Friday, May 4, 2018
8:15 AM to 9:30 AM
Cross Campus, 85 N. Raymond Avenue · Pasadena, CA
While Pasadena is consistently named one of the best cities to live year after year, City leaders also want to make it a great place to work. Mayor Terry Tornek and City Manager Steve Mermell will be stopping by on May 4th to check-in with Pasadena’s innovators and talk about the latest developments and initiatives happening in Pasadena. But, they’ll also want to hear from you! This is your chance to engage with local officials and share your thoughts on ways the City can make Pasadena even more attractive for business and talent.
Bio: Terry Tornek
Terry Tornek was born and raised in New York City and moved to Pasadena from Massachusetts in 1982 to accept the position of Planning Director. He was hired because of his history of neighborhood improvement and historic preservation while serving as Planning Director of Springfield, Mass. He also served as a member of the Springfield City Council. Terry was Pasadena’s Planning Director for 3 years and helped to rewrite the Zoning Ordinance, the General Plan and establish the redevelopment plan for Old Pasadena. After leaving city government, Terry built a career in real estate as a developer and manager of residential & commercial properties all over Southern California.He remained active in Pasadena affairs through his 20 year service as a Board Member of Pasadena Neighborhood Housing Services, a non-profit organization devoted to affordable housing in Northwest Pasadena.
In 2005, Sid Tyler appointed Terry to the Planning Commission. He also served as a member of the Design Commission. He was elected to represent District 7 on the City Council in April, 2009, was reelected in 2013 and was then elected as Mayor in April, 2015.
Mayor Tornek serves as Chairman of the Finance Committee, is a member of the Municipal Services, Public Safety, and Legislative Policy Committees, is the City Council appointee to the Fire and Police Retirement Board, is Pasadena’s representative to the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, and is President of the Burbank Airport Authority. He is deeply involved in the City’s financial planning, affordable housing and the City’s planning and development decision-making process. Terry graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School with a degree in Public and International Affairs. He also earned a Master of Science in Urban Planning from Columbia University’s School of Architecture. He served in the Army National Guard and Reserves for 6 years. Terry and his wife Maria have been married for 50 years. They have 3 children and 7 grandchildren.
Bio: Steve Mermell
Steve Mermell was appointed City Manager by unanimous vote of the City Council and assumed his duties February 15, 2016. As City Manager he is the Chief Administrative Officer of the City and is charged with supervising, coordinating, and administering the various functions of the City. He has direct responsibility for all departments, divisions, and offices of the City with the exception of the City Attorney/Prosecutor and City Clerk which are separately appointed by the City Council.
Category: Events
RSVP to Friday Morning Coffee Meetup: 13 Questions to Help You Cut Out Small Talk and Build Genuine Connections
Tom Amestoy, Founder & CEO of Focus Out, talks about the missed opportunities to genuinely connect with others when we engage in “small talk.” Scientific studies have revealed that the types of conversations we have truly impact our wellbeing. These findings show that the good life is social and conversationally deep rather than isolated and superficial. Tom will tell us about groups that have banned small talk to great effect. He will offer tips on how to host such an event and will share 13 questions to start great conversations that lead to deep and genuine connections.
Friday, April 27, 2018
8:15 AM to 9:30 AMCross Campus
85 N. Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, CAVenue is located on the 2nd floor. Free street parking until 11:00 am; except where valet signs are posted. 90 minutes free parking is also available at nearby parking lots.
Checkin Cross Campus Old Pasadena
RSVP to Innovate Pasadena: The Power of Social Capitalism
I am excited to share the story of Rosebud Coffee; a social enterprise dedicated to helping homeless and transitional age youth find economic stability through the coffee industry. Local businesses are uniquely positioned with social capital to help those in need flourish with the support of the local community. And when those in greatest need flourish, so does everyone else!
