A PDX Startups Party - Switchboard Hearts

The cross-country Switchboard Hearts tour has commenced! But before I go telling you all about the wonderful things we’re up to on the road, I want to tell you about the awesome PDX Startups Switchboard party we had before we left!

For our second Switchboard Hearts event we invited 600 members of Portland’s startup community to take over our office and drink all our beer as part of TechFest Northwest’s “TechCrawl.” Portland tech scene veteran and Portland Startups Switchboard founder Rick Turoczy was kind enough to put us on the map, both literally and figuratively.

Under Rick’s magic touch, PDX Startups Switchboard has grown to 750 members with daily posting in just a few short months. In addition to generating countless hires and individual connections the Switchboard has been used to establish a monthly Coffee for Cofounders, collect lots of data in little time, and share a surplus of free lunch among hungry startup types.

“I really can’t take credit for the awesomeness that is the Portland Startups Switchboard,” said Turoczy. “Portland’s startup community is extremely collaborative and collegial, by nature. It just happens. But they don’t always have the appropriate tools to facilitate that collaboration. Switchboard has provided the perfect platform for this community to engage with one another —- in a very Portlandy sort of way.” With this much enthusiasm bubbling up online, we still managed to be surprised by the happy flood we saw at the TechCrawl.

Hundreds of Switchboard users and other tech folks came pouring in our doors over the course of the night. Between directing codeschoolers, lawyers, founders, and journalists towards the keg, members of Team Switchboard were inundated with enthusiastic praise for everything from our vision, to our UX, to our emails. All in all it was a wild success and only served to further our conviction that Portland is home to the best startup scene around. Of course, you can confirm for yourself just by checking out the Switchboard.  

Up next, the tour is headed to Chicago where we’ll be cooking dinner with Oberlin alumni, sharing a pot of tea with the ladies at Third Coast Festival, getting crafty with Reedies at the Chicago’s only creative reuse center, the WasteShed and eating pancakes in the park with Wheelwomen. Stay tuned for what can only be some great stories!

The Switchboard Hearts Tour

Aria, Switchboard’s community manager here with exciting news. Switchboard is going on tour! This fall, I’ll be traveling the midwest and east coast to meet with some of our super Switchboarders, throw you parties and spread the love. We’re calling it the Switchboard Hearts Tour, and it’s our way of showcasing our incredible users, friends and supporters and saying thanks.

Last weekend we kicked it off with a party for the Wheelwomen Switchboard, and it was amazing. Equipped with balloons, crafts, beer and ice cream I showed up at Colonel Summers park and met with the Wheelwomen Switchboard founder, Elly Blue.

Before we even got things set up, women on bicycles began to arrive. Within a few moments of cracking a beer, the ladies were chatting about what they had posted about and how things had turned out. They shared their bike projects enthusiastically, sang the praises of Switchboard, and even exchanged some wonderful real-time asks and offers.

Every part of it was incredible, but I wasn’t at all surprised. In the five months since Wheelwomen Switchboard’s inception it has been a constant outpouring of warmth and generosity. These ladies have helped one another find jobs and places to stay, contributed to each other’s writing, funded kickstarter campaigns and given each other endless advice and help. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of humans to kick off things with.

The magic of Switchboard is in the people who use it - the awesome folks who bravely ask for what they need and offer what they have to one another. As Switchboard’s community manager I have the pleasure of watching this magic happen in multiple communities every day and so it’s with an even greater pleasure that I get to share the stories of these incredible people and show our thanks. Our Switchboard Hearts are always full.

You can follow the tour here on our blog and on twitter. Look for the #SwitchboardHearts tag on twitter and instagram and use it to share your own Switchboard encounters and successes. Check out the tentative itinerary and please reach out if you’re interested in meeting up, sharing your story or helping to organize an event for other Switchboarders in your area. I’m looking forward to meeting you!

A Switchboard for the Portland Meat Collective

Some of our favorite Switchboard posts in the past few weeks have come from one of our newest Switchboards—posts like “First time at-home slaughter/butcher,” “Defrosting and butchering a small pig,” and “CATTAIL CREEK LAMB CARCASS” [exciting all caps in original].

These are all posts from the Meat Collectives Switchboard, which we recently launched in collaboration with the Portland Meat Collective, a network of butchers that connects farmers and consumers and teaches butchery to hundreds of interested people every year.

The Meat Collectives Switchboard is already connecting foodies to farmers and butchery novitiates to experienced butchers.

Portland Meat Collective Founder Camas Davis says she is grateful for the work the Meat Collectives Switchboard does in connecting members of the local butchery community. “For five years I’ve written hundreds of emails like this: ‘Joe Smith, meet Jennifer Davis. Jennifer Davis, meet Joe Smith. You two don’t know each other but you should. Joe wants X. Jennifer has X.  Oh and by the way I know ten other people who you both should meet, too. Talk among yourselves,’” Camas says. “While it’s a great pleasure to write emails like this every day, Switchboard has the power to do this times 5000. I am no longer the sole connector in my community. Now I am one of many. And the effect on my community is vast.”

The Meat Collectives Switchboard is our first community that brings producers, artisans, and consumers all to the same place, and we’re learning a lot from its users. Meat Collective Switchboarders have concrete questions (how do I butcher a pig), needs (I need a pig), and resources (I have a pig). As users ask and answer questions, their conversations remain for users with the same question in the future to find and use. We look forward to seeing the Meat Collectives Switchboard grow.

Photos by Portland Meat Collective and Camas Davis.

A Switchboard for Oberlin

We’re happy to announce that we’re officially partnering with Oberlin College. Oberlin is a top-ranked liberal arts college and world-renowned conservatory (and they have an awesome library, as seen above). This is a big deal for us! We’ve harbored a liberal arts school crush on Oberlin for some time, and we’ve always admired their creative use of storytelling and social networks to engage the world and their own community.

We’re excited to see how Oberlin students and alumni use the Oberlin Switchboard. We hope that Switchboard will, by helping Obies help one another, make it clear to the world just how special the Oberlin community is. And more concretely, of course, we hope that Obies rack up as many Switchboard successes as possible.

Oberlin students and alumni are already posting asks, offers, and successes on the Oberlin Switchboard about jobs, internships, places to stay, and places for their chickens to stay. Yup, chickens. This is why we love Oberlin.

Ma’ayan Plaut, Oberlin’s Manager of Social Strategy and Projects, is as excited about this partnership as we are. “The most brilliant part of watching Switchboard take shape here in Oberlin is watching peoples’ faces as they begin to understand the potential of a committed helpful community. Simply put, it makes sense for a community that believes in each other to believe that in order to change the world, we have to be there for each other to make it happen,” Ma’ayan says. “We’ve only just begun our time with Switchboard and we’ve already seen connections forged over food, animals, travel, and art. That’s the Oberlin ethos is action, and we can’t wait to see where things go next!”

So thank you, Oberlin. You’re an ideal community for us to learn from. Every success on the Oberlin Switchboard makes us feel even more warm fuzzies than usual.

Mudd Library photo by istolethetv.

Switchboard Success: Community and Affinity Turn Strangers into Friends

We like to think of Switchboard as a manifestation of the gift economy, but we’re just as happy to see people using it to barter. This success story begins with Nancy’s Offer to trade her collection of Virginia Woolf texts for chores or original artwork.

David, the protagonist of our story, had used Switchboard before to find a host in Tucson when he drove there on vacation. When he saw Nancy’s offer, he seized on it. “It piqued my interest, and within the hour I’d sent Nancy a message offering a short story I’d written, a collage I’d make, or an afternoon of chores,” David says. “Nancy decided a short story and collage would suffice and we kept up correspondence to figure out a time we could meet up. I helped her take the books up to my dorm, and after that we got coffee.”

Nancy and David’s exchange involved more than trading a few books. They met one another as members of the same community and as artists. They traded stories—David as a student, Nancy as an alumna—and discussed their artwork and creative process.

David’s story is simple, and that’s how it should be. Nancy offers books. David contacts Nancy. Nancy and David exchange art for books over coffee.

Before they met, Nancy and David didn’t share any social connections despite being members of the same community and despite sharing a passion for writing. On Switchboard, not having someone in common isn’t an obstacle—sharing an affinity (e.g. cycling) or an experience (e.g. college) with someone is enough. There’s no such thing as a stranger. There are only other Switchboarders.

Switchboard Success: Community & Hosiery

When we highlight our users’ success stories, we tend to focus on the ones that seem the biggest—typically stories about someone landing a job or internship. Every now and then, though, a story too good to pass up comes along, and we have to share it. This story, about Lai and two pairs of American Apparel hosiery, is one of those.

First, a little background from Lai herself. Lai posted her Offer on the Reed Switchboard—she graduated from Reed College in 2013. For her, American Apparel hosiery bear a special association with her college experience. “First, I want to emphasize that this is American Apparel hosiery,” she says. “I was introduced to American Apparel via a Reed friend, who was a huge fan of their basics. Of course, I had the option of shoving them on to whoever is next to me in New York, but I felt like a Reedie would appreciate it more.”

At Reed, there’s an annual dance where students, many of them clad in tights, cover one another in glitter. “I wanted another Reedie who appreciates our tradition of tights and glitter to have my extra hosiery,” Lai says.

When a fellow Reedie contacted Lai, they arranged to meet in Bryant Park for the exchange.

There, in front of the Bryant Statue, Lai gave away the hosiery. “The handing over of the hosiery was over in a matter of seconds,” Lai says. “I gave them to her in a brown Zara bag and said she could check the contents if she wished. She said it was ok, and thanked me before rapidly walking off with her friend.”

If only for a moment, a spark of recognition passed between Lai and the recipient of the hosiery—the leggings, the memories of glitter. That spark reconnected Lai to her college community and made a small patch of Bryant Park feel, for an instant, like home.

Lai encourages other members of her community to reconnect with one another, as well. “I would encourage everyone to use Switchboard! Reed friendships are very special,” she says. “Give everything and anything! Rather than hoard something, pass it on.”

You don’t need to find a job or internship through a member of your community to feel gratitude, to feel that you’re a part of the whole. Sometimes it only takes a few pairs of tights.

Photo of Bryant Park by Dan DeLuca.