[PLUG] Promoting Portland at OSCON

[Denis Heidtmann]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Russell Senior
<russell at personaltelco.net>wrote:

> >>>>> "Michael" == Michael Dexter <dexter at ambidexter.com> writes:
>
> Michael> Hello all,
>
> Michael> A few of us talked about OSCON after the meeting last
> Michael> night. PLUG will have one of the few dot org booths available
> Michael> and we concluded that one of the best things we can do is to
> Michael> promote Portland as a technology and community venue. I
> Michael> envision a tri-fold brochure with categorized lists of
> Michael> highlights and resources.
>
> Michael> Some great suggestions were made last night and I invite you
> Michael> to brain dump your own ideas either to the list or me
> Michael> directly.
>
> Michael> http://epdx.org offers some ideas but many are not open
> Michael> source-related or in Portland. To kick things off in no
> Michael> particular order:
>
> Michael> Small size with big-city industry Calagator/user group scene
> Michael> No sales tax OSB and OSCON Free Geek Drupal Foundation Puppet
> Michael> Labs Walmart Labs Japanese Gardens Chinese Gardens Powell's
> Michael> Books Foodcarts Coffee and beer OMSI Intel Outdoors
> Michael> activities Good public transportation Friendly environment
> Michael> Award-winning airport
>
> Personal Telco Project (or, free wifi, generally)
>
> I don't travel enough to compare Portland first-hand to other places.
> At one time I heard that free wifi was relatively rare in other
> cities.  Although we didn't directly create most of the free wifi
> networks in town, we like to take credit for early advocacy and
> action, and helping creating the expectation that wifi networks here
> should be open and free to the end-user.
>

I was just in the Huston airport--no free wifi (except that for a time an
advertiser was offering 45 minutes free.)

>
> I can tell you that PTP is one of the biggest and most active
> community wireless networking projects left in the US.  Small compared
> to projects in Europe, but this isn't Europe.  We also have crappy
> public transportation and health insurance systems.
>

Compared to what?  Who is We?

>
> We've been offered a booth at OSCON, though we need to get the
> contract in to them in the next few days.
> --
> Russell Senior, President
> russell at personaltelco.net


-Denis