Been planning this progressive party at Leftbank.  Have you ever been to one of those?  Can’t say that I have in my adult life, but I remember my parents gearing up for the annual neighborhood progressive party in the 70s.  Weeks of planning mapped out where the night would begin, who served martinis and appetizers, who would have the honor of presenting the main course, and where the party would end with desserts and a nightcap.  As a kid, I watched TV with my big brother and the sitter, trying desperately to stay awake long enough to spy on the portion of the party that happened in our house.  That rarely happened, but several times the clamour of an entire party walking down the street pulled us from the TV to the window.  We watched our parents among the congregation of neighbors - dressed up and smiling, talking and laughing - as the party moved to the next station.

Somebody had the idea that we need a progressive party here at Leftbank .  And yes, we do.  So a group of us have mapped out the evening and rallied a bunch of the neighbors to join in.  It’s loosely planned compare to the parties I’m remembering.  But that sounds right in our community of work neighbors, with a party happening at the end of the work day.  But in this freer form progressive party, other planners and I wondered how we’d keep people together.  Progressive parties are fun because people move through them together, after all.  Decided we must have a pied piper.  I found one.  His name is Steve.  Steve is the president of the Rose City AccordionClub.  He is a delight to talk to.

I guess it’s clear that i’m nostalgic about the progressive party idea.  Yes, I know it’s not the 70s.  Yes, I know my nostalgia gives away my age.  But can I help it if I hope there’s fondue?  Haven’t heard there will be any.  Though I have it on good authority that someone’s planning gourmet jello shots.  I surely hope to see all you other Leftbankers there.

August 25th is shaping up to be a big night! Leftbankers will roll through the Progressive Party from 5:00-7:00.

Then from 8:00-11:00, the 2nd annual Bowling for Boobies is happening a stone’s throw from here at Interstate Lanes. For $10, you’ll get unlimited bowling, use of the open pool tables, and a raffle ticket. For $20 you get all of that and more. The “more” includes pizza, t-shirt, autographed bowling pin, and opportunity to compete for prizes.

Leftbank Café grillmaster Jordan and a friend launched the event last year inspired by the friend’s mom. She beat breast cancer. They want to help more women beat it. Contribute your dollars and your victorious spirit to the effort. Wear silly shoes and have fun, too.

On September 24th, Moving Planet events are happening all over the world. From the Moving Planet Website:

“Moving Planet is a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis—a single day to move away from fossil fuels. For too long, our leaders have denied and delayed, compromised and caved. That era must come to an end. Come on bike, on skates, on a board, or on foot. Come with your neighbors and your friends, your family and your co-workers. Come be part of something huge. It’s time to get moving on the climate crisis.”

Moving Planet Portland – Climate Action Now is happening in Leftbank’s backyard. Well, happening at the Memorial Coliseum. You’re invited to be part of it as a sponsor, volunteer, or face in the crowd.

Did you watch “the L word”? Remember Alice and the chart? Been watching neighbors connect at Leftbank, and somebody had the idea to map it. That makes me think of Alice and the L word. Of course, I’m talking about professional connections and Alice was looking at, let’s say – the personal. I’ve put down what I know about who’s working with whom. And I know what I know is the tip of the iceberg. So tell me who you work with. Help me make my chart.

I’ve said it dozens of times before. Stick around and you’ll hear me say it dozens of times again. Leftbank leads me to visionary people, innovative businesses, and inspiring stories. One of the early introductions was to Tim O’Brien and his company, Tropical Salvage. I’ve sung their praises here and here, and samples of their work winding through Leftbank’s common spaces and the Hive shine with beauty and purpose.

Lisa Peifer contacted me several months ago when she was working on a short documentary about TS, titled “Tropical Salvage: From Recession to Expansion.”  The film was finished and recently placed 3rd in the 2011 oikos International Case Study Competition for the social entrepreneurship track.  You can watch it here.

Tropical Salvage is offering deep discounts right now to make space for a new shipment arriving at the end of the month. If you haven’t visited their warehouse, this would be a great time for a first visit.

The City of Portland and the Oregon Department of Transportation are looking closely at Leftbank’s neighborhood. They’re working in collaboration with each other and with the public to integrate urban design, land use and planning for the freeway in the N/NE part of Central City. The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability talks about it here.

You’re invited to an Open House on Wednesday, June 29th at Metro. The City and ODOT will share land use and transportation concepts. Go see what’s being discussed and offer your own input. If you live in, work in, or move through the district, the plans they’re making affect you.

Open house particulars:
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
4:30-6:30pm
Metro Regional Center
600 NE Grand
Council Chambers

At a reception held last night, the Portland Business Journal unveiled the 2011 Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies in Oregon, recognizing companies large and small for their feats. That’s what this list, “and the underlying mission of the Business Journal itself, is all about - focusing on growth and learning for those companies that are making it happen,“ said Craig Wessel, Portland Business Journal Publisher.

The top 100 companies were chosen based upon their percentage of revenue growth from 2008-2010 and then ranked accordingly. FMYI remained on the list at 14th, after making our debut on the 2010 list at 13th—and the momentum is still going. More teams are learning the power of FMYI to INNOVATE NOW, as FMYI serves 135,000 profiles and 11,500 sites.

Celebrating at the reception with the Portland team, FMYI President Justin Yuen said, “Our team is honored to be in such great company and appreciative for the Portland Business Journal’s recognition of our efforts. We look forward to continually helping more people easily collaborate online in a sustainable way by creating a private social network to get work done on FMYI.“

In 2010 we released version 6.16 with new features making FMYI simpler, smarter and more flexible and launched our Change Agents Unite campaign to empower others to make a difference. Additionally, FMYI expanded the company’s commitment to the triple bottom line (people, planet, and profit) as we announced our 2020 vision for zero impact at the 2010 Net Impact Conference and became a certified B Corporation.

Continuing to thrive on our growth, FMYI recently unveiled new pricing options making it even more affordable than other competitive offerings.

The FMYI team congratulates all the recipients who continue to grow Oregon’s economy during these tough times, including our fellow certified B Corporations (Bamboo Sushi and Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers) who are also guided by the triple bottom line and a new way of doing business.

FMYI Unveils New Pricing Options Making It More Affordable Than Most Competitive Offerings
Industry Leading Collaboration Software Delivers Even Better Value to Customers

PORTLAND, Ore., June 8, 2011 – FMYI [for my innovation], a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software, today announced new, highly competitive pricing options to provide customers various features and price points. FMYI’s unique value proposition is the combination of social and workflow tools with ease of deployment, free support, sustainability - and now even better price options. Complete details about the new pricing are available at www.fmyi.com/pricing.

Since not all teams are created equal, FMYI developed its new prices to take into account a variety of team sizes as well as their different needs. With FMYI, every team gets its own private social network and collaboration platform. They can manage a variety of activities, such as file sharing, project management, customer relationship management (CRM), group calendaring, task management, resource library, intranet, workflow tools, and sustainability features. Each product level is designed to provide for a specific number of users and pages as well as space including:
•    FMYI Pro – unlimited users and pages with 50 GB of file storage - $149 monthly
•    FMYI Plus – 30 users and unlimited pages with 15 GB of file storage - $49 monthly
•    FMYI Lite – 15 users and 15 pages with 3 GB of file storage - $14 monthly

“With our new pricing we’re breaking through to the next level to make FMYI affordable for any team, of any size,” said Justin Yuen, President, FMYI, Inc. “

FMYI aims to provide a triple bottom line value, with a solution to help customers reduce their impact on the planet and now priced to minimally impact profits. FMYI is proud to be a certified B Corp, underscoring our commitment to being a social responsible enterprise.”

Competitively, FMYI’s new prices go the distance to offer the best all-in-one solution at the lowest price point. In fact, 37signals requires at least two purchases, Basecamp and Highrise, to be a comparable product to FMYI’s less expensive offering. Newly signed-up FMYI customers who formerly used Salesforce.com report Salesforce is far more complex and exponentially more expensive. As an alternative to Jive or Microsoft Sharepoint, FMYI is pennies to the dollar in both price and the extensive implementation required for those systems. Yammer doesn’t have the workflow tools and an I.T. executive who is now a FMYI customer, recently called it a spamming machine.

About FMYI [for my innovation]
Founded in 2004, FMYI is a leading provider of private social networks and collaboration software headquartered in Portland, Oregon. FMYI collaboration networks are used by teams of all sizes (2-20,000) at companies, nonprofits, government agencies, and universities around the world. Guided by the triple bottom line (people, planet and profit), FMYI endeavors to be an enduring business with minimum ecological impact and maximum social value because it is simply the right thing to do. FMYI is committed to sustainability internally and to injecting sustainability into the business practices of its clients. In addition to helping companies benefit from paperless work processes, FMYI also enables a team to track its sustainable commuting modes and methods as well as purchases renewable energy credits for clients’ FMYI power use. Keeping with its tagline “Powered by human energy ®,“ FMYI provides free support as an integral part of making technology work for people. FMYI is the only software-as-service (SaaS) company to be certified as a B Corporation.

May 21st came and went without disaster on the epic scale that some predicted. But it sure seems like unprecedented suffering as a result of what insurance companies call “acts of god” is on the rise in recent months. Though Japan has mostly been knocked off the front page of the news feed by flooding and fires here in the US, many people there are years, perhaps decades away from anything that looks like normal life. Even from here, it’s hard to keep such tragedy in focus without losing hope or feeling powerless.

I count urbanMamas among my favorite stops in daily internet rounds. There’s an online community there of parents (not just mamas) interested in sharing resources, asking questions when they have them, answering questions when they can, and generally supporting one another. On June 6th an urbanMamas post about efforts to support Japanese mamas caught my eye. In short, a few women in Portland and a few women in Japan are working together to coordinate international homestays for Japanese families who need relief from the stress of evacuation centers and radiation. Many pregnant women and parents of young children in Japan see staying indoors as a critical step in reducing radiation exposure for their little ones. Spending the summer inside would be hard in any circumstances. But spending summer inside an evacuation center or as a guest in someone else’s home must be an enormous load to bear in the aftermath of national trauma. The plan is to host some families here where the kids can drink in some carefree days in the summer sun, and families can take deep breaths and feel restored. (I’m paraphrasing and just trying to spread the word. Please read the uM post or join the google group.)

Do you have space in your home to share with a visiting Japanese family for a little while this summer? If hosting isn’t a fit for you, are you interested in providing an outing on a summer day to some guests? Do you have baby or kid equipment (car seat, stroller, toys, bikes) you’d be willing to loan to a visiting family for a time? Do you provide some professional service that you’d like to donate? If you’re inspired to contribute, there is undoubtedly something you can do. Some of our Japanese neighbors will be touched personally by the creative generosity of Portlanders this summer.

If you’d like to learn more, join the google group Portland Families Supporting Hahako Network.