Beer and Blog Portland

Fresh from the shower of fantastic press and outstanding numbers from the very successful “Smell Like a Man, Man” digital marketing campaign for Old Spice, Wieden+Kennedy is steaming hot. They’re so hot, in fact, they’re sending three of their digital strategists and beer money to Beer and Blog this Friday to talk about the future of W+K Digital and how you might be a part of it if you’re a strategist or community manger.

This means 1) FREE beer and 2) W+K is hiring. 3) You’re coming.

Join us on the patio of the Green Dragon this Friday from 4pm to 6pm to chat up W+K’s digital strategists Dean McBeth, Ken Brady, and Cody Corona. They’ll have the drink tickets, so be on your best behavior

P.S. I dare someone to arrive on the back of Loch Ness creature looking ridiculously good-looking while changing a baby’s diaper and playing chess.

RSVP on Upcoming or get your information on Calagator.

One more thing! There will be some folks in town Friday — three folks, to be exact — who are traveling the U.S. to find new members to join their group called Way Below Status Quo. They’re a sassy bunch of entrepreneurs, so I know they’ll fit right at Beer and Blog. They’ll stop by the Green Dragon patio and mingle before their event later in the evening at Amnesia Brewery on N. Mississippi Ave. (More info here:  http://statusquo-portlandor.eventbrite.com/)

I was excited and honored when Justin passed the Beer and Blog stein to me a few months ago.  Becoming the Portland Chapter host was a good fit for me, but unfortunately time got in the way.  Before I decided to move forward as the new chapter host I did not realize all of the changes would happen in such a short period of time.  I decided to start the Portland Ten and work on Taplister full time leaving me little free time to commit to anything else.  So Justin and I are in the process of finding a replacement and I plan on helping out when I can.

Cheers and I will see you at a future Beer and Blog once things slow done for me.

Kerry

Join us on Friday June 25th from 4-6pm-ish to soak up sun and suds at the Green Dragon in their cool beer garden.  Like any good Luau we will have a roasted pig courtesy of the Green Dragon (sorry vegans).  Don’t forget to wear your Hawaiian shirt to be entered into a raffle to win a free Whiffies gift certificate courtesy of Taplister.

See you there

Kerry

Well friends, I had the good fortune of running into Richard MacManus, who is the founder of ReadWriteWeb, at Lunch 2.0. He mentioned that he would be attending this Friday, which I asked if I could share on Twitter. To which he said yes.

But!

Then I got an email from the famed Co-Editor of RWW Marshall Kirkpatrick that ReadWriteWeb wanted to also sponsor drinks this Friday! How cool is that?!!

So, come on down and schmooze with the RWW staff and enjoy some cold ones on them. Richard is in town from New Zealand, so it’s a rare treat to have some face time with him.

You can RSVP on Upcoming or Calagator!

Any self-respecting Portland tech geek knows that the CTO of Seesmic is coming to visit this weekend, thanks to Rick Turoczy and his Silicon Florist post helpfully listing things he should while in town. Things that are uniquely Portland-esque. Like Beer and Blog!

And if you’re active on twitter, you know about Seesmic. I’m a proud devotee. When Justin Kistner (what UP dawg!) demoed the elegance of the desktop version  for me I promptly broke up with Twhirl and haven’t looked back. I use the mobile version as well.  Like the cool kids they are, Seemsic recently opened their desktop platform so the super geeky can now add or tweak any service to their liking. (Video on that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NigLYdbcNf4)

But just who this tech rock star anyway? A surface investigation reveals him to be an argyle sweater-wearing French guy named Johann Romefort who’s Twitter bio links to a 403 “permission denied” page and who is rumored to hold the title of Biggest Hair in Technology. How mysterious!

Come meet Johann and mingle with your Beer and Blog pals at The Green Dragon this Friday from 4-6pm (which, as you know, sometimes runs from earlier than that until later than that).

See you there!

(And for all my WordPress buddies who’ll be joining us…did you know the Seesmic blog runs on TypePad? I’m thinking maybe someone should bring that topic up…cough.)

A few weeks ago Justin passed the Beer and Blog Stein to me.  This means I am now your new chapter host.  I already know most of you and look forward to meeting new people and learning about their cool tech projects.  Since I have some big shoes to fill I need your help.  I want to know what you like and dislike about Beer and Blog.  Please fill out the survey here.

Cheers

Kerry

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special treat for everyone this week. Involver is coming to town!

