Welcome to the Personal Website of George Michael Huff

May 04 2008

BarCamp Portland

By George Huff

Hello BarCampers, my name is George Huff, but on twitter, my name is georgehuff - nice to meet you.  Over the course of this weekend I attended my first Barcamp.  Well, actually it was my second, but only on the technicality that I caught the tail end party at SXSW in Austin.  This was right before we played Urban Frisbee on the way to another party. Anyhow…

BarCamp is a (geek) conference built like a wiki, we can have a democratic schedule built on the fly.  Want to discuss a topic?  Any topic at all?  Come to BarCamp and paste your topic and name in one of the many timeslots.  At first I decided to be a fly on the wall and sort of take it all in, but then I changed my mind and decided to join up with Bram Piyoto and be an “assistant” presenter where design meets tech.  Hopefully I come across as being less of a jackass than I really am, here’s to hope.

And then came Sunday, while sitting in on a panel discussing hacking existing Wordpress themes I decided to address a need of how to build a theme from scratch. Because I once wrote a post detailing how to simply build a wordpress theme, I decided to build on the basic idea.  But instead of discussing building Eleven3, I discussed my most recent project, HomeSkillet Records.  As I did it last minute, I had a little tiny room with about 8 guests, it may have been light, but it sure was a captive audience! You’re sort of forced to listen with numbers that small - but I hope it was useful for people.

Mmmm Brain Power

Anytime a bunch of geeks get together there is a lot of brain power getting kicked around, so that’s pretty awesome.  What’s great is the general goodwill everyone has.  People are happy to be here and love a chance to have their thoughts and ideas expressed or learn new ones.  Traditionally, other conferences are a little bit idol worshippy feeling, which is fine (cause I am so into Shaun Inman and Jon Hicks), but this one is the opposite.  There are a few “names” here, but generally speaking everyone here is just here to geek out, prettttty awesome.

I had a blast and met many people who I have seen on Twitter - it’s always good to meet people in real life. I am not a stalker.

Popularity: 82% [?]

Comments for BarCamp Portland

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    Chris Coyier May 4th, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    Aw dang! I wish I had known about this prior to this second =) I’m new to Portland am looking to get involved with some social web design activities. Hopefully next time!

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    George Huff May 4th, 2008 at 9:38 pm

    @chris too bad! I know there is another event coming up called ignite Portland put on by the Legion of Tech. Should be a good event.

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    » BarCamp Portland: The Weekend that was - Silicon Florist May 5th, 2008 at 10:17 am

    [...] George Huff “BarCamp Portland“ “Anytime a bunch of geeks get together there is a lot of brain power getting kicked around, so that’s pretty awesome. What’s great is the general goodwill everyone has. People are happy to be here and love a chance to have their thoughts and ideas expressed or learn new ones.” [...]

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    Dawn Foster May 5th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    George, Thanks for leading the session! I think I have a better understanding of how Wordpress themes work. Still doubt that I would ever build one from scratch. I’m just not enough of a CSS ninja for that kind of project :-)

    Nice meeting you!

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    George Huff May 6th, 2008 at 10:06 am

    @dawn - I’m glad you liked it, it was good to meet you too! Looking forward to getting my hands dirty in the Clearspace platform.

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    Aaron May 7th, 2008 at 7:27 am

    Glad you enjoyed yourself and thanks for your offer of help with a future WordCamp. We’ll definitely get something going in the next few months.

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    your prodigy June 21st, 2008 at 11:19 am

    saw those comps for rahzel - fucking sick dude. good seeing you, todd, aj, and jeff at the party.

You Say about BarCamp Portland

Welcome to the Website of Eleven3. I like to build clean websites, period.

This Is George Huff

He is a web designer / entrepreneur / conspirator / blogger / husband living in Portland, Oregon.

When not fully immersed building websites, he runs a record label, writes music, throws a music festival, grows vegetables, and happens to be a huge advocate of his friends and family.

Currently My Latest Twitter

We are looking for one Alaska Airlines companion fare to help pull off our non-profit festival in Sitka, AK. Anyone? (via @hsrecords) 1 day ago Follow Me

Here's the thing...

In May of 2007 I co-founded We the Media with Jeff Reynolds - we wanted to provide an alternative structure to the typical agency model. We found there to be two universal truths we shared.

  1. The most important thing is the work we put out.
  2. The second most important thing are the people we work with.

Once we had this gauged, we set out to bring in talented people who wanted the flexibility of freelancing with the steadiness of a typical 9-5pm job. We're constantly working on making the model work - but so far, we've been very happy.

Since every drop of my sweat goes into building We the Media, it only seemed appropriate you view my (our) work there.

Contact how can I help ya?

I am always open for work - but not always available. Say hello if you have a project that would be of interest. Cheers.

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