Bio: Dan Davidson is the Lead Pastor of Rose City Church in Pasadena, CA; a historic Free Methodist Church he and team reopened in 2011. Dan is also the co/founder and Executive Director of Rose City Coffee; a barista training program for homeless and transitional-aged youth soon to open as a local coffee shop. Most recently Dan led a team to open Rosebud Coffee as a local cafe in the City of Pasadena to hire the youth trained by Rose City Coffee. As a socially minded cafe, Rosebud seeks to help the emancipated youth of our city flourish while also providing a space for community events. Dan enjoys collaborating with the City of Pasadena, local businesses and non-profits who share the same goal of ending homelessness and improving the lives of local neighbors. Dan believes that with such partnerships the relationships that keep communities healthy will thrive.
Contact Email: dan@rosecitycoffee.org
Friday, March 30, 2018
8:15 AM to 9:30 AM
Cross Campus
85 N. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA
Venue is located on the 2nd floor. Free street parking until 11:00 am; except where valet signs are posted. 90 minutes free parking is also available at nearby parking lots.
This sounds like an interesting topic for tomorrow morning’s coffee.
🔖 XOXO 2018
XOXO is an experimental festival for independent artists and creators who work on the internet, taking place in Portland, Oregon on September 6—9, 2018.
📅 RSVP yes to WordPress Pasadena General Meetup, March 2018 Edition! on 3/27
Oh man! 2018! Welcome!!!! Who'd a thunk it? We made it out of 2017!! 2018 is another chance to see if we can ply our knowledge in the ever changing world of web tech. We're back at it again for our monthly WordPress user meetup. Come curious with your wonderful questions.
My Fall/Winter math class is over and I’m free to catch up with the gang again.
📅 RSVP No to Innovate Pasadena: Women in Blockchain
Blockchain is poised to become one of the seminal developments in technology, and some talented women are leading the way in adapting blockchain technology across a wide array of industries. Blockchain spending is expected to grow 81.2% annual from 2016 – 2021. $945 million was spent on blockchain solutions in 2017, with the spending expected to skyrocket to $2.1 billion this year. Women in Blockchain and Crypto want to enable women to thrive in the booming blockchain space by growing our network of like-minded women to create opportunities for networking, education, and professional advancement in the blockchain space. Two female leaders in blockchain will give a presentation on the current landscape of blockchain, the applications of blockchain technology across a variety of industries, and also discuss their own projects including putting AI on the Project PAI blockchain and exploring uses for blockchain in healthcare. Sho Guo is the VP of Marketing and Partnerships at ObEN, an artificial intelligence company developing Personal Artificial Intelligence (PAI), a 3D intelligent avatar that looks, talks and behaves uniquely like its human counterpart. ObEN is an early adopter of Project PAI, a fully decentralized blockchain based network designed to give people trackable ownership and management rights to their PAI. Prior to ObEN, Sho was the Director of International Marketing for Caesars Entertainment and spent 5 years working in television and production, including work on the Beijing Olympics for NBC. Sho is an Emmy award winner with an MBA from UCLA Anderson, B.S. in Management Science and B.A. in Film from UC San Diego. Stacy Jain is a Director of Strategy and Program Execution at Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s largest and most innovative integrated health care providers. An experienced executive consultant with a demonstrated history of delivering large, complex healthcare systems and programs in the hospital & health care industry, Stacy has continuously driven business solutions via technological innovations along with her exceptional leadership in building trusting partnerships across multi-disciplines. Previously she has worked with other healthcare organizations such as Dignity Health, Catholic Healthcare West, and L.A. Care Health Plan. Part of her current mission is to execute an agile transformation strategy to enable the business to quickly adapt, make investments at the right places and to improve speed to market. With more than 15+ years in defining, shaping and evolving the delivery of patient care, she has a relentless passion to stretch and advance digital healthcare, especially in mental/behavioral health care. Stacy has recently been looking at applications of blockchain in healthcare with an emphasis on security, medical record sharing and humanistic information economy. Stacy is also working on building women-led communities in AI and blockchain. Her goal is to build communities in the Los Angeles area which would empower more women to participate in the blockchain industry. Twitter Handles: @ObenMe @ProjectPAI Speaker emails: Sho Guo: sho@oben.com Stacy Jain: Stacy.Jain@gmail.com
Sadly, it looks like a deadline is going to prevent me from attending.
