Ken Westin and GadgetTrak land in Forbes
If there’s one thing Portland needs it’s a site dedicated to local tech startups and their accomplishments, especially the ones that get noticed in national and international media. Once upon a time we had such a thing, we’re unsure what happened to it.
If such a site did exist though, they’d undoubtedly have mentioned that Portland startup GadgetTrak made the pages of Forbes yesterday in an article titled “To Shame A Thief”. In the article, writer Kashmir Hill describes the electronics antitheft software business and compares GadgetTrak’s offering favorably against its competitors. What’s more, Forbes even elected to use GadgetTrak founder Ken Westin as the poster boy for the article, despite the fact that GadgetTrak has a much smaller subscriber base than some of the competition.
According to data provided by Hill, GadgetTrak currently enjoys 150,000 subscribers.
Posted: October 6, 2011 Filed under: Miscellany, News | Tags: forbes, gadgettrak, ken westin
Movers & Shakers: Stephanie El-Hajj Fired From SAO
We’ve received word this morning that Stephanie El-Hajj, Director of Programs, Media and Marketing at the Software Association of Oregon has been relieved of her duties.
As you might know, El-Hajj was the primary voice behind the @SAOpdx Twitter profile and was most recently instrumental in organizing the very well received SAO TechIgnite! event a few weeks back despite early criticisms. TechIgnite! was one of the few SAO sponsored events in recent memory that catered to the local tech community rather than the corporate interests of the SAO board.
El-Hajj’s dismissal comes not even one week after new SAO President Skip Newberry’s first day on the job, leading us to speculate that the SAO board of directors continue to be volatile, out of touch, and difficult to work with.
UPDATED (7:59AM October 6th, 2011): As of 8AM this morning the SAO website still lists El-Hajj as an employee and doesn’t appear to have been updated. Of further note is that Skip Newberry is still not listed on the site in his role as president.
SAO Staff Page
Posted: October 6, 2011 Filed under: Announcements, Movers & Shakers | Tags: sao, skip newberry, software association of oregon, Stephanie El-Hajj, techignite
Movers & Shakers: Justin Kistner
Photo by Aaron Hockley
The allure of San Francisco seems too much to resist these days.
One week it’s one of Portland’s least likely to succeed, this week it’s one of our best and brightest (or at least bloggerist and beerist.)
You might know him as Product Manager of Social over at Webtrends, it’s more likely that you know him as the founder of Beer and Blog. Whatever the case, Portland is losing Justin Kistner.
If you haven’t been to Beer and Blog for awhile, don’t miss this one and your chance to wish Justin happy trails.
Posted: September 29, 2011 Filed under: Movers & Shakers, News | Tags: Beer and Blog, Justin Kistner, Webtrends
Wishing @skipnewberry well on his first day!
Despite the fact that he’s not yet listed on the SAO website, Skip Newberry went to work today in his new position as President of the Software Association of Oregon.
We at Silicon Lumberjack extend our warmest wishes of good luck to Skip. As the sixth president in seven years, SAO has proven to be a difficult beast to deal with, even for the most hardened and capable of leaders.
Will Mr. Newberry have what it takes to reshape SAO?
He’d better. By our estimate he has only about 222 days to prove his worth, not counting weekends. That leaves Skip with a scant 7.5 days of undivided attention for each of the approximately thirty ego-driven SAO board members* and their respective agendas.
Funnily enough, as of this writing Skip is still listed on the Meet the Staff page of Portland Mayor Sam Adams, a post he was to have left before starting with SAO. Strange how neither one managed to adjust their web pages with any sort of diligence.
*We at Silicon Lumberjack recognize that not every SAO board member is ego-driven
Posted: September 29, 2011 Filed under: News | Tags: portland, Sam Adams, sao, skip newberry, software association of oregon
Ken Westin punches kittens or something.
SHOCKING!
GadgetTrak CEO and Founder Ken Westin posted a Tweet on Monday openly requesting that we at Silicon Lumberjack mislead the public.
The Tweet (shown below) was almost immediately deleted but we have secured proof of the request after it was delivered to our Gmail inbox thanks to Twitter. It turns out that those email notifications can be useful sometimes.
It sounds like Westin might have been mistaken for one of us Lumberjacks after we passed on some props last week. While we cannot confirm or deny whether or not Westin really abuses cats, we can state for the record and offer proof that he is not Silicon Lumberjack.
Below is a photo of Westin and Silicon Lumberjack from a publicity shoot some months ago. This should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are in fact two different people.
We’ll report back with an update if we turn up any hard evidence on that kitten punching claim.
Posted: September 29, 2011 Filed under: Rumors | Tags: abuse, gadgettrak, ken westin, kittens
GadgetTrak featured by Kim Komando on Fox News
We’ve been following Ken Westin and his startup GadgetTrak since the beginning. We think GadgetTrak is one of the best examples of a successful Portland tech startup out there and it comes as no surprise to us when Westin & Co. end up everywhere on the news and on the web.
