrastructure.
——————

The next speaker was Paul Barrett
Global Director, Customer Management and DIgital Advertising

“How does one create one vIew of your customer?”, he asked, responding that the solution was “an Interactive marketing Intelligence across the enterprise”.

“Marketing an IT don’t like to play together — they have completely different mindsets.” A solution is to create Integrated Data warehouses so that the website and the customer service can blend into each other. Bringing that relationship closer together allows a more holistic view of all of the data coming into a company.

One of the most difficult issues is getting the recommended changes implemented in a shorter period of time every time.

It’s not about the data you can get at, but the risk of not knowing the data you’re missing.

The metrics are cheap, bu the metrics you don’t know are not.

Case Study: Travelocity

Tavelocity took the idea of using the CRM to drive customers to offers through the website. They had to avoid things like, “if you get a flight to NY for $500, and you log back out, when you next visit the site you can’t be shown an offer for $300, since you just bought the $500 one”.

They have a lot of dynamic decision making since you’ve already placed an order for $500.

Whne you become able to share the data between these systems, you become able to provide customized experiences for your customers with data that revolves around them.

You can also begin to bring unstructured data, such as the data on blogs into analytic understanding. For instance, when people blog about your website you can bring that data into your data warehouse.

The next speaker was Kevin Bobowski: Vice President, Client Services at Statigent

Stratigent is Partnering with Exact Target to provide a variety of KPI’s, such as benchmarkeing, competitive intelligence, visitor engagement measurement, optimization, proactive reporting and analysis, website testing and optimization.

“Don’t start with strategies that are too high-level that you don’t see value from them in the short term”, Bobowski said.

Primary challenges facing organizations today:

• So many initiatives and not enough time to implement all of them
• Picking and choosing what to do in a timely matter reduces liability
• Intense pressure to produce results
• Increasingly complex demands (coming from your business stockholders — their demand for information, customer insights)
• New marketing technologies create more data and more silos
• Balance to Building out these Capabilities

Strategy + Business Process

Do you have a unified strategy and clear goals that are measurement?

Infrastructure

Is realible and flexible technology in place to meet the evolving needs of ke sakehodes?

Value Creation Tactics

(Any processes a business uses to glean value from your data, testing, campaign analysis, conversion testing, customer segmentation).
What actions are you taking — on a consistent basis - to drive ROI?
Are the building blocks in place for this?

Isolated Successes vs. Long-term success

An organization with isolated successes - look at the successful campaign. This is often an indicator that there’s an executive sponsorship.

Where did you get your data, how did you get your data? instead of how to analyze your data.

Building a ‘culture of analytics’

The organization needs to invest in value creation tactics.
Demonstrate short term results that allow you to gain greater sponsorship and credit for lager projects — with the long term strategy and goals in mind.

He coined the term ‘Stratactical’, which he defined as, “of or relating to a strategy driven-approach using value based tatics”, adding that “while it’s great to have a long term strategy, you also have to balance it with results on the short term. You need to develop reliably, stable success.”

43 Percent of organization say they’ve started the process — but they’re not seeing any value.

How can you get hte results? How can you guarantee that those results will net short term wins

Key Preformance Indicators

It is difficult to show ROI from a seamless cross-channel customer experience with personalization and customization in place.

It is less difficult to Show ROI from a trigger-based communications program with customer profiling and predictive modeling.

4 tactics for a successful business case

-Build an actionable strategy
-Connect your marketing data
-Establish relationships (where are the shared pain points across the organization? Data silos make it difficult to have everyone on the same page).
-Optimize, Test, and Repeat…
-Incorporate resting to amplify the value you generate

Building an Actionable Strategy

-Optimize the Media Mix (return on ad spend)
-Increase the most productive spend
-Increase E-mail spend if cost per acquisition is less than direct mail and other marketing tactics
Reduce acquisition costs and increase profits per customers
Find and understand the total cost per Acquisition.

5 Types of KPI’s

-Outcome/Business driver

Return on Ad spend (Answers the question of”how well am I doing?”

-Diagnostic metrics (Helps you answer the question “how can I do better?”. An example is a conversion rate — click through to a landing page).

-Smoke alarms (Helps you anticipate potential problems that may exist. Example is number of unopened E-mails. That’s an indicator that something might not be right — might be sending E-mails to the wrong audience. Allows you to dig deeper).

