Portland Development Commission Hosts a Who’s Who Lunch 2.0 Portland

I would like give thanks to the Portland Development Commission (PDC) for hosting a great Lunch 2.0 yesterday.

This event turned out to be a “Who’s Who” in Portland.

For those of you who want to know more about PDC here is their vision and mission.

PDC’s Vision…
The Portland Development Commission’s Vision is to be a catalyst for positive change in the creation of a world-class 21st Century city; a city in which economic prosperity, quality housing and employment opportunities are available to all.

& Mission…
Our Mission is to bring together resources to achieve Portland’s vision of a diverse, sustainable community with healthy neighborhoods, a vibrant central city, a strong regional economy, and quality jobs and housing for all.

Here are just a small sampling of the people who were there yesterday.

Shirley de Rose (speaker and marketing coach) and Carri Bugbee (Public Relations and Social Media) even stopped their conversation and posed for me to take a quick picture.

Taylor Ellwood

Steve Gehlen

Amber Case

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Lunch 2.0 Portland Hosted by the Portland Development Commission is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

WebVisions Hosts Lunch 2.0 at Hot Pepper Studios Today Wednesday April 14th at Noon

We will be heading out to Lunch 2.0 today. Lunch 2.0. Our host will be Brad Smith at Hot Pepper Studios, 3377 SE Division St., Suite 104, Portland, OR 97202 at noon.

WebVisions Lunch 2.0 Portland

• “A social phenomenon referring to a migration of web 2.0 company employees to other offices around the Portland area; characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share food and ideas…”
• “The lunch as a conversation.”
• “Welcome to Lunch 2.0… you are now free to eat around Portland.”
• “Taste the buzz”
• Web 2.0 backlash

Brad is the visionary and driving force behind WebVisions. This year WebVisions is celebrating their 10th anniversary.

WebVisions this year is being held May 19th thru May 21st at the Oregon Convention Center.

I have actually been able to procure a discount for all my readers to this year’s Webvisions.

Tomorrow is the last day for submissions for the highly coveted WebVisionary awards. Each year Webvisions honors the most visionary, daring, and curious talent on the web by awarding them with a miniature robot. So get your robot in gear and submit today!

I’ll see you at both today’s Lunch 2.0 and WebVisions.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Lunch 2.0 Today at Hot Pepper Studios The Founders of WebVisions is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Anthony Bourdain, Apizza Scholls, Voodoo Doughnut, and the Flu

Sitting next to the sliding glass door to the deck watching the drizzle and working on my computer. Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations “Pacific Northwest” rerun from 2007 playing in the background. I never thought the mundane could feel so good and bland food taste so good…

Getting ready for the next post in the series for “Firefox Web Browsers, SEO Tools of the Trade” I decided I would just give you some insight in to the life of the reborn SEO. For last 2 weeks I have been in and out of my body. This flu that is going around is devastating. It is a good thing I have a great crew. It hits you like a brain wipe. Wait a minute Voodoo Doughnuts is being visited by Tony, distraction ensues…

Voodoo Doughnut is located both on the West and East side of Portland. Voodoo Doughnut, 22 SW 3rd Avenue Portland Oregon and Voodoo Doughnut Too!, 1501 N.E. Davis St. in Portland Oregon. Tony is sampling the maple bar with bacon… Yum even a doughnut looks good today!
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
OK back to my flu story. In 2 weeks I lost 21 pounds. I wouldn’t suggest any one use this as a diet but 21 pounds in 2 weeks isn’t bad. Now back to the brain wipe… this stuff would cause my attention span to be non existent. I had trouble keeping one thought more than a few seconds. Wait… Tony is talking about PIZZA the world’s most perfect food…

Tony is at Apizza Scholls one of Portland’s the Worlds best pizza crafters. Apizza Sholls is located at 4741 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Portland, Oregon. At Apizza Scholls the dough is made by hand and contains only flour, water, salt and yeast. The pizzas are cooked on hot ovens 650º F – 900ºF. How tasty… Because the process of fermenting the dough takes over 24 hours it is possible that some days they actually run out of dough. A pizza would go great now…

Oh back to the flu story… I’m finally over it and am enjoying flavorful food again. This stuff is devastating. The only way I survived is by drinking sips of water every chance I got and keeping warm. I hope you don’t have a personal experience with it.

Late.
Gary Pool

Finally Back from the Dead or Should I say Flu is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I Take My Hat off to Chef Chris of Baked Alaska Fine Dining & Public House

On our trip to Astoria, Oregon my wife Shirley de Rose ran across an article in an Oregon Coast magazine on Chef Christopher Holen of Baked Alaska. So we decided we had to visit Chris and his restaurant.

What an enjoyable dining experience. I would recommend Baked Alaska to anyone looking for some great atmosphere and better food on the Northern Oregon Coast.

Baked Alaska was born in the spring of 2000 and was originally the concept of Chef Christopher Holen, used in mock culinary school projects such as Menus, Business Plans etc. In June of 2000 the ideas spawned a real business plan and school externship.

The Baked Alaska Fine Dining & Public House story.

Tough Decisions

Lunch was exquisite.
I chose the Broiled Pacific Sea Scallops over fresh black pepper linguini. Tossed with Fuji apples, fennel and ginger in a light champagne sauce.

Shirley decided on the Crab and Mushrooms Sambuca Carbonara. Crimini and oyster mushrooms sauteed with sweet onions, bacon, garlic, parsley, and crab meat. In a light Sambucca cream sauce over fresh fettucini in a light saffron

Baked Alaska?

Yes, for desert we did choose the Half Baked Alaska.
The Half Baked Alaska is their signature dessert featuring a double chocolate chip cookie baked fresh in a cast iron skillet and topped with vanilla ice cream, walnuts, and chocolate sauce. It arrived at our table flaming with brandy. And as billed this wonderful desert was really perfect for sharing!

We had a very enjoyable lunch and plan on returning to Baked Alaska on our next visit to Astoria.

I am talking about this restaurant not only for their great atmosphere and food but we can all learn a lesson or two from their marketing.

I just love their tag line “Baked Alaska, where the only thing we overlook is the Columbia River!“. And they deliver on their promises. A catchy tag line is only as good as what you do with it. If your tag line makes promises you had better deliver or all you will have is a catchy phrase and disappointed clientele.

Chris offers catering, cooking classes, and even has a kitchen supply store in the front of the building stuffed with everything you will need for your own dish creations.

Late,
Gary Pool

Baked Alaska in Astoria Oregon is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Has the Lunch 2.0 Networking and Informational Lunch Hour Come to an End?

Yesterday I visited with the Portland Lunch 2.0 networking crowd at what was billed as possibly the last Lunch 2.0 event in town due to the economic downturn. This Lunch 2.0 was held at the Elemental Headquarters on 5th Avenue downtown.

Portland Lunch 2.0 has received a temporary stay of execution from Elemental Technologies.

I joke, but seriously, either interest has dried up or the idea of giving 100 or so people free grub doesn’t seem as good as it did last year. Surprise.

The folks at Elemental put together a nice spread which included build your own roast beef, turkey, ham, cheddar, Monterey jack, and Swiss on sliced bagel sandwiches. They also supplied the full compliment of veggies and dressings for the sandwiches as well as a real nice build your own salad selection.

After a session of lunch and networking Elemental gave us a very informative presentation on some of their products.

• Elemental Server
  An enterprise-class video processing system that provides fast, high-quality, and highly-efficient video transcoding using graphics processing units (GPUs). Ideal for broadcasters, studios, online video platforms and any other video transcoding application, Elemental Server is significantly more cost-effective than other solutions.
• Elemental Accelerator
  A high-speed, high-quality video processing solution designed to add power and performance to the Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS4 workflow. Coupled with NVIDIA Quadro series cards, Elemental Accelerator harnesses the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) to perform high-speed video conversion and deliver dramatic time savings over conventional CPU-only encoding solutions.
• BADABOOM
  A consumer media converter that is designed to get video onto your iPod, PSP or Blackberry Bold in just minutes.

Elemental touted as:

Elemental is the leader in massively parallel video processing technologies.

We’ve pioneered the use of GPUs and other massively parallel chips for video processing. Leveraging our core technology, Elemental products deliver unprecedented levels of speed, quality, and price performance for a wide range of video decoding, encoding, and transcoding applications.

It was a fine lunch hour with interesting networking and an even more interesting presentation. The presentation, by the way, was standing room only.

A big round of
applause
for
Elemental
please.

Maybe another business in town will step up to the plate for next month?

Late,
Gary Pool

Final Lunch 2.0 Networking in Portland is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Chance to dress up in your summer dresses and short hair styles to attend the end of the summer party of the year for Dress for Success

This last weekend my lovely wife Shirley and I attended a great event put on by MakeoverPDX for the benefit of Dress for Success Portland, OR. The event was held at Blackbird Farms in Beaverton, Oregon. The evening was fun filled and full of inspirational stories, live entertainment, food, wine, and cocktails.

MakeoverPDX Mission

MakeoverPDX is a charitable cosmetic program designed to inspire and give confidence to individuals in need. We have chosen to partner with Dress for Success for our first ever makeover event. With help from Dress for Success, three women have been selected to receive professional aesthetic, dental and salon services. Our hope is to educate, encourage and guide these women in their efforts to make positive life changes.

The MakeoverPDX Team consists of:

• Derek F. Norcom, MD, West Linn MedSpa
• Alina Norcom, West Linn MedSpa
• Dr. Bruno Da Costa, Da Costa Dental
• Don Dutro, Edward Wadsworth For Hair

Meet the MakeoverPDX 2009 makeover recipients!

The Master of Ceremonies for the event was Kimberly Jacobsen Nelson – Triple Crown Pageant Winner.

• Mrs. Oregon 2002
• Mrs. USA 2002
• Mrs. International 2003

The catering for the wonderful benefit dinner was by Hunt & Gather Catering.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
The Menu:
Passed Hor’s D’ouevres
Blackbird farms roasted apple compote, Fourme d’Ambert blue cheese, and hazelnuts on crostini.
Buffet Menu
Heirloom tomato and fresh mozzarella, layered herb polenta, basil, aged balsamic, extra virgin olive oil and sea salt.
Grilled Baird farms peaches, arugula and goat cheese, red wine and vinaigrette.
Grilled Columbia River wild Salmon Niçoise, Walnut Hills farms greens, farm fresh eggs, roasted potatoes, beans, tomatoes, olives, and lemon aioli.
Grand Central bread and citrus butter.
Dessert
Lemon tarts with fresh berries.

Following the dinner was a spirited time of auctions and raffle drawings.
Some of the items were:

• Sonicare Essence Toothbrush
• Clarisonic PLUS
• Skinceuticals Skin Brightening System
• A Beauty Makeover (cosmetic, dental, & salon services

By the way the gift bags for each guest at the tables included:

• Gift Cettificate from Edward Wadsworth for Hair purveyor of professional wholesale salon products
• Gift Cettificate from DaCosta Dental
• Guest Pass from Club Sport
• Extravagant Facial from West Linn MedSpa

Late,
Gary Pool

Short Hair Styles, Summer Dresses, and Catering for Dress for Success is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

How can Marketing taste so GOOD?

In an earlier blog post “Tortas to Die for – Marketing for the Little Guy” I touted the fantastic tortas. Now I have found Torta heaven. Taco Miendo is located in Oregon City and even happens to be one of my SEO clients. I was talking to Ricardo, the owner, about the process over at Taco Miendo his new enterprise, he said “lets go across the parking lot and you can order one to see how it is done. Ricardo has been successfully operating Tacho’s Mexican food Restaurant for many years now.

“A torta is a Mexican sandwich, served on an oblong 6-8 inch firm, crusty white sandwich roll, called a bolillo, telera or birote. Tortas can be served hot or cold.”

OK time for a little back story. In another life in San Diego there used to be a little torta shop that advertised 99 different tortas. My favorite was always the ground beef torta. For some reason I just love ground beef in meat dishes. This place was open for about 7 months when they changed hands and the ground beef torta was no longer available. Now the stage is set.

I walked in with Ricardo and he told them to give me anything I wanted. As I walked up to the counter I realized they had everything laid out just like it is done at subway sandwiches. All the goodies were right in front of me. All I had to do was point and ask. Being a sucker for a good torta I decided I would order one. I found out the offered a ground beef torta and I was ecstatic. Wow It was a great experience, I’ll have some of this and a little of that, oh yeah some of the green stuff too (guacamole sauce) I didn’t have to know what it was just that I wanted some on my order.

In no time at all my order was ready and fixed just the way I wanted it with all the extra goodies I wanted they even grilled the bun. It couldn’t have been a more enjoyable experience or a better torta. You can get your own Mexican sandwich at Taco Miendo and you wont even need subway sandwich coupons. They serve burritos tamales and tacos as well as the tortas this same way.

I can’t wait to have breakfast there. They open at 6 AM weekdays and 7 AM weekends.

Unlike La Paz, Taco Miendo has done their online marketing right. They have a website complete with directions so you will have no trouble finding their location and I can link to specific pages. Maybe I’ll see you there?

Late,
Gary Pool

Tortas | Subway Sandwiches | Marketing for the Little Guy is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Yesterday I visited a little bakery and deli shop I frequented when I lived in that part of town.