📅 WordCamp Orange County, June 9-10, 2018
WordCamp Orange County is a great place to learn meet, talk, and immerse yourself in everything WordPress. From the absolute beginner to the hardest of hardcore developers, WordCamp Orange County will have something for you.
Putting this on my calendar to attend later this year. Waiting patiently for tickets to go on sale.
📅 Friday Coffee Meetup: Building Companies While Running Startup Accelerators on Three Continents
From Hong Kong, to Los Angeles, to the Vatican. How running three very different startup accelerators over five years changed the way I think about entrepreneurship. Multiple program formats, 100+ companies, tens of millions in funding, lots of customers, exits, all across three continents. The talk will focus on: • Commonalities growing companies face across locations. • Getting results: How I try to trick people into learning. • Next steps in thinking about the future of company growth. Bio Paul Orlando enables companies to grow. He is Incubator Director and Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at USC. Paul has founded and operated successful startup accelerator programs in Hong Kong (focused on mobile development), Los Angeles (focused on growing a wide range of companies with founders affiliated with USC), and Rome (the Laudato Si accelerator, partnered with the Vatican and focused on environmental technology). Companies Paul has worked with have raised tens of millions in capital, served millions of customers, and have been acquired. He has authored several related academic case studies available on Harvard Business Publishing. Paul also helps larger institutions innovate, develop, and grow, especially in lowering the risk of innovation projects, speeding up learning cycles, and transitioning past legacy business models and products. Paul has been featured in media including Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal. He was a winner at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. Paul has a BA from Cornell, an MBA from Columbia, and speaks Mandarin. Twitter handle: @porlando Speaker email: paul.orlando@gmail.com Date: Friday, February 23, 2018 from 8:15 AM to 9:30 AM Location: Cross Campus, 85 N. Raymond Avenue · Pasadena, CA Venue is located on the 2nd floor. Free street parking until 11:00 am; except where valet signs are posted. 90 minutes free parking is also available at nearby parking lots.
Recap of Los Angeles Area Homebrew Website Club February 21, 2018
After a relatively quiet quiet writing hour where I worked on acquisition posts a bit, people began arriving just before the 6:30 pm official start time.
I kicked off the meeting with a quick overview of IndieWeb’s concepts and principles for newcomers. As a mini-case study I talked a bit about some of my work and conversations earlier today about thinking about adding acquisition posts to my website and the way in which I’m approaching the problem.
Asher Silberman was glad to be back at a meeting. He has recently been working on more content over functionality.
Micah Cambre showed off a gorgeous development version of the new theme he’s building for his site which is a super clean and pared down theme based on the Sage platform using WordPress. He’s hoping to finish it shortly so he can relaunch his personal site at http://asuh.com. He spent some time talking about the process of using David Shanske’s IndieWebified version of the Twenty Sixteen theme as a template for adding microformats and functionality to the Sage set up.
Richard Hopp, a gen2/gen3 user who is completely new to the community and interested in learning, has a personal domain at http://www.ricahardhopp.com/ on which he’s installed WordPress. He’s currently considering whether he’d like to begin blogging soon and what other functionality he’d like to have on his site. He’s relatively new to Facebook, having only joined about six months ago. On the professional side, he does some governmental related work and has some large collections of documents that he’s also doing some research for in consideration of how to best put them on the web for ease of search and use.
I wrapped up the demo portion with a quick showing of how I leveraged the power of the Post Kinds Plugin to facetiously add chicken posts to my site as a prelude to doing a tad more work to begin adding explicit follow posts.
We took a short break to take a photo of the group.
In the end of the evening we talked over a handful of broad ideas including user interface, webactions, and Twitter interactions.
We wrapped things up with a demo of how I use the URL Forwarder app on Android to post to my website via mobile. We then used some of this documentation to try to help Asher fix his previously broken browser bookmarklets to hopefully work better with the Post Kinds Plugin. I spent a few minutes to create a similar bookmarklet to add the ability to more easily add follow posts to my website since I hadn’t done it after adding them last week.