-Predictor KPI’s (Allows you to look into the future — Answers the question of will I do better tomorrow? A client may invest in a banner campaign. Customers may need an amount of time to evaluate the purpose. Banner clicks might not convert immediately — in a day, week or month. Some organizations know up front, and they can prepare for revenue and stock — for how well they’ll be doing in 45 days).

-Latent KPI (the most valuable of all. Helps you answer the question of where are my marketing opportunities. Can take the form of customer surveys on the websites. This data sometimes sits solely in the marketing department and is not let out, but the data there should be shared across many channels — because it can help every department understand how others are seeing their organization).

Business Philosophy

Don’t let the KPI’s change every week or month, or else everyone in the organization will have a difficult time synching with each new idea, method, or direction. Focus, and slough off things that don’t match that focus.

Connecting your Marketing Data

The question is where are you as an organization? If your organization is not advanced enough

ExactTarget Email Integration

You can exact a customer’s E-mail address and the Product SKU’s they’ve purchased/looked at, as well as sales funnel abandonment info.

You can use ExactTarget automation to pick a file up, bring it in, and send and email leveraging that data.

Creating a targeted,one-to-one message using our proprietary scripting language.
Press the “Start” button and go about you your daily business.

Promote product A, but you know that customers who purchase product A also purchase products B and C. So you can include those in dynamic E-mails based on their interest in product A.

Promote product B and C automatically, but only if that product is in stock.

Optimization

Optimization is bigger than testing but testing plays a key role in the organization. Testing can drive short term wins.

Optimize emails creatives to increase click-throughs

-Headlines
-Offers
-Message/Copy
-Images
-Call to actions

Try different calls to action — when you begin to use multi-variate testing, you increase the capability to really increase your ROI.

Increase lending page conversion rates by multi-variate testing in the same way

-Headline
-Form field
-Color scheme
-Calls to action

1. Be Stratatical. Make sure that strategy is actionable.
2. KPI’s. Abolsutley essential.
3. Breaking down data silos allows data to flow into larger areas. These data areas combine into one bigger view of the customer. Which allows a richer view of the customer.
4. Optimization testing. It cannot be said enough how important optimization testing is. How else can you know what is successful in the site and wha epople are looking at.

KPI’s can exist on every level.

For copies of the Slides, E-mail:
Kevin.Bobowski@Stratigent.com

Many Ways to Get One View

Barry Parshall, Director of Product Management

The more plugged in the rest of the organization is, the more successful that organization can work together.

We see more and more organizations taking the data out of WebTrends and turning it into their own

Microsoft has categorized all of their key metrics into dashboards.

WebTrends 8.6 Demo

The UI was taken from Microsoft Outlook.

OTBC Drivers

A means for getting direct access to WebTrends data bins with an ODBC-compliant application.

Same driver for WebTrends Analytics and WebTrends Marketing Warehouse

Easy to install and use.

Demo, WebTrends ODBC Driver

-Open Excel 2007
-Click Data from other sources —> from Microsoft query
-WebTrends Demo — the data source for WebTrends already set up.
-Click ‘ok’
-This will connect you to the webtrends backend — select the profile. double click the ones that one cares about. Can grab multiple data channels and pull them into the same Excel data sheet.
Next –> you can sort by anything you want.
-Choose ’sort by revenue’, descending.
-Click Finish.

Limitations

Ryan Summers informed me that, “you can only quiery one time period at a time. You can’t query two time periods”.

Datalinks for Microsoft Excel

From Business Intelligence, Inc. (a Portland, Oregon Company).

You can join all of that data with other data sources. Provides a real simple way to join that data with other data sources. Will also export the data intelligence to Excel — so that you can go to Excel, hit refresh, and Excel will auto update all of the fields.

Webservices API —> can directly implement data in and out of the data warehouse. Bi-directional data transport for WebTrends Marketing Warehouse
Based on SOAP.

TechnologyLeaders (New York)

Dynamic Alerts lets you know when to act — when a variable changes dramatically, you are sent a notification E-mail.
Event envelope based on historical norms. Alerts are sent when activites exceeded historical norms.

DataMind (Seattle, Wa)

They produce a very slick custom scorecard offering the capability to export all of your analytics to one place. There’s also a browser overlay application.

Demo

All Excel based. Data arranged by tabs. Capturing a thumbnail of your website and overlaying the analytical data over it. Consultants customize the scorecard for your business.

