Burnin’

There’s an increasingly tiresome argument being made in the corporate suits, government offices and newsrooms of Portland, Oregon. The argument goes like this: Portland doesn’t have enough top tier talent to properly grow a company, nor enough venture capital.

According to Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian, three Portland companies—Jive Software, Ensequence and SurveyMonkey—all moved their top executives out of state last year.

“It’s not about Portland,” says Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey’s new California-based chief executive. “It’s really just about the Bay Area.”

“My job is to shepherd this company to be a great company, and if we can’t do it in Portland, we’re going to do it someplace else,” Dave Hersh, Jive Software’s CEO, said last fall. “I’m disappointed we weren’t able to pull it all off in Portland.”

Jive and Ensequence maintain Portland headquarters, and all three companies have retained sizable contingents here. Still, last year’s executive exodus was especially dispiriting in the context of Oregon’s wilted economy.

In related news, Laura Gunderson of The Oregonian reports that Lucy Activewear is moving from Portland to San Leandro, Calif., eliminating as many as 95 corporate and distribution center jobs here. Lucy, it’s important to note, isn’t locally owned.

In addition to the lack of available capital and talent beef, Oregonians also suffer from rumors that we don’t work hard and that our taxes on corporations are too high. I’ll leave the tax argument to others more qualified to speak, but the work ethic gripe I’ll gladly mangle. First, the argument is false. This state and all the great companies, schools and cultural institutions in it weren’t put here by a genie. They were put here by the pioneering, passionate and deeply committed citizens of the Beaver State.

Plus, too many places with a notable work ethic are soulless husks of a city. I don’t want to be part of that. Do you? Work is a central aspect of life in Oregon, as it is elsewhere, but we strive for balance here. The arts are important here; we like to eat amazing food and drink local wine and beer; and we go camping, hiking, skiing, etc.

PREVIOUSLY ON BURNIN’: Does The Northwest Have The Right Climate for Business?

More than a century of industrial use has resulted in Willamette River sediments being contaminated with many hazardous substances, such as heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), dioxin/furans, and pesticides. This far-from-green reality led a 10-mile stretch of the Willamette to be classified as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protect Agency in 2000.

This month Oregon Business is running a feature on the Superfund situation. It’s a topic all civic-minded Portlanders need to get up to speed on, because our economic future is tied directly to our willingness and ability to clean up the river and put sustainable practices into place.

As with most things, we need to know our history if we’re going to find a route out of the mess we’re in and refrain from repeating past mistakes.

Portland was built on the Willamette River, and the city’s 150-year history has forever altered that body of water. The West Coast’s first navigation channel enabled timber and grain exports starting in the 1850s. The railroad followed in the 1880s. After a lull during the Depression years, the harbor shifted into full gear during World War II, as workers built Liberty Ships for the Navy and rail cars for the Soviet Union.

Since the war years, healthy business clusters have developed in international trade, ship repair and metals manufacturing. Little thought was given to the ecological health of the river until the 1970s, when Gov. Tom McCall campaigned against pollution in the Willamette and spearheaded efforts to clean up Oregon’s defining waterway. But by then much of the damage had been done. It was just a matter of time before the pollution bill came due.

Oregon Business does a nice job of showing readers just how large that bill is. According to a 2008 report paid for by the Portland Development Commission, failing to redevelop key harbor properties such as the Arkema site over the next 10 years could cost the region $320 million in investment, $81 million in annual payroll and 1,450 jobs.

Cleaning up the toxic messes along the river is not easy nor inexpensive, a fact that’s contributing to the slow pace of progress. Hard choices need to be made and compromises struck between competing interests.

Steve Gunther, an environmental contractor who resigned from the harbor’s Community Advisory Group in frustration, says, “This is a billion-dollar project with no timeframe, no budget, no vision and no accountability.”

Gunther calls Superfund process “a jobs program for lawyers, lab rats and consultants.”

The Oregonian says the cleanup effort could commence in 2013, with the cost potentially totaling $1 billion or more for industry, landowners, and sewer and utility ratepayers. It’s likely to involve hundreds of landowners past and present, and some of the state’s top industrial employers, from Schnitzer Steel to Siltronic.

