-Jason

We had 10 people attend on October 1st. Here’s a review written by Salem Man from salemites.com, the most advanced blogging site in Salem:

http://www.salemites.com/2009/10/local-blogging.html

The next one is Thursday November 5. We’d love to have you return and see the progress for yourself.

Maybe Taptu would consider reinvigorating Salem Beer and Blog with free beer and a demo on November 5? 20 oz. imperial pints of locally-brewed Seven Brides are only $4.

Thanks for all you do for the Salem tech scene. Your input is valuable and welcomed. I’m active in 3 of the 4 Salem blogging groups and will attend the business networking one next month. Salem Tribe had an excellent premiere and should prove valuable in strengthening the network.

Have fun in Portland tonight!

I just now saw this post and I can definitely echo every sentiment you had about the Salem Beer and Blog event.

It was definitely a “Whatever” type of event that had a very weird vibe and tone.

In my opinion, BnB is a VERY easy event to put on as long as you have some basic components. 1) some type of theme or reason to gather that is blogging focused, 2) a PUBLIC place that has beer – optimally a bar of some sort (WiFi is nice to have) and 3) a regular interval. The interval can be weekly or bi-weekly, just make it regular. Every other Thursday – the 2nd and 4th Wednesday — whatever.

The Salem beer and blog occurs on random days at what feels like is some dude’s house. It is BYOB (which was not communicated) and just random.

Anyways – I hope the thing gets reinvigorated. In the meantime, Salem Tribe seems like it’s a lot of fun.

I will try to get back to the next Beer and Blog. I find it’s a good place to ask questions and maybe find out about new blogging/twitter/social media type tools. I’ll also try to help advertise it if I remember.

Salemites turned out some good ideas for me last night, so that was cool.

Hope to see you all at the next (undead) Beer and Blog!

Ross, glad to hear that my rumor is greatly exaggerated!

Like I said, there’s plenty of room for tech forums in town, always has been. It’s great that people are finally doing things like this again. With all the activity, it’s pretty obvious that a threshold has been reached.

Everyone is still always welcome at the fifth monthly Salem Beer and Blog on Thursday October 1 at the f-stop 335 Grove St NE.

Taking Rob’s advice about the necessity of defending a reputation against negative blogging, I’d say that the rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated

After pushing for 5 years and witnessing the predictable ebb and flow of interest/participation, Beer and Blog is typical of Salem involvement. Huge interest upfront, participation drop off, grumbling, fragmentation, apathy, playing video games alone in the dark at home. The cycle is the same in Portland, just stretched out a little more. Full Moon Society, the Pint, Teleport, SMUG, D3, Art Spark, B&B. I’ve been networking in salem and pdx for 20 years now and have seen everything come and go.

And I’m guilty of flaking too. The last two meetings I was reeling in pdx arts and culture big wigs our way. Managed to land Live Wire last Saturday. For my effort, that’s more valuable for Salem’s self-image than talking Raven Zachary to come down here for 5 people.

After watching the numbers go 20-10-5 and seeing no real interest in planning or sharing the load, what’s the point? salemtribe can get wordcamp down here. Ike Box has no beer. Salemites can get a steady 15 head turnout. The next one is Sept 21 at the Beanery. That seems like a good blogging group. At least there’s beer at the Beanery.

I’ll keep plugging at B&B, regardless of the turnout. It’s a matter of self-education for me. I finally figured out wild card DNS for wordpress and will slowly and steadily grow the network that way. With everything on my plate, family and work need attention too. Just like everyone else.

What do you choose to make a priority? Flushing out the state tech workers? Feeding a blogging portal? Recruiting SAO? I’ve got the platform to do all those. Just no time. Where’s the polling, online crowd sourcing? Help me out people. I’m just one guy, muddling through this tech jungle, learning by doing. It’s been that way with everything.

How about this Thursday, September 17 at 7 pm at the f-stop? We finally have the HD screen up internet access and wifi, so we can do presentations. Who has one? We can go through the wordpress thingy, now that I almost know what I’m doing. In fact, email me and I’ll get you rolling right now.
To those that have stuck it out, thanks. To everyone else, you’re always more than welcome to stop by and show us what ya got. There’s plenty of room for that in Salem.
We could rename it Zombie Beer and Blog.

The next Ignite is October 15 at Northern Lights. Anyone want to present or help organize?

I agree that the promotion and organizing have been almost non-existent after the first meeting (ironic, given how much effort has continuously been put into improving the space).

The organizer is (in my opinion, I’ve never heard him say this) taking a Johnny Appleseed approach to a huge number of things: He puts the effort in up front, and then follows up based on excitement and feedback he gets. People are visibly excited about his film festivals, music festivals, pub crawls, downtown improvement, etc, and he pours a bunch of time into those.

Us technos, tending toward being quiet in person, probably haven’t given him the feedback he needs to fuel his particular super engine of activity. We can critique if that’s good or bad, but it won’t change what’s generally worked for him.

Ross has shown no sign of having control issues, so I think the best thing for the tech community would be you or one of the energetic blog-nuts-and-bolts guys to just say to him, “I’d like a free hand to organize and promote the next several meetings and maybe take over indefinitely if it works out.” We shouldn’t try to fragment the Salem Tech community before it’s even started, and any effort would go better with his huge network supporting, if not leading it.