ThinkShout

Seating is limited, please plan to arrive early to ensure a seat!

We are hosting an event to further the cause of inclusivity, focused on gender. By attending, you’ll earn talking points about why gender-inclusive software matters to your business, to our society, and to everyone. You will leave with an idea of how to achieve it in your own software with a practical and freely available method called GenderMag. We will also discuss ideas about how you can help make software more inclusive to diversity of thought. This event is suitable for anyone who helps shape software (software managers, software developers, UXers, tech CEOs, tech CIOs, ...)

About the speaker: Margaret Burnett is an OSU Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University. She began her career in industry, where she was the first woman software developer ever hired at Procter & Gamble Ivorydale. A few degrees and shattered glass ceilings later, she joined academia, with a research focus on people who are engaged in some form of software development. Burnett is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, a member of the ACM CHI Academy, and an award-winning mentor. She is also on the Academic Alliance Advisory Board of the National Center for Women In Technology (NCWIT).

Recent podcast interview with Burnett: http://www.changingacademiclife.com/blog/2017/7/5/margaret-burnett

This is a method for de-marginalizing one aspect of tech.

Agenda:

6:00: Talk
6:30: Q&A
7:15: Networking

Event FAQ:

Q: Will there be gender neutral restrooms?

A: Yes

Q: Is the space ADA accessible?

A: Yes

Q: Where there be food and drink at this event?

A: Yes

Q: What is the parking situation?
A: Paid street parking. Generally, not a problem to find space.

Q: Is there secured bike parking?
A: Yes.

Q: Should I consider using public transportation?
A: We are on Max and Trimet making public transportation an easy option.

Q: I have a pet allergy. Will office pets be present at the host’s space?
A: Office pets *may* be present.

Purpose: PDXWIT is a community-based non-profit organization. Our purpose is to strengthen the Portland women in tech community by offering educational programs, partnerships, mentorships, resources and opportunities. We are unifying a supportive environment for current and potential women in tech, all of whom are committed to helping each other. Our goal is to bring together and empower women in tech and to encourage others to pursue tech careers. This is our step towards reducing the gender imbalance in the industry and addressing the current negative effects of that imbalance on women.

Our events are inclusive. ALL people who support our purpose are welcome.

RSVP on Eventbrite

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. In Daring Greatly, based on twelve years of pioneering research, Dr. Brené Brown dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.

Similarly, in Being Wrong, journalist Kathryn Schulz argues that error is the fundamental human condition and should be celebrated as such. In this view, error is both a given and a gift – one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves.

Daring Greatly and Being Wrong were made for each other. Join Deeple Patel and Melody Dawn for a discussion and exploration of these two powerful books and their endless takeaways. Most of us avoid the topics of being wrong and vulnerable, but these two authors have laid out the undeniable reasons for why it is so beneficial for us to push past this fear and discomfort. Whether you read one, both or some portion of these books, you are welcome in the conversation.

Come ready to share your unique perspective and learn from others’ experiences.

PDXWIT is a community-based non-profit organization. Our purpose is to strengthen the Portland women in tech community by offering: educational programs, partnerships, mentorships, resources and opportunities. We are unifying a supportive environment for current and potential women in tech, all of whom are committed to helping each other. Our goal is to bring together and empower women in tech and to encourage others to pursue tech careers. This is our step towards reducing the gender imbalance in the industry and addressing the current negative effects of that imbalance on women.

This month's Portland Drupal User Group will be hosted by ThinkShout (433 NW 4th Ave. Ste 100).

Join us at 6pm on Wednesday, January 13, 2016 for pizza and beverages and get to know folks in Portland's thriving Drupal community. All Drupal experience levels are welcome, including newcomers to Drupal.

This month's topic: Getting Started with Drupal 8 and Theming

Joe Komenda will present on Composer-based Drupal 8 installation and theme setup.

Lightning Talks

Bring your 5-minute-or-less Drupal 8 tips related to Installation, Composer, or Theming and we'll have a round of "D8 Lightning Tips" after Joe's presentation. Sign-up sheet will be available at the meetup.

Join us for happy hour at ThinkShout! No specific agenda, just network and have fun! Make sure you say hi to Amy Vaillancourt-Sals, a developer at ThinkShout. Read our April newsletter to learn more about Amy!

PDX Women in Tech exists to celebrate professional women in the Portland-metro area who work with, manage, lead or have an interest in technology. Whether you are developing event-driven, non-blocking applications in node.js or setting technology strategy for a Fortune 500 company - or anythin gin between - come join us!

Join us January 21st at 6:30pm!

Our TopicVirgin America. The New York Times. Apple. All three are design leaders and have beautiful websites.

Unbeknownst to many of us, they also have gigantic design teams, amazing product or content, and seemingly unlimited budgets - things most of us designers don’t have.

After spending several years designing large-scale responsive websites for Fortune 500 companies with mega-budgets, I now specialize in design for progressive non-profit organizations. The good news is that we can still create kick-ass design for any budget as long as we utilize solid design fundamentals, great communication, and a few tricks up our sleeves.

Some points that I’ll be covering in this talk are: How to effectively iterate on concepts Time-sucks in the design process and how to fix them Great time-saving open source tools Better communication with developers and clients

Our Presenter, Josh Riggs Josh started his UX design career back in ’02 just like most other designers - by creating a website for his metal band. Since then, he’s been a designer for various interactive agencies, a mega health care conglomerate, and an entertainment-focused Drupal consultancy.

He’s currently the Lead UX Designer at Portland-based ThinkShout, where he puts his design skills to work for non-profit organizations doing good in the world. Originally from Florida, Josh was lured to Portland by Pok Pok’s chicken wings and Blue Star’s donuts. He likes cold weather, long-exposure photography, and has a female dog named Frank.

Our Venue, ThinkShout Thanks to ThinkShout for hosting us this month! They are located at 433 NW 4th Ave, Portland OR 97209, Suite 100.

Discover a whole ecosystem of open source software for accomplishing just about any task on your computer for free! Attending this workshop could save your nonprofit agency thousands of dollars.

Noah Kleiman of Secret Knowledge will take you on a whirlwind software safari focusing on applications useful to nonprofit staff. Including, but not limited to: Photo Editors (think "free Photoshop"), Desktop Publishing (think "free Indesign"), Vector Graphics (think "free Illustrator"), Word processing, and spreadsheet applications (free "Office"). Noah will invite attendee requests, perform impromptu demonstrations, and offer relentlessly practical advice.

We'll hear advice from two local experts about how to tell stories using visuals as well as how to manage your organization's digital inventory, legal issues around images, and camera/software tips.

Growing Your Digital Media and Protecting It

While being the first-ever Executive Communications Manager for a national child welfare nonprofit, Kristy Alberty hit the ground running to learn brand management and to better develop the organization's strategy to use photographs to tell their story. She is now a firm believer in encouraging nonprofit organizations to create and maintain a digital photo library to call their own for communications, development, print, and online usage. 

Her presentation will cover different facets of this concept: First, why should I care about this, followed by some digital photography basics, sources of photographs, organizing your digital library, how to organize a photo shoot, tips to obtain photos on an ongoing basis, and basic legal issues to remember. 

Visual Storytelling

Social media is visual media. Research confirms what many Tech4Good folks know from experience: photos are the quickest way to get views, likes, and shares on Facebook. But our supporters' screens are littered with photos from friends, families, and causes they care about. There are 55 million pictures uploaded to Instagram every day! How can we make sure ours stand out? Resource Media pored over cognitive research and interviewed some of the smartest nonprofit and corporate markets we know to compile a list of visual communications best practices. I'll share the top take-aways from our research, and ideas for testing images with your own community. For a sneak peek at what I'll be covering, check out www.visualstorylab.org.

 

Presenters

Born and raised in Oklahoma, Kristy Alberty (BA in News Communication) has been a freelance writer, prepress designer, and recent, was the first Executive Communications Manager for the National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), headquartered in Portland, from 2005 to 2012. She is currently looking for another exciting nonprofit adventure to continue her communications, and brand management skills.