I don’t see how Portland could have a more critical issue on its plate. We’re a river city and a city with a lot of unrealized ideals about how business and environmental needs can coexist. The thing is we’re not in a lab in a school. Portland is the lab and we can either get it right and prosper, or get it wrong and dissolve in a toxic stew of our own making.

NPR is running a story on cargo bikes that features two Portland companies in the cargo bike business—Metrofiets and Clever Cycles.

The piece also introduces Portland mom, Carie Weisenbach-Folz, who picks up her two kids, ages 5 and 2, from school. “But instead of loading them into the usual minivan, she’s uses a cargo bicycle.”

Try that in Dallas, Missy.

It’s interesting to note that the majority of Metrofiets’ customers aren’t families—they’re businesses. Metrofiets has built a custom cargo bicycle for a floor refinisher to carry his sander, and another for a brewery to transport their beer kegs. Phillip Ross of Metrofiets says businesses “can absolutely get rid of one of their fleet vehicles, and use one of these bikes, within a certain geographical area around their shop.”

Today, 750,000 Americans bike to work–a 50 percent jump since 2000. There are no estimates yet on the number of cargo bikes on the street.

PORTLAND—Last night, about 50 entrepreneurs, and those interested in that lonely path, gathered in Keen Footwear’s Great Room to hear from a panel of local business owners willing to share their hard-earned advise. The “Start Your Own Business” panel was organized by Zimmerman Community Center, whose mission is “to strengthen civic and spiritual life while developing the identity of The River District.”

The panel was moderated by Randy Miller, president of the Portland Ambassadors business advocacy group. Michelle Cairo of In the Black; Robin Jones of 88 Inc.; Otto Papasadero of NARDA (and a Zimmerman board member); and Sarah Shaoul of Black Wagon were on the panel.

The panel covered a lot of ground in a short span, but for me the key takeaway came from Papasadero. He said, “Your business has to be well documented to be successful. Documents detail how the business works.”

After the session, I asked Papasadero to clarify and name the actual documents he thinks are important. He said 1) your business plan and 2) your operations manual. Papasadero also told a story about how Warren Buffett was so impressed with the documentation from Dufresne Furniture in Winnipeg, that he offered to buy the company’s documents (not the actual company).

Papasadero’s point on documentation is ultimately partly about transfer of ownership. He said when one sells their company, even if it’s a sole-proprietorship, the buyer wants a turn-key experience and that’s found in the company’s documentation.

Another highlight of the evening came in Miller’s introductory remarks. He said “there’s a perception that this community is anti-business, which is dead wrong.” Miller said business formation in Portland has tripled this year. He also made a great point about the mutually beneficial relationship between one big business and many small business. For instance, Intel, the largest private employer in Oregon, has 8000 Oregon vendors, he said.

There was also talk from Miller and the panelists about the “defining moment” that drives one to launch (and stick with) a business. Papasadero said defining moments come along semi-regularly, “but we don’t always recognize them.”

I’m reflecting now on my own defining moments, and I have to say, being fired more than once from an ad agency job helped me see that there’s little security in placing one’s fate in another manager’s hands. Yet, I still go back and forth, thinking that “a job” might be the better path (I wish I didn’t). Another entrepreneur I know also struggles and wavers from time to time. But he reminded me earlier this week that when he did work for other people, he hated it. That’s a common theme among entrepreneurs and another important source of “defining moments.”

How Portland am I? I’m underemployed, a fixture at the dog park and I wear a hoody. Plus I love micros, local pinot noir and dining at the city’s premier food carts. It’s this last bit I’d like to tell you more about.

Gourmet Magazine recently profiled eight of Portland’s not-to-miss carts, and I’ve enjoyed two of them this week (and it’s only Wednesday).

To me, dining out is partly about the adventure. If the restaurant or food cart serves ethnic food, I want to travel to that far away land, edibly speaking. Cora y Huichol Taqueria on SE 82nd and Holgate really delivers in the transport department. It’s a short journey down SE 82nd, but when you arrive at this concrete corner and eat the dishes made by skilled and caring ladies, you’re no longer in Portland at all.

image courtesy of Portland Food Carts blog

Marissa Robinson-Textor, writing for Gourmet, says:

the moment you taste the Nayarit and Jalisco specialties at this little white truck, you’ll be riding the waves with the best of them. In a city brimming with quality Mexican food, items like tacos al pastor certainly hold their own, but it’s the seafood dishes—a tangy, spicy “ceviche” and tostadas de camaron—that will hook, line, and sinker you.

