The Year in Retrospect, the Year to Come
Rick Turoczy gave a talk this evening on the state of the Portland tech scene. His slides and comments on the presentation are here. It was eye-opening to many, I think, to discover just how freaking much had been accomplished by predominantly volunteer effort in 2008. Just look at the list of un-conferences and otherwise free events that were held in Portland this year:
This list is only the big ones. There were countless mini-projects, explosive collective efforts around specific causes and social events, and just plain hanging out that also took place. After presenting his list of community accomplishments, Rick looked at 2009 and investigated what would really pop in Portland (and by extension, the rest of the world) in the coming year. Mobile technologies that increased the functionailty and sociability of phones topped the list. OpenID was next, followed by geo-location technologies and innovations.
One of the things Rick declined to do was talk much about the “why” - what’s the secret sauce that makes the Portland tech community a community and not some loose aggregation of companies and coders? Why is there such a drive to connect here, while other communities with equal opportunities just don’t work as hard? And most importantly, why is community so important to Portlanders, and what are local companies of all types and from all industries doing to connect and generate a sustainable economics through close attention to community members, the locality, the exigent needs of the people? What does innovation look like in tough circumstances?
Extreme Arts wants to know. We’re going to be looking hard for case studies of companies and emergent technologies that seek to innovate and serve at the same time, that are interested in revenue but do not consider that metric to be any more or less important than social equity, moral standards, and renewable/sustainable business models. We hope that these studies will engage your thought processes on multiple levels, and encourage you to look at your own business in a new light.
As for Portland tech events, we’re closing out the year with CyborgCamp, which is proudly sponsored by Extreme Arts and Sciences. CyborgCamp will take a different view of technological tool use, and look at where human interaction with machines and computers is going. It promises to be a fascinating day, and I’ll have a full report for you over the weekend.