Nicole Lampe has worked in nonprofit communications for over a decade, on issues ranging from education to conservation and public health. She started her career in the days of the fax machine, but is now as likely to pitch a reporter on Twitter as by phone. As head of digital at Resource Media—a nonprofit PR firm that helps good causes win—Nicole's work ranges from hyper local campaigns to international work with UNESCO. 

Venue Sponsor

"At ThinkShout, we are more than the code we write. We may be geeks, but we're geeks with lots of heart and we are committed to producing sustainable, open source solutions for people who are making lasting social change." 

Agenda

Networking and refreshments 6pm-6:30pm

Presentation 6:30pm-7:45pm

Additional Q&A and networking 7:45pm-8pm

 

Accessibility

Mobility Access: The main entrance on Glisan opens right into the ThinkShout office and there is one step. However, there's a side entrance on 4th that is wheelchair accessible. If using that entrance, dial 001 on the keypad to be buzzed in.

Hearing Access: We will not have access to a PA system.

Sight Access: We will use either a large monitor or a projector for presentations.

We want everyone to be able to participate in the PDXTech4Good community and events. Please don't hesitate to let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.

Parking & Transportation

There's a large paid parking lot next to ThinkShout on 4th and Glisan as well as another across the street. There's also lots of street parking.

ThinkShout is close to the MAX, streetcar, and several bus lines.

Is your donor data managed by a handful of systems that perform well for data entry tasks but that are inadequate for deep analysis especially over the long term? Or are you adept at querying your donor and gift management systems, but is doing so a laborious and time consuming task? Do you have multiple versions of the truth, and do they all compete for the attention of fundraisers and decision makers?

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? Do you lack the ability to query and explore your fundraising data in an efficient, authoritative, and insightful manner?

Using the tools and techniques of business intelligence, you can gain actionable insight about your donors and make your fundraising efforts more effective. In this session, I will demonstrate how you can use the Microsoft SQL Server business intelligence platform to create a powerful reporting solution, explore your donor file in highly interactive ways, and discover new opportunities for fundraising.

What is Business Intelligence? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence

Why do you need Business Intelligence? http://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2013/03/why-you-need-business-intelligence/

Stop by for discussion, networking with the nonprofit tech crowd, and refreshments!

Presenter

Based in Portland, Gregory Gross develops database and business intelligence solutions primarily on the Microsoft SQL Server database platform. His specialties include transactional database development, data integration and migration, and data reporting and analytics. He has experience in the health care, environment regulation, and nonprofit philanthropy. You can read more about Gregory on his website, www.gregorygross.com.

 

Agenda

Networking and refreshments 6pm-6:30pm

Presentation 6:30pm-7:45pm

Community announcements and networking 7:45pm-8pm

 

Accessibility

Mobility Access: The main entrance on Glisan opens right into the ThinkShout office and there is one step. However, there's a side entrance on 4th that is wheelchair accessible. If using that entrance, dial 001 on the keypad to be buzzed in.

Hearing Access: We will not have access to a PA system.

Sight Access: We will use either a large monitor or a projector for presentations.

We want everyone to be able to participate in the PDXTech4Good community and events. Please don't hesitate to let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.

 

Parking & Transportation

There's a large paid parking lot next to ThinkShout on 4th and Glisan as well as another across the street. There's also lots of street parking.

ThinkShout is close to the MAX, streetcar, and several bus lines.

 

What you'll get out of PDXTech4Good events

Nonprofit staffers will find a friendly, welcoming atmosphere for those not experienced with technology, and many chances to ask questions of tech-experienced nonprofits and experts.

Techies will find opportunities to hear the real-world stories of nonprofit clients, and put their own expertise to social good — as well as the potential for lasting relationships (be they paid or volunteer) with leading organizations in our community.

Activists and community organizers will see and be given the chance to present on successful uses of technology for social change. We'll explore how technology can help support activism and where activism can push it forward.

This is the inaugural meeting of The Portland Data Science Group. Portia Burton will give a talk on what is 'data science', and highlight some cool tools and resources to help you get started with data mining, and visualization. The rest of the time will be spent working on projects.