I ordered two ceviche tostadas and lightly decorated them with salsa habanera. I’m always on the hunt for good ceviche and it is an elusive dish, indeed. But now I know who in Portland has their ceviche game together. The tostadas were filled to the brim with a shrimp and octopus (I think) mixture, drowning in lime juice. The shrimp was perfectly marinated, and the tostadas were thick enough to handle the generous toppings.

I can’t wait to return to try some other items from Cora y Huichol Taqueria. I’m thinking a torta might be my next call when I’m out that way again.

One of the charming aspects of life in the Portland Metro is this not little thing called the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB). It’s a line beyond which, “the city” can’t go.

According to Eric Mortenson of The Oregonian, Portland’s elected regional government known as Metro–which serves more than 1.5 million residents in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties–believes the Portland area can grow by one million more residents over the next 20 years, without pushing the UGB beyond its current dimensions.

Michael Jordan, Metro’s chief operating officer, said Tuesday at the Metro Council meeting that the region can buffer prime farmland and preserve key natural areas while providing land for the projected newcomers and for the additional jobs they will need.

Jordan laid out his recommendations backed by a 3-inch stack of studies, charts and maps compiled by planners during the past two years.

Among the findings: There are 15,000 acres of vacant, buildable land within the current urban growth boundary, or UGB, for Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. That’s about 35 times the size of downtown Portland, according to Metro.

Naturally, there is opposition to this vision of Portland’s future. Mike Wells, spokesman for the Oregon Chapter of NAIOP, a commercial real estate development association, says, “We respectfully disagree with some of the underlying assumptions” of the Metro report. “We embrace the goal of compact development and making wise use of infrastructure, but we challenge some of the assumptions as just not realistic.”

Ryan Frank of The Oregonian paints an intriguing portrait of one of Portland’s largest landlords and real estate developers, Joe Weston.

At 71, Weston has built a real estate empire that ranks him among the city’s wealthiest men (the Portland Tribune puts his real estate holdings at $300 million). But he doesn’t drive a Mercedes. He doesn’t live on an estate. He doesn’t do pinstripes. He shows up to public meetings wearing ties festooned with the American flag and a bald eagle without a hint of irony.

So, Portland has a rich but grandfatherly guy roaming the streets. If he wears suspenders, he must also have some good advice to impart. Frank asked him several questions that indicate as much.

Q: There’s been a lot of talk about a glut of condos in Portland. But the city’s skyline is now dotted with shiny new luxury apartment towers. How can a city like Portland support this huge supply of high-rise apartments?

A: That’s a very, very good question because we are not a corporate town and we don’t have a huge executive payroll. I don’t know how the people currently are paying $2,400 to $6,500 a month for these units. It’s a mystery to me. You’re looking at a corporate payroll for that of $175,000 a year or more. We just don’t have that many jobs in Portland, Oregon, that pay that.

This question of where highly paid people work in this city is a dogged one. The biggest industry these days appears to be sportswear, but Nike, Adidas, Columbia, Jantzen, Lucy Activewear, LaCrosse Footwear, Nau and Keen do not a city of well off people make. The Portland metro is also strong in high tech, but not in the same way Seattle is. There’s no Amazon.com and no Microsoft.

Real estate site, MoveToPortland, points to several of Portland’s largest employers and there is a seemingly solid manufacturing base here thanks to Precision Castparts, Nautilus, Schnitzer Steel, Oregon Steel Mills, Monaco Coach, Northwest Pipe Company and PW Eagle. Of course, the ever steady flow of immigrants from Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin aren’t looking for work in the industrial sector.

Willamette Weekly, one of the city’s two alt weeklies, ran a cover story last week called “The Young And The Jobless”, wherein they profiled people like Emily Jackson, a recent law school grad who can’t find work and is subsisting on food stamps. The paper asked her “Do you ever think about leaving Portland?” She said, