Monthly Archive for October, 2007

I’ve created a group on Flickr for Ignite Portland. Feel free to join and add your photos from and about the event, and/or tag them “igniteportland”.

I shot 300+ photos tonight, so I’ll be going through them, and posting the good ones. But not right now! I’m exhausted, and I’m going to bed.

Thanks to our generous sponsors, we will be feeding you a free, full meal catered from Nicholas Restaurant tonight. This is quite possibly the world’s best Lebanese food outside of Beirut.

Besides the whole fire code thing, where we have to close the doors after we get 297 people (doors open at 5:30 PM - be there early, and you’re almost sure to get in), there are lots of people I know who would have liked to attend Ignite Portland, but can’t make it for various other reasons. This post is for you!

Since it’s being put together by a bunch of raging internet geeks, there will be lots of electronic ways to “attend” Ignite Portland from afar. Or at least keep updated on what’s going on there.

First, follow IgnitePortland on Twitter. We’ll be sending important updates throughout the evening (like “OK, we’re closing the doors now!”, etc.). Make sure you have Twitter set to send notifications via SMS, since unfortunately, there won’t be open wifi at W+K. If you don’t use Twitter, or don’t know what it is, just go to http://twitter.com/IgnitePortland (or subscribe to the RSS feed on that page). You’ll see short updates from the Ignite Portland team as they’re warranted. Extra Special Twitter Tip: check out the “with others” page for Ignite Portland on Twitter. It will show you updates from all the people that have followed us - sort of an instant, impromptu backchannel chat. It’s loads of fun. Or at least interesting to watch.

We’re looking for a volunteer to do some live streaming of the event, a la UStream.tv, etc. All it takes to do live web video these days is a webcam and a browser. If you’re able and interested in doing a stream for Ignite Portland, let me know. We can probably get you wifi access to do it, but if you have your own self-contained connectivity (like EVDO), so much the better.

Space is going to be tight (not a lot of room for laptops, plus the whole “no wifi” thing), so I don’t expect a lot of “live” blogging, but for everything written/posted after the event, the official tag for the event is “igniteportland”. If you write a blog post, upload pictures to Flickr, or put whatever else online about the event, make sure it has that tag. Likewise, if you want to check out photos and posts from people who were there, look for the “igniteportland” tag on Technorati, Flickr, etc. We’ll be monitoring that tag, too, and we’ll post up anything that’s particularly cool here. You can also just do a good old fashioned search for “ignite portland” in your favorite blog search/feed tool and subscribe to the resulting RSS feed.

Finally, the presentations are being video recorded (by more than one person, it sounds like). I’ll be recording in HD, and the W+K folks will be, too. I plan to post video of each of the Ignite Portland sessions on our “Watch” page (featured prominently at the top of the site) within a couple of weeks (video takes time!). So, check out that page in a little while, or add this RSS feed to your favorite video podcatcher (like iTunes), and you’ll get the videos automagically as soon as they’re posted. We also plan on posting the slides themselves at some point, though without the presenter, they won’t make much sense.

That’s it for now. If you can think of another way to participate virtually in Ignite Portland, post a comment, and I’ll update this post. Thanks to everyone who’s expressed interest in our little event - this has grown into something WAY bigger than I ever imagined, and it’s awesome!

As Josh and Dawn have mentioned in prior blog posts, we have generated a greater interest in the event than the venue can sustain. Fire code is 297, and we capped Upcoming at 325. I’m sure the numbers would have exceeded 400 by now. Based on the limitations of Upcoming, it was too difficult for us to implement a true RSVP system where those who pre-registered were given priority. Upcoming does not give us a username to real name mapping and many of those who RSVP’ed will end up being no-shows. The best solution was for us to simply make the event first-come, first-served. We will close the doors once we hit the magic fire code number. Yes, having to turn people away at the door is going to suck. The alternative was scrambling to find another venue which would have added far too much complexity with only a week remaining before the event and even worse, having to get the word out to everyone who already expressed an interest.

The flip side to hitting capacity is that a number of you might be thinking, ‘why bother even trying to get in?!’ We run the risk that we’re not going to end up with a packed house because no one wants to ‘race’ for a spot. The solution? Show up early. If you’re there at 5:30pm when the doors open, I am pretty sure that you’re going to get in. You’ll also get first dibs on the food and drinks. If you’re running late, trying to find a parking spot, stuck in traffic, waiting for public transportation, whatever the delay may be…we’re sorry, but we cannot offer reserved seating.

What we are going to do, however, is keep a live head count update on the Ignite Portland Twitter account. What you can do is add Ignite Portland as a friend on Twitter, turn on notifications for this account, and make sure you have notifications setup in your Twitter preferences to be sent via SMS to your mobile phone. This will provide you with a live head count to your mobile phone while you’re busy making your way to the event. If you aren’t on Twitter, go sign up and follow these instructions. If this is too complicated, then just show up. We’re providing this to Twitter users as a convenience. It’s the best we can do.