La Paz Panaderia Bakery and Deli, 11518-1 NE Sandy Blvd., Portland, OR 97220 503-255-3792.

I had forgotten just how good their food really is. They have the best tortas I have ever eaten and being from San Diego I have been around plenty of tortas. Just in case you don’ know what a torta is. According to Wikipedia:

“A torta is a Mexican sandwich, served on an oblong 6-8 inch firm, crusty white sandwich roll, called a bolillo, telera or birote. Tortas can be served hot or cold.”

Every time I find my self at the counter I have a very difficult time in choosing the sandwich/torta I want the have so many tasty ones. My two favorites are the Cuban and the Mexican, both are equally outstanding. If you are really hungry you might try eating a whole one. I usually have them wrap each half individually and get two meals from one torta. The torta comes with a little container of hot sauce that you can pour just the exact amount for each bite. My mouth is watering just writing about it.

Now not only do the make the best tortas they also have a full line of pastries with a Mexican flare, smoothies everyone but me was ordering, and incredible jalapeño cheese bread. If you visit the Rose City area of Portland make sure to visit the La Paz Panaderia Bakery and Deli.

So where is the marketing you ask? You just read it. Word of mouth marketing is the basis of all marketing. Before the written word all marketing was by word of mouth and it is still the most trusted. Have you ever bought something because a friend recommended it to you?

Matt McGee even has a new post on his blog titled “Word-of-Mouth Marketing: It’s About Being Remarkable“.

“What does positive word-of-mouth do for you?

1. It leads to positive offline and online mentions of your business.
2. It creates repeat customers and introduces new customers.
3. It sometimes creates links.
4. It brings you closer to the ultimate goal of trust.

Positive word-of-mouth is a must for any business, and it’s a key element of the SEO Success Pyramid. Getting people talking about you is a great complement to other types of marketing, and can make them more effective. Word of mouth happens when you do Big Things like driving to pick up a customer who was in a car accident, and when you do little things like sending personalized notes after an in-store visit.

It happens when you surprise and delight your customers.

It happens when you treat every customer like s/he’s the only one you have.”

If La Paz Panaderia Bakery and Deli had a website I would link to it!

late,
gary pool

Tortas to Die for | Marketing for the Little Guy is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Day 3 the final front side of our journey Santa Barbara to San Diego.

We did make it to San Diego and my San Diego office is officially up and running. I can now give you a final day of the trip report.

Well the Lord was looking down on us again as our last leg of the trip was a breeze. We ended up in Lakeside 3 hours ahead of schedule, WOW!

We got there just the Padres day game was ending. My Dad really likes the San Diego Padres and so do I. Padres won 3 to 2 over the Houston Astros.

My Dad, we call him Pa, told me “tomorrow we were going to feed the Canadians”. This sounded interesting… Poor hungry Canadians but they were so far away are we going to go back the way we came? What were we going to feed the Canadians, bacon?

Well the next morning Pa came to me and said we will be leaving in 15 minutes. I didn’t even have time to pack.

Well we went to the only lake in town where some wild canadian geese have been calling it home for 3 to 4 years now. Pa and his girlfriend have been working with them and now they will actually eat out of their hands. The Canadians won’t even let anyone else get close unless they are with them.

I didn’t have to go to Canada after all and we fed them grain and bread.

late,
gary pool

Santa Barbara to San Diego | Lakeside | Feeding the Canadians is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

The day began in Petaluma, CA.

We headed to Santa Barbara with a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. We visited pier 39 and ate lunch at the end of the pier at a place called Neptune’s Palace. Great place for seafood by the way.

Add Fishermans Wharf to your page

We had another fantastic day the Lord is definitely taking care of us. We had no rain until we were through playing tourists for the day. It rained all the way from San Jose to Santa Barbara.

Thursday night we should be in San Diego.

late,
gary pool

Petaluma to Santa Barbara | San Francisco | Fisherman’s Wharf is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

WOW! I had a fish taco at Baja Grill yesterday and it was absolutely the best fish taco I have ever eaten. Baja Grill is downtown Portland at 827 S.W. Second Avenue.

This is no small feat either. I am from San Diego, the home of the American fish taco. I remember when fish tacos started to get popular… Madona had just come to town for a concert and a local Mexican restaurant (Rubio’s) which was located by Mission Bay had just put out an a-frame sign with the proud wording “Madona Loves Our Fish Tacos”. Rubio’s went on to thrive and the owner even began a new business. You have probably bought their products “DeliMex”. All this was built off their reputation for great fish tacos.

Well Mark Lopez the Chef at Crave Catering and Baja Grill has done Rubio’s one, maybe even 3 better. His fish taco is just so light and crispy. The flavor OH… man it is soooooo tasty. If you are in the Portland area you have to check them out.

Just tell ‘em Gary sent you.

late,
gary pool

The Best Fish Taco I Ever Had! is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

The SEM Hot Seat a panel of experts will actually critique 4 websites and discuss SEM and SEO topics that will help you gain insight into what you should or should not be doing to make your website more visible to the public. Seating is limited.

The Websites

• www.livepdx.com
• www.sportsmanagementworldwide.com
• www.albina.com
• www.mtgxps.com

Panelists

• Leo Chung – Overland Agency
• sempdx.org/Events/Sponsor_Bios/Gary-Pool”>Gary Pool – White Rose Productions
• Kent Schnepp – EngineWorks
• Ben Lloyd – Amplify-Interactive

Moderator

SPECIAL GUEST MODERATOR  Anne Kennedy – BeyondInk

This was a great event.

August 14 2007
Registration & Networking: 6:00 PM
Program: 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Hotel DeLuxe (729 SW 15th Ave. Portland, OR 97205)
Food & beverages included.

Were you there?
Stay tuned for more information on the next SEMpdx event.

Late,
Gary Pool

SEMpdx Hot Seat 8-14-07 Great Event is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Can we learn a Marketing lesson from a short shopping trip? My answer is a hearty YES!

I just stopped by Costco (brick and mortar in Clackamas Oregon). We had Pictures to drop off and I needed a bottle of Tabasco. You know the monster bottles that last a month. What I say was amazing. As I passed other shoppers 1 out of 3 had a copy of the new Harry Potter book. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is final book of seven in the Harry Potter series of novels by JK Rowling.

The current Harry Potter book actually went on sale at 12:01 this morning. And now it is on sale at Costco. I spotted it in the carts of one third of the shoppers. The most interesting thing was there were no children attached to these shoppers. Was this a great job of marketing or just the result of consumer demand?

My opinion is both. Sure the Harry Potter series was very popular with the public but marketing has done it’s job. Which came first the word of mouth or the marketing of the book? Did the movies promote the book or visa versa? This is a good example of synergy. Each one feeds off the other until you forget which came first the chicken or the egg. Or does it really matter?

If you are planning a Marketing Strategy take a look at the successful ones. What can you learn from them? This should be second nature. What most people forget to do is take a look at the failed Marketing Strategies Do you remember Microsoft BOB and or Windows ME? What can we learn from the flops? The biggest lesson we can learn from the above is when you release a product that is supposed to be better than the previous one make sure it really is. You can’t put new clothes on an old product and call it new and improved. “Roger, you are still a tiger!”

What is in your list of flops? Let’s find out if we can learn anything from them.

Food for thought.

Late,
seopdx/gary-pool.html”>Gary Pool

Costco, Harry Potter, and a Marketing Lesson is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I found a great Restaurant!

When I moved to Portland. Oregon from San Diego, California eight years ago I thought I would have to give up Real Mexican Food. I looked for years. Then I found Tacho’s, a Mexican Restaurant in Oregon City.

I was used to the real Mexican food that was served in Tijuana. At least twice a month we would cross the border and sample the Mexican cuisine in that little border town. You could also bring back two bottles of liquor when you returned to the US. You can actually get the stuff they don’t export to the United States.

I grew up in San Diego and spent quite a bit of time in Mexico after I turned sixteen (drivers licensee age). I have fond memories of sitting down for a traditional Mexican meal at one of the many excellent restaurants in down town Tijuana.

When we moved to Oregon we couldn’t find any real mexican food, there were some reasonable facsimiles. That is until we found real Mexican Food in Oregon, that’s right we found the authentic gem and it was right here all along. Tacho’s Mexican Restaurant right here in Oregon City, Oregon.

Tacho’s has a great menu and a fantastic atmosphere. They have lunch specials all week long. The food! Wow the food is great, I am back in Mexico again. A little older and a little wiser, but I cant find the local Mexican Liquor store when I head home. So I just spend a little time in Tacho’s authentic Mexican Cantina and it solves that quest.

Tacho’s is one of the top restaurants in Oregon regardless of the nationality of the menu. If you are in Oregon and are looking to experience a little bit of Mexico I must recommend Tacho”s Mexican Restaurant for the best Mexican food in the North West. Tacho’s is located at 515 Molalla Ave, Oregon City, Oregon.

late,
Gary

Good Mexican Food Restaurant in Oregon ? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician