Discovering Portland’s developer community at Jive Software’s blogger dinner
Last Thursday, July 19th, I attended a blogger dinner at Jive Software’s headquarters where Jeremiah Owyang and Robert Scoble were the guests of honor. I went with my friends Kristin Reilly and Benjamin Diggles to see an A-list blogger and world-class internet strategist. What I ended up finding was fellow Portland tech comrades. Dare I say that the Portland developer community is developing fresh momentum?
Over a plate of delicious Nicholas‘ Middle Eastern cuisine, I chatted with Dan Rasay of Lucy.com about the Portland scene, which was apparently quite strong in the pre-dot com bust days. Sam, who had moved to Portland from the Bay Area, wondered when he first got here where everyone was getting together to network and discuss the future of web technologies. I can relate completely to his question. Having attended Tag Camp in Palo Alto with Marshall Kirkpatrick a while back, I was surprised and jealous to see how easily people organized in Sam’s hometown. It felt like they were at the epicenter of something big that was happening right now. And that’s because they are living in Silicon Valley during what is currently the youth of the Internet. I’ve wondered since that time why Portland can’t/doesn’t have that same vibe? I speculated that we are all watching who the most popular people are online, which mostly live in the Bay Area, wishing we hung out with them. I think if Portland was able to look at itself with the kind of pride that SFers do, then we’d have a vibrant scene here. If we embrace our own scene, others will want to come and be a part of it. We have a ton of hot things going on here, but we lack a connected sense of self.
Having attended a few things here in PDX—POSSE meetings, WebVisions (awesome event), BarCamp, Portland Social Media Club, and now this blogger dinner—it feels like things are picking up. Perhaps that’s just happening for me personally, but I don’t think so. The invites to these events are coming through friends I’ve had for some time, so I feel like there are more opportunities happening that are worth attending and therefore worth sharing.
Back to last Thursday’s event. I had a number of good conversations. Overheard some others (Josh Bancroft shared some good perspective on Facebook where Diggles and I make a cameo in the video). Played Wii. Here are some photos:
Here are some other posts covering the event:
- Jeremiah Owyang announcing his coming appearance
- Josh Bancroft announcing event
- Sam Lawerence of Jive Software gives a quick recap
Does your city have a strong sense of industry community? If you’re a Portlander, what is your take on our scene?
As a creative community, Portland does quite well. The community for Flash alone makes Adobe stand up and take notice with things such as making PDX a stop on their onAIR Summer Bus Tour. For the size of the city, I think there is amazing scene.
From Jon MacDonald on July 25th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Hey Justin,
Great post. We’re going to do our best to continue to the local momentum. There’s no reason why we can’t drum up the Portland scene. The people here in Portland, may not be as steeped in the petri dish that’s silicon valley, but that’s a good thing. Portland technorati are just as smart and have a more balanced perspective.
Thanks for coming out. Hope to see you at Beerforge 2.0 tomorrow!
:)
Sam
From Sam Lawrence on July 25th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Jon, I haven’t tried to participate in the Flash community here yet. What events or groups do you recommend?
Damn, Sam! I didn’t know Beerforge 2.0 was going on today. I can’t go, which is a bummer because I like those OpenSourcery guys too. :( Perhaps we need to start a Portland scene calendar. Perhaps we could start a tag or someone could admin a feed where everyone submits their events to for wider notification…
From Justin on July 26th, 2007 at 9:40 am
A large number of the Flash events are related to and announced on the Goto Play lists (http://www.gotoandplay.net). They have lists for Flash, Flex, Illustration, Design, Video, and 3D — so all the bases are covered. In particular, the Flash list is basically the Adobe user group for PDX with regular sponsored meetings.
Also, don’t forget about AIGA’s dMob. It is a monthly event held at a local brewpub with all types of creatives: http://portland.aiga.org/events/2007/07/13803862
From Jon MacDonald on July 27th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Right on, Jon! Thanks for the lead on these groups. I’ll check ‘em out.
From Justin on July 27th, 2007 at 1:14 pm