Lunch 2.0

Yesterday, about 50 geeks and non-geeks gathered at AboutUs.org in their sweet, newly-remodeled space in the Olympic Mills Commerce Center for the inaugural Portland Lunch 2.0. The event felt very Portland with no formal agenda and no presentations, just a good lunch with good people.

Ray King kicked off the lunch with an introduction. Then Ward Cunningham, the wiki-father, took the chair for a few minutes. Finally, Mark Dilley talked about the Portland chapter of Wiki Wednesday, and we were off to mingle, chat and chomp on pesto sandwiches and pasta. Oh yeah, and Josh Bancroft had an Eee PC to show off to the gadget-hungry.

Check out some pictures from Eddie Awad and Aaron Hockley.

One of the few I took was of Web Worker Daily blogger Jason Harris and his classic geeky name tags. Only at a Lunch 2.0 would you have attendees identifying themselves by name and Twitter handle. Portland has embraced Twitter and has a very active group of tweeters, so I guess this makes sense.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the event, and lots of people asked when the next one was. We’re hoping to keep a regular pace, not every week though. This is Portland. We like to take it easy. Maybe every six weeks, maybe more often if we get lots of requests to host.

Speaking of hosts, Andy Van Oostrum wants to bring the next Portland Lunch 2.0 to eROI. We’re ironing out the details now, probably early April.

If you’re in Portland or interested in the scene here, check out these sites:

• Fast Wonder: Dawn Foster has a hand in just about every techie gathering or event in Portland, including Lunch 2.0 which she helped organized, natch.
• Silicon Florist: Rick Turoczy knows all about the startup scene in Portland.
• Portland on Fire: Raven Zachary set out on a quest to profile a Portlander every day in 2008, not just geeks, but anyone. Very cool stuff that highlights the diversity of the Rose City.

Again, big thanks to Ray, Keith, Mark, Ward and the whole AboutUs crew for their hospitality and swag. Everyone knows you can never have too many coffee mugs, and I’m enjoying this morning’s coffee in my brand new AboutUs mug, w00t!

Upcoming Events

On the heels of the highly successful Ignite Portland 2 and just before Startupalooza, Portland will host its first Lunch 2.0.

Hosts: AboutUs.org

Where: 107 SE Washington Street, Suite 520, Portland, OR 97214

When: February 27, 2008 from 12:00 to 1:30 PM

RSVP on Upcoming.

If you’re not in Portland, but know someone who is, please spread the love. Everyone is invited.
Here’s a blurb on AboutUs:

AboutUs is a wiki whose goal is to create a free and valuable Internet resource containing information both about websites and other community created topics/information. The site was pre-populated with information about many different websites and thousands of updates are now being made by people each day.

For more information, check them out here.

Update: The venue can only hold about 60 people, and we already have 43 attending on Upcoming. So, the guestlist is closed. Never fear, there will be more, bigger, and better Lunch 2.0’s in Portland. 

Upcoming Events

• Tuesday, February 12 - TBA, Mountain View, Silicon Valley
• Thursday, February 14 - Blurb, San Francisco
• Friday, February 15 - blist, Seattle
• Wednesday, February 27 - AboutUs.org, Portland <- This event!
• TBD - Blue Lava Technology, Honolulu, HI