If you don’t know them, Involver is the leading creator of custom tabs and apps on Facebook. No, they don’t make Farmville type stuff. *Other* people use their services to make their own tabs and apps. And, business is booming for them. So much so, that they are expanding their offices and are scouting out Portland as a potential location! I told them we had a seriously under utilized pool of developer talent here and they want to see for themselves. Help us roll out the red carpet for these out of town potential employers so they have no choice but to open up shop somewhere in PDX.

What we need

The first thing we need is for people who would like to work locally for the hottest Facebook app development company to show up in droves. What kind of positions would be available, you ask? Involver is currently hiring Ruby on Rails developers, IT specialists, interface engineers, lead visual designer, MySQL DBA, technical writers, account managers, etc. As you can see, they have cool work available for developers, creatives, and more.

Background

I was on a business trip with Webtrends when I met up with the Involver team. They mentioned their interest in Portland, and I suggested a scouting trip by way of Beer and Blog. I’d like us to make this a successful event so that we not only attract a hot emerging company like Involver, but also that we can use this example to attract more companies that want to reach beyond the Valley.

So, bring it!! RSVP on Upcoming or Calagator

This Friday WebVisions is buying a round for everyone to celebrate their 10th anniversary show. Show organizer Brad Smith and crew will be there to offer a special Beer and Blog discount code for tickets.

About WebVisions

WebVisions is a Portland institution. For the last decade they have been bringing in some of the biggest names in the web world to lil ‘ol P-town. They describe the show as:

WebVisions explores the future of design, content creation, user experience and business strategy to uncover the trends and agents of change that will shatter your assumptions about the Web. Be ready to network, share ideas and be inspired by an all-star lineup of speakers.

This year’s show is May 19 – 21, 2010. They have speakers from Facebook, Twitter, Adaptive Path, and more. As usual, it will be held at the Oregon Convention Center and you can RSVP on Upcoming.

About the drinks

Look for Brad Smith and his team as they will have drink tickets. It’s 1 per person and first come, first serve. Come join us for a toast to 10 years of WebVisions!

Special Guest, Mayor Sam Adams

The final Friday of our 2nd anniversary celebration is here. So far this  month we’ve given away lots of free booze and cool stuff (courtesy of @AlaskaAir, @SexyNurd, and @DarkHorseComics) to record-breaking numbers of Beer and Bloggers. Even the staff @LaughingSquid stopped by to join in on the hoopla. Sweet!

Have you been enjoying yourself so far? We hope so!

And now, for our final Friday celebration, we’ve managed to work our way into the schedule of a very special guest who’s heard good things about Beer and Blog and wants to come and celebrated with us: Portland’s own Mayor Sam Adams!

We’re honored by a visit from the Mayor of the city we love so much. We believe it’s the spirit of community that Portland, Oregon is known for that has kept Beer and Blog humming along, growing steady and strong like we have the past two years. Portland is Weird, it’s awesomesauce, and a visit from Sam Adams is pretty much a Seal of Portland Approval in my eyes.

Please join your fellow Beer and Bloggers this Friday at the Green Dragon for the final round of cheers in celebration  of our 2nd year. We’ll start gathering at 4pm as usual, and expect the Mayor around 5:30pm.

A very special W00t! to long-time Beer and Blog supporter Faddah (@yuetsu on the Twitters) for coordinating the introduction to Mayor’s Office

RSVP on Upcoming or get the 411 on Calagator

Whoo-hoo! Our month-long 2nd Anniversary celebration continues!

This Friday at Beer and Blog, Alaska Airlines will provide free snackage for everyone and two drink tickets to the first 40 people who arrive. As usual, our event begins at 4pm at the Green Dragon, so if you have a hankering for freebie booze you should show up close to start time.

Special message, just for Brian M. Westbrook: A sincere bottom-of-our-hearts thanks for making this happen! You rock!

But the Alaska Airlines-sponsored fete isn’t all that’s going on this Friday night.

Almost as if it was fate (and who am I to say it’s not?) the Laughing Squid crew is in Portland this week, and they plan to join us at Beer and Blog for a spell.

What is Laughing Squid? It’s an online resource for art, culture & technology that also provides web hosting services. The Squiddies are having their own party — a PDX Drinkup — this Friday at 7pm at the Lucky Labrador Brew Pub, just down the street from the Green Dragon.

Coincidence? Or FATE?

So, after we’ve exhausted our wonderful Beer and Blog server Lexie, we’ll trek a couple of blocks down to the Lucky Labrador Brew Pub to meet the the Laughing Squid team at their PDX Drinkup.

I hope to see you at Beer and Blog and later on at the PDX Drinkup. Come and say hello!

RSVP on Upcoming or get your deets on Calagator.