Homebrew Website Club Meetup on February 21, 2018
Are you building your own website? Indie reader? Personal publishing web app? Or some other digital magic-cloud proxy? If so, come on by and join a gathering of people with likeminded interests. Bring your friends who want to start a personal web site. Exchange information, swap ideas, talk shop, help work on a project…
Everyone of every level is welcome to participate! Don’t have a domain yet? Come along and someone can help you get started and provide resources for creating the site you’ve always wanted.
Homebrew Website Club Meetup – Los Angeles Area
Time: to
Location: Pasadena Central Library, 285 East Walnut Street (at Garfield), 4th floor Conference Room, Pasadena, CA
- Parking at the library is at a premium, so please park on the street or use one of these nearby lots: Parking details
- 5:30 – 6:30 pm (Optional) Quiet writing hour at your favorite location within the library for those interested. Use this time to work on your project or do some writing before the meeting.
- 6:30 – 8:00 pm Meetup in 4th floor Conference Room
More Details
Join a community of like-minded people building and improving their personal websites. Invite friends that want a personal site.
- Work with others to help motivate yourself to create the site you’ve always wanted to have.
- Ask questions about things you may be stuck on–don’t let stumbling blocks get in the way of having the site you’d like to have.
- Finish that website feature or blog post you’ve been working on
- Burn down that old website and build something from scratch
- Share what you’ve gotten working
- Demos of recent breakthroughs
Skill levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Any questions? Need help? Need more information? Ask in chat: http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/today#bottom
RSVP
Our space within the library is somewhat limited, so please RSVP prior to attending so we can ensure that we can accomodate as many people as possible.
Add your optional RSVP in the comments below; by adding your indie RSVP via webmention to this post; or by RSVPing yes to one of the syndicated posts below:
Indieweb.org event: https://indieweb.org/events/2018-02-21-homebrew-website-club#Los_Angeles_Area
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1841008432590283/
Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/IndieWeb-Homebrew-Website-Club-Los-Angeles/events/247817484/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisAldrich/status/963911115271938048
RSVP to Pasadena Startups: Past, Present and Future
Talk a walk down memory lane with Gene as he tells stories of Pasadena Startups Past, Present and Future. I am the Forrest Gump of Internet - I have worked in the worked with some of the pioneers and innovators all with origin stories to Pasadena: GoTo, Overture, Yahoo, YP, Chegg, WhatsApp, Tinder, Google Adword/AdSense/Photos, Sellbrite. So come take a seat on the bench and listen to my story. Pasadena tech is like a box of chocolates - you'll never know what you're gonna get. Bio: Gene is a software veteran and Internet executive known for his expertise in mobile, social, cloud, Big Data, search marketing and eCommerce. He is currently VP of Engineering at Sellbrite.com a eCommerce SaaS startup in Pasadena. Before that he was CTO of Synctree.com a Ruby/Node and DevOps-as-a-Service boutique development shop. He was the CTO of Oversee.net a $100M Consumer Mobile and Domain Monetization company. Before that he was Director of Engineering at Chegg, an online network for college students that offers assistance with homework, course selection and textbook rentals. He was also Executive Director of AT&T Interactive, building and leading teams for YP Mobile, Data Systems and Buzz.com. He also served as Director of Engineering at Yahoo Search Marketing/Overture where he built large-scale search marketing platforms. Gene is currently a on Board of Directors for Innovate Pasadena, a mentor for Mucker Labs, as well as advisor to mobile startups. Gene is a frequent speaker at tech industry events and has received numerous industry awards. He graduated Magna cum Laude with a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles and lives in San Marino with a very supportive wife Jacki and 3 kids.
📅 Domain of One’s Own Workshop for Admins
After hearing from a number of schools running Domain of One’s Own, we thought it might be useful to host an in-person workshop that focuses specifically on implementing this project on your campus. Workshop of One’s Own is a two-day, geared towards the instructional technologist who assists with managing DoOO on an administrator level, but also focuses on project conceptualization, instructional uses, and empowering their community from a teaching/learning standpoint. You’ll not only be receiving the in-person, focused attention from the entire Reclaim Hosting team, but you’ll also get a chance to brainstorm with folks from other schools who are running their own Domain of One’s Own projects. We’ll work through common troubleshooting tips, SPLOTs with Alan Levine, cPanel application case studies, and more.