Data Scheduler
Allows the scheduling of an export for the underlying analysis tables that contains hundreds of thousands of data sources.

The WebTrends Marketing Warehouse

-A true data warehouse, based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008.
-Stores and maintains discrete records of visitors, and all “events” taken by them.
-Every campaign click-through, ect.
-Limitless correlations and audience segmentation capabilities
(Get me a list of visitors that met all of this criteria).

The fundamental difference between aggregate web analytics, and customer centric web analytics is the ability to run queries.

Case Studies

Orbitz, a TeraData customer, is using it for:
-Web behavior connected with offline transactions
-Combine data analysis, reporting in its own warehouse.
Polaris
-Web scoring accurately segments diverse audiences
-Use WebTrends Score to assign point values to particular onine actions (as a mean to quickly asses consumer interest in some products vs. others)
-On a nightly basis exact
use this to populate further interaction .

The Microsoft SQL Database is automatically populated with data and assigns each user action with a number.

Polaris Home Page (rule sets)
New vehicle interest: 1 (user clicked here but left after a few seconds)
Racing Interest: 0
Parts and gear interest: 15 (user clicked here and watched a video on parts and gear)
Engaged (how interested is your user?): 10 (video watching)
Total Score: 26

————

Conclusion

While some of these techniques are not new, it was nice to see many of them presented in three hours. It is apparent that bringing data from different sectors into common areas will help many to understand how users and companies are interacting. Analytics are becoming essential for companies to efficiently connect and deal with many customers at once while providing them with customized experiences.

I look forward to watching industries and products that help reduce the data silos that affect many current companies. The technologies are there — it is just an issue of getting these technologies into companies so that more users can be understood. I am sure that interest in these tools will only increase in the future.

———–

About

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and new media consultant living in Portland, Oregon. She likes to attend events and meet people in the industry. You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.

I wanted to write about this before, but I had to wait until everything was secured and verified.

In September, Steve Gehlen invited me to speak about Cyborg Anthropology at Inverge: The Interactive Convergence Conference on September 5th of this year. The conference was a refreshing and entertaining look at where entertainment, art, culture, business, and social media are going. The keynote was Joshua Green of MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium.

After Inverge, Joshua and I compared theorists and research, and had a great time socializing along with all of the other conference attendees and speakers. A month later, Joshua informed me of a conference at MIT called the Futures of Entertainment, and wondered if I would be interested in being on a panel on social media. He said that my analysis and understanding of both the academic and corporate world would provide a useful bridge between two separate fields.

Convergence culture has moved swiftly from buzzword to industry logic. The creation of transmedia storyworlds, understanding how to appeal to migratory audiences, and the production of digital extensions for traditional materials are becoming the bread and butter of working in the media. Futures of Entertainment 3 once again brings together key industry leaders who are shaping these new directions in our culture and academic scholars immersed in the investigation the social, cultural, political, economic, and technological implications of these changes in our media landscape. This year’s conference will work to bring together the themes from last year - media spreadability, audiences and value, social media, distribution - with the consortium’s new projects in moving towards an increasingly global view of media convergence and flow. Topics for this year’s panels include global distribution systems and the challenges of moving content across borders, transmedia and world building, comics and commerce, social media and spreadability, and renewed discussion on how and why to measure audience value.

I very carefully prepared two forms of submission — one on Cyborg Anthropology from the academic perspective, and another from the business perspective.

However, I feel that what I am doing pales in comparison to the accomplishments of those whom I will be participating with. I am both honored and overwhelmed by this opportunity. I hope to be able to add value to some aspect of the conference.

I’ll be participating on the social media panel, which is described as follows:

“Moving lives online, creating conversations across geography, connecting with consumers - how is social media defining the current entertainment landscape? As people not only put more content online, but conduct more of their daily lives in networked spaces and via social networking sites, how are social media influencing how we think of audiences? Video-sharing platforms have changed how we think of production and distribution, and Facebook gifts point to the value of virtual properties, how are these sites enabling other processes of production or distribution practices. Spaces where commercial and community purposes intertwine, what are the implications for privacy, content management, and identity construction of social media? How have they impacted notions of civic engagement?”

Conference Attendees

Kim Moses - Executive Producer, The Ghost Whisperer, Lost, Medium, Yochai Benkler - Harvard Law School, The Wealth of Networks (Yale University Press), John Caldwell - UCLA, Production Culture (Duke University Press), Henry Jenkins - MIT, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (NYU Press), Alex McDowell - Production Designer, The Watchmen, Kevin Slavin - Area/Code, Sabrina Caluori - Director, Marketing and Promotions, HBO Online, Grant McCracken - Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture (Indiana University Press), Donald K Ranvaud - Buena Onda Films, Amanda Lotz - University of Michigan, The Television Will be Revolutionized (NYU Press), Gail De Kosknik - UC Berkeley, How to Save Soap Opera: Histories and Futures of an Iconic Genre, Joe Marchese - socialvibe.com, Amber Case - Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant, Hazelnut Consulting, Mauricio Mota - New Content (Brazil), Alisa Perren - Georgia State University, The Media Industry Studies Book (Blackwell Publishing)….more.

Steve Gehlen, Paige Saez (on a grant from PNCA) and Kris Krug will be flying out to join me at the conference. In case you’re in the area too, the conference information is as follows:

MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 3

Friday, Nov 21 8:30a to Saturday, Nov 22 8:30a
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Wong Auditorium, Cambridge, MA

Thanks

A great big thank you to everyone in the Portland Tech community for being supportive and welcoming of interdisciplinary thought. Special thanks to Joshua Green and Steve Gehlen.

—–

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and New Media Consultant living in Portland, Oregon. You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.

Looking for something to do this week/month/season in Portland? Itching to get to know more people/minds/ideas? Look no further. I’ve created this list for you of a bunch of Portland tech events for your convenience. Hopefully it is a useful resource.If you want to connect to more Portland Tech resources, check out the AboutUs.org Wiki for Portland Tech. There’s an RSS feed of Portland Tech Events there, as well as a very robust Portland Tech Twitter directory. Events are updated every two weeks, and there are areas for event reviews. And if you need to add something to it, you can edit it—as it is a Wiki.

And, of course you can always follow me on Twitter for more up-to-date event reviews. If I’ve missed anything, please let me know in the comments and I’ll add it to this list. Please include the date, time, a short event description, and a link (if applicable).

There’s also the awesome Portland-based Calagator and Yahoo’s! Upcoming, which was created by Andy Baio, a Portland resident. Hooray for awesome event databases!

Portland Tech Events for the month of October, November, and Beyond

Oct 27, 2008: Introduction to Google Android — Mobile Portland at AboutUs offices

A year after making a splash with the announcement of the Google Android platform for mobile phones, Android-based phones have finally hit the market. The G1 from T-Mobile and HTC shows an early version of what is possible on this new platform. Sean Sullivan will be talking about what Google Android is, what it means for the market place, and how developers can start building solutions for this new mobile phone platform. Sean will also demonstrate his latest Google Android project which combines OAuth and…

Renewable Energy Finance Forum-West

Renewable Energy Finance Forum-West Monday, October 27, 2008 at 8:30am through Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 4:30pm Grand Hyatt Hotel 721 Pine Street Seattle , WA 98101 US ( map ) The Renewable Energy Finance Forum-West (REFF-West) will unite investors, financiers and project developers in the renewable energy sector, with a particular focus on the Western U.S. The conference builds on the success of the Clean Tech Investing in the Pacific Northwest conference and REFF-Wall Street. Attendees will…

DorkbotPDX Meeting

DorkbotPDX Meeting Monday, October 27, 2008 from 7 – 10pm Lucky Labrador Beer Hall 1945 NW Quimby Portland , OR 97209 US ( map ) Come join us for an evening of socializing, talking about odd hacks and poking around with other people toys. Bring things for show and tell if you like, or just bring a willingness to share your interests. We’ll be the kids with all the coolest stuff on the table. Hope to see you there. Links Website Tags dorkbot, electronics, hardware Download to iCal You…

PDX Critique monthly meeting

PDX Critique monthly meeting Monday, October 27, 2008 from 7 – 9pm CubeSpace 622 SE Grand Ave. Portland , Oregon 97214 USA ( map ) Share your creations and get constructive feedback Links Website Download to iCal You can edit this event . This item was added directly to Calagator Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 10:37am .