Kim Komando, host of the nation’s largest tech talk radio show, featured GadgetTrak today as “Cool Site of the Day” over at Fox News, with focus on how GadgetTrak can help track down stolen cameras. As if that weren’t enough, CPUsage got a nice little plug too in the accompanying screenshot.
Not too shabby.
Portland tech startup gurus take note. Make a worthwhile product and the rest of the world will notice.
And you don’t even have to give W+K a cut.
Posted: September 23, 2011 Filed under: Miscellany | Tags: cpusage, fox news, gadgettrak, ken westin, kim komando
Movers & Shakers: Forkfly
It might seem like we at Silicon Lumberjack have been hibernating. Rest assured dear readers, the truth is much the opposite!
We cap off the end of a busy week in Portland tech with news that Forkfly, that silly merchant discount startup that just won’t die, has moved out of their digs on NW 6th and Flanders. Our sources say that the creators of the featherbrained and lackluster mobile app that no one uses has relocated to a more affordable space a few blocks away. We assume that this move was necessary to cut down on overhead.
Speaking of Forkfly’s overhead, another unnamed source has told us that the Senior Software Engineer job that’s graced the Forkfly JOBS page for awhile now might not be worth looking into. Our source tells us “you’d probably make more money bussing tables at Red Robin”, ouch!
Update (12:49PM – Friday, Sep 23, 2011)
Another unnamed source clarifies ”they are going to go ahead and keep paying for this space here as well as the new one. They have money.”
We’re thinking maybe Forkfly ought to worry more about getting their awful merchant partnerships squared away instead of moving to a new physical space. A two star rating on the iTunes app store is lethal enough but when you look over the reviews it’s hard to imagine anyone taking Forkfly seriously these days. Of course no one ever said lame brained ideas were sound investments.
Posted: September 23, 2011 Filed under: Movers & Shakers | Tags: app, discount, forkfly, mobile, portland, start up
Opus Interactive in trouble?
We’ve received numerous tips since Monday that Portland-based web hosting provider Opus Interactive might be in trouble.
Three tipsters have contacted us to express their concern that the company is feeling the strain of bad economic conditions, one went as far as to suggest that the (not so) sudden interest in cloud services might have caught the upper management at Opus Interactive off-guard and without an adequate strategy. Said the source…
“…ever since Mark [Brody] stepped aside to make way for Eric [Hulbert] in the CEO position, things haven’t been run as smoothly. A few of us have started shopping around to see what else is out there because the future isn’t looking very bright. Most of the other local and national players in the space are killing us because we’ve had trouble maintaining a competitive edge in the cloud.”
Whether or not Opus is truly in trouble, or whether a handful of their employees is simply unhappy with management, is up in the air. We’re trying to find out more and we’ll update and bump this post as additional information becomes available.
Posted: September 15, 2011 Filed under: Rumors | Tags: cloud, hosting, opus interactive, portland, Rumors, web services
Portland broadband plan is little more than a plan to make a plan – and it cost $65,000
You’ve got to hand it to the Portland city council. Several months and many thousands of dollars later, they’ve finally approved a plan to commit absolutely no commitments to the cause of boosting the Portland area Internet speeds and making access more affordable.
Yes folks, you read that correctly. The council voted 4-0 today (Mayor Sam Adams is playing “Meet the Mayor” over in NYC) to “promote collaboration with industry leaders and suggest Portland use existing resources to extend broadband’s reach” and that means nearly nothing – despite eight months of effort and the expenditure of some $65,000.
The new plan includes such awesome goals as…
“…establishing a broadband map, exploring a ‘dig once’ standard for laying fiber-optic cable whenever street work is done, and pushing the city itself to demonstrate how fast Internet connections can improve communication and responsiveness.”
That sure sounds completely useless to us, but what do you think? Is the current city council doing enough? And given a choice, would you rather see faster speeds or more affordable access?
Posted: September 14, 2011 Filed under: News, Opinion | Tags: broadband plan, internet access, mayor sam adams, portland, portland city council
So many events, so little time
If you’re in the Portland technology, media or creative industries, or if you’re like many Portlanders and work in a combination of those industries, then you’ve probably got a pretty full calendar in the next few days. With four worthwhile events coming up in the next four days, we want to know what your priorities are.
What events are you attending this week?
- WordCamp Portland (46%, 43 Votes)
- SAO TechIgnite! (29%, 27 Votes)
- SEMpdx Rooftop Networking Party (13%, 12 Votes)
- Portland Creative Conference (13%, 12 Votes)
Total Voters: 94
Loading ...But that’s not all. We’d also like to know what you thought of any of the four events above after you attended them. Please send along your comments and critiques to siliconlumberjack@gmail.com. We’re attending a couple of them ourselves and would like to compare notes.
Posted: September 14, 2011 Filed under: Miscellany | Tags: pdx events, portland, portland creative conference, rooftop party, sao techignite, sempdx, word camp pdx
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