I’m almost painfully tempted to attend this workshop on March 15-16 with the idea of and setting up a side business to specialize in hosting WordPress and Known sites for IndieWeb use. While it could be a generic non-institutional instance for academics, researchers, post docs, graduate and undergraduate students who don’t have a “home” DoOO service, it could also be a potential landing pad for those leaving other DoOO projects upon graduation or moving. Naturally I wouldn’t turn down individuals who wanted specific IndieWeb capable personal websites either.
Either way it’s an itch (at an almost poison ivy level) that I’ve been having for a long time, but haven’t written down until now. It would certainly be an interesting platform for continuing to evangelize the overlap of IndieWeb and Educational applications on the internet.
I think there are almost enough IndieWeb friendly WordPress themes to make it a worthwhile idea to have a multi-site WordPress install that has a handful of microformats performant themes in conjunction with tools like webmentions and micropub that allows easy interaction with most of the major social silos.
I think the community might almost be ready for such a platform that would allow an integrated turnkey IndieWeb experience. (Though I’d still want to offer some type of integrated feed reader experience bundled in with it.) Perhaps I could model it a little bit after edublogs and micro.blog?
Who wants to help goad me into it?
h/t:
Workshop of One’s Own: March 15 & 16 // Attendees will not only receive focused training from the entire Reclaim Hosting team, but also join in on discussion with members from other institutions running their own unique instances of Domain of One's Own // https://t.co/31NIQIRvQg pic.twitter.com/HvU8qKhQXA
— Reclaim Hosting (@ReclaimHosting) January 22, 2018
Virtual Homebrew Website Club Meetup on December 27, 2017
I was going to take the week off for the holidays, but seeing a group of people rally around the hashtag #newwwyear to get excited about building and updating their personal websites has inspired me to host an online Homebrew Website Club meetup during the holidays.
This is a virtual/online HWC meetup for website builders who either can’t make a regular in-person meeting in their city or don’t yet have critical mass to host one in their area. Everyone of every level is welcome to participate remotely! Don’t have a domain yet? Come along and someone can help you get started and provide resources for creating the site you’d like to have.
Virtual Homebrew Website Club Meetup
Time: to
Location: Online via Google Hangouts (a link will be posted here or on syndicated copies of this post prior to the meetup: https://hangouts.google.com/call/8XGkwtEjxg2oH07pyOD_AAEE)
More Details
Join a community of like-minded people building and improving their personal websites. Invite friends that want a personal site.
- Work on your #newwwyear Resolution or IndieWeb Resolutions for 2018
- Work with others to help motivate yourself to create the site you’ve always wanted to have.
- Ask questions about things you may be stuck on–don’t let stumbling blocks get in the way of having the site you’d like to have.
- Finish that website feature or blog post you’ve been working on
- Burn down that old website and build something from scratch
- Share what you’ve gotten working
- Demos of recent breakthroughs
A link to the virtual meetup on Google Hangouts will be posted on the day of the event. Check back before the quiet writing hours/meeting to get the link.
Optional quiet writing hour: 19:30–20:30 ET (16:30-17:30 PT) Use this time to work on your project (or get some help) before the meeting.
Meetup: 20:30–21:30 ET (17:30-18:30 PT)
Skill levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Keep in mind that there is often a European virtual meetup if those times work better for your schedule.
Any questions? Need help? Need more information? Ask in chat: http://indiewebcamp.com/irc/today#bottom
RSVP
Add your optional RSVP in the comments below; by adding your indie RSVP via webmention to this post; or by RSVPing yes to one of the syndicated posts below:
Indieweb.org event: https://indieweb.org/events/2017-12-27-homebrew-website-club#Virtual_Americas
Facebook.com: https://www.facebook.com/events/801364280044020/
Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/IndieWeb-Homebrew-Website-Club-Los-Angeles/events/246071606/