Oct 28, 2008: Microsoft Brings Free IT Expertise to Portland, Oregon at Oregon Convention Center

The Microsoft Across America team will be in Portland, Oregon delivering three seminars demonstrating how to drive your business. These educational events are free of charge and specially designed for business owners. Through demonstrations and face-to-face interaction with Microsoft Technology Specialists, attendees will learn how to save time and money while driving efficiency and profitability. TS2 – Target Audience: Microsoft Partners Microsoft’s TS2 seminars teach attendees how to increase revenue…

Science Pub: Science Circus - The Physics of Fun

Science Pub: Science Circus - The Physics of Fun Tuesday, October 28, 2008 from 7 – 9pm McMenamins Mission Theater 1624 NW Glisan Street Portland , Oregon 97209 ( map ) Come see physics in action! Jugglers, acrobats, and other circus artists often base their acts on simple Newtonian principles of motion and balance taken to extremes. How does gravity’s constant rate of acceleration affect the juggling of bowling balls? Why would a Nobel Laureate beg a vaudevillian to spin a ball on his finger?…

AeA: Going Green

AeA: Going Green Tuesday, October 28, 2008 from 7:30 – 9am Oregon Zoo 4001 SW Canyon Rd. Portland , OR 97221-9704 US ( map ) Human Resources Networking Event Date: Oct 28, 2008 Going Green Going Green is one of the hottest topics in business today. It is not just good for the environment, Going Green is good for business. From your facilities to your business processes to your people, there are easy and inexpensive ways to truly improve your company’s Green quotient. Join our industry panel to…

Smalltalk Users Group meeting [tentative]

Smalltalk Users Group meeting [tentative] Tuesday, October 28, 2008 from 6:30 – 8:30pm GemStone Systems 1260 NW Waterhouse Ave # 200 Beaverton , OR 97006 US ( map ) pdx.st is the Portland Smalltalk Users Group. The group welcomes programmers interested in the Smalltalk language. Members interact through a mailing list and meet regularly for presentations, demos and discussions. Links Website Tags programming, smalltalk Download to iCal You can edit this event . This item was added directly…

Oct 29, 2008: Portland Open Coffee Club - October 2008 at Backspace

Portland Open Beer Club and Portland Open Coffee Club are monthly meetups offering a low key, agenda-free format centered around meeting like-minded individuals and talking about technology, the web, and startups. The Portland Open Coffee Club meets the last Wednesday of every month at Backspace at 10 am. Read more at http://portlandopencoffeeclub.com/

Portland State Aerospace Society: General & Team Meetings

Portland State Aerospace Society: General & Team Meetings Tuesday, October 28, 2008 from 7 – 11pm Portland State University, Fourth Avenue Building - FAB 155 1900 SW 4th Avenue Portland , Oregon 97201 US ( map ) Links Website Download to iCal You can edit this event . This item was imported from http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/r… Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 4:49pm and last updated Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 12:41am .

Oct 30, 2008: OEN’s Venture Northwest at Portland Marriott (Downtown)

It starts with a simple seed. But from that seed grows strong, vibrant and sustainable companies that are ripe for investment. Venture Northwest (formerly Venture Oregon) is the premier forum for new and emerging investment opportunities in exciting companies from Oregon, Washington, and throughout the Pacific Northwest. Learn about the region’s growth segments, explore exciting new technology and research, and connect with entrepreneurs from the area’s hottest emerging companies including nanotech,…

Nov 1, 2008: Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Install Party at Backspace

Celebrate the release of Ubuntu 8.10, the Intrepid Ibex. Get a copy of the .iso file without waiting for the long download. Get a burned CD or burn one of your own and pass on the free software love. Get installation help and talk to local linux experts.

Nov 5, 2008: Social Network Spaghetti - Portland Web Innovators at Vidoop

Scott Kveton will tell us where he thinks we with the state of current social networks and how we’re actually on our way to the promised land. Kveton is a digital identity promoter, open source contributor, and VP of Open Platforms for Vidoop.

Nov 5, 2008: Lunch 2.0 at the Eclipse Foundation at Eclipse Foundation

The Portland Lunch 2.0 saga continues at the Eclipse Foundation in downtown. Come join your old Twitter pals, meet some new people, learn about what the Eclipse Foundation has going on these days. Did you know they had a Portland office? Worried about parking downtown? It’s probably going to be raining by then. No worries, the Max Oak Street stop is right in front of their building. Lunch 2.0 is a Valley phenomenon that you can read about at lunch20.com, and we’re putting a PDX stamp on it. Are you…

Nov 6, 2008: The Smart Grid and the New Electricity Economy at The Nines Hotel

The Smart Grid and the New Electricity Economy Date: Thu, Nov 6th Time: 4:00pm-6:30pm Location: The Nines Hotel 525 SW Morrison Portland, OR 97204 Cost: $35 for non members $10 Discount for walking or taking mass transit Registration Deadline: 11/06/2008 Topic: The Smart Grid and the New Electricity Economy Register for this Event Back to Event Calendar The Clean Technology Alliance is proud to present a special event hosted by noted expert Jesse Berst of GlobalSmartEnergy to chronicle the rapid growth of…

Nov 10, 2008: The semi-un-not-so-official Wordpress Upgrade Party at CubeSpace

We saw the demo at WordCamp, now lets get together for the grand launch of WordPress 2.7!

Nov 12, 2008: Refresh Portland at Jive Software

Refresh Portland is a monthly talk (held every 2nd Wednesday) about design, front-end development, usability and web standards. We’re in the process of finalizing the speaker. Please watch this space and our twitter account ( http://twitter.com/RefreshPDX ) for future developments. Refresh Portland is part of the Refreshing Cities Movement.

Nov 13, 2008: Ignite Corvallis at CH2M HILL Alumni Center

I hope you’ll join us for Ignite Corvallis in November at High Tech After Hours. Ignite Corvallis Thursday, November 13th, 2-3pm CH2M HILL Alumni Center, Corvallis, Oregon (Across from Reser Stadium) NOTE: Submission deadline for presentation proposals is Tuesday, November 4th. email proposals to ignite [DOT] corvallis [AT] gmail Ignite is coming to Corvallis! Share burning ideas. If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15…

Nov 13, 2008: Ignite Portland 4 at Bagdad Theater and Pub

Save the date! Ignite Portland 4 will happen on Thursday November 13, 2008, at the Bagdad. Same venue. Same format. Even more burning ideas. More details to come - stay tuned! http://www.igniteportland.com http://twitter.com/igniteportland http://friendfeed.com/rooms/igniteportland

Nov 15, 2008: Cre8Camp Portland (@SOUK)

Cre8Camp Portland is a BarCamp-like unconference with a creative twist–it is for creative industries professionals. Saturday November 15, 2008 from 10:00am - 3:00pm Participants drive the session topics and lead the discussions. Registration required. Ticket Info: 10.00 Buy Tickets. Visit the web site for more information. To see photos from the last Cre8Camp, click here. Cre8Camp will be at SOUK 322 NW 6th Avenue, Suite 200. Portland, Oregon 97214. Website: http://www.cre8camp.org/Cre8CampPortlandAdd to calendar.

Dec 6, 2008: CyborgCamp 2008 at CubeSpace

[[Note: The date of this event has been changed to Dec. 6th]] CyborgCamp is a simulcast unconference about the future of the relationship between humans and technology. We’ll discuss topics such as social media, design, code, inventions, web 2.0, twitter, the future of communication, cyborg technology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. CyborgCamp’s aim is to have many communication channels such as Twitter, Flickr, UstreamTV, Video and Audio recordings and live chats displayed on the screen.…

Jan 4, 2009: The Ethics of eWaste at Westminster Presbyterian Church

Electronic waste or “e-waste” is broken or unwanted electrical or electronic devices. Many components of e-waste are considered toxic. Due to the difficulty and cost of recycling used electronics as well as lacklustre enforcement of legislation regarding e-waste exports, large amounts of used electronics have been sent to countries such as China, India, and Kenya, where lower environmental standards and working conditions make processing e-waste more profitable. Oso Martin, President of Bear…

Jan 14, 2009: Lunch 2.0 at the New OTBC Office at OTBC in the Beaverton Round

For the first time, Portland Lunch 2.0 will happen in the ‘burbs, Beaverton to be precise. The OTBC is moving into new space and partnering with the Beaverton Round Executive Suites . So, to showcase their new digs and introduce Lunch 2.0 to the suburbs, the OTBC will be hosting Lunch 2.0 on January 14, 2009. The Beaverton Round is right on the MAX line about 20 minutes from Portland. Just jump off the Blue Line at the Beaverton Central stop, and you’re 90 feet from the new OTBC office. Lunch 2.0 is…

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Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant from Portland, Oregon. She goes to lots of tech events because they are fun to go to!

Alfred Lin, COO, CFO and Chairman of Zappos.com spoke Thursday Oct. 16, at Oregon State University. When @brampitoyo and @mulderc and I got there, the entire auditorium was filled to the brim with college student. Everyone in the room was focused and intent on hearing what Alfred had to say. He spoke quietly and calmly, and his words were very engaging.

In less than ten years, Zappos.com has matured from an upstart to the top Internet shoe seller that is forecasted to generate $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2008. The e-tailer stocks 3 million pairs of shoes, handbags, apparel, and accessories, specializing in some 1,000 brands that are difficult to find in mainstream shopping malls.

Using an interactive Q&A format, Alfred discussed the ingredients to building a brand, culture, and company that matters. He shared the lessons he learned while growing the business over the last decade as well as key insights on e-commerce and entrepreneurship.

Transcript:

Consider Yourself Lucky

He talked about a study that was done with a set of people who considered themselves lucky vs. a set of people who considered themselves unlucky. Each set was asked to count the number of images present in a given newspaper. All over

Company Culture

At some point, we had more new people at the company than we had original employees. Our challenge was to train the new employees to understand and become excited about and believe in the corporate culture.

A financial officer in the company must be able to translate what’s happening in the company to other members

Q: Was it difficult to get brands like Versace to sign onto Zappos, and do you find it easier to get brands to sign on as you get more press and success?

Alfred: It’s never easier. It took us three years to get Nike. Once we got them, the CEO’s hands were shaking so much it was difficult for him to write the E-mail to the team about it.

Entrepreneurship

I don’t recommend becoming an entrepreneur. Do not underestimate the work it takes to become one. Your company will go through rough times and good times, but it is becoming harder and harder to be one.

Competitors

90-93% of commerce is done offline, so we do not have a lot of the competition traditional companies have.

On Company Growth

As a company grows, you’re not going to be able to do everything yourself. You have to begin relying on your team.
And a lot of times you have to look at your team and see who does the most and who does the least.

Teams can accomplish a lot more than indivudals. When your team succeeds, you succeed, and when your team fails, you fail. It’s important to create

Retail Stores and Catalog Business

Retail stores are not as scalable as opening up another website. But we have a type of catalog that has fashion advice and other tips.

I think business is why you do it. It’s rewarding and tiring at the same time. I equate the high I get from working on a business to a drug.

He said he wishes he could spend more time with his significant other, but he doesn’t really regret any of the choices he’s made in his life.

The toughest decision he ever had to make is letting his friends go if he’s hired them.

The best day of his career when he joined Zappos on the first day, because he felt very welcomed by the corporate culture.

Tracking and Marketing Tools

We evolved our website over the past 9 years mostly by A/B testing.

We have a new website ( http://zeta.zappos.com ) that we just rolled out, but that website does not convert as well as something that’s evolved for the past 9 years. It’s not that hard to have url A and url B and test the two.

Hiring Zappos Employees

We look for passion and a belief in the company culture over an applicant that has skill but is looking for another job.

The reason we started out training process is that we had to train people because we work and think differently. We had to think about how to not only teach the culture but improve it with each new group that came in.

We think of customers as investments, and that’s why customer

We view our interaction experiences with our customers as a branding experience. We take undivided time to

Recommended Business Books

Peruse growth and learning. We have a library in the lobby and some books are required reading for advancement inside the company.

Good to Great
Peak . Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs.

Management Strategies

I don’t have an overall strategy.I don’t do voice mails. All of them work if you stick to it. Pick a framework and work with it. We’re a very E-mail intensive company. And we expect people to answer an E-mail quickly or in a specific way.

We offer every employee $2000 if they leave. And if it’s not working, they can leave. It’s a good way to test loyalty, and supporting a person if it’s not working out.

Zappos Culture Book

Each employee contributes a paragraph about the culture of Zappos to a book that is added to continually. Except for small grammatical formatting, the book is largely unedited. The bad is left in with the good, and it is an excellent way to introduce others into the culture of the company.

We made money.zappos.com and twitter.zappos.com because of the passions of these different groups.

Zappos.com is one of the few companies who aggregates their Twitter data.

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Alfred Lin is responsible for all financial, administrative, and warehouse operations of Zappos.com. Since 2005, he has brought focus, strategy, and financial discipline to help grow the business efficiently and profitably.

Building a Brand that Matters is part of The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series at Oregon State University. More information is available on Oregon State University’s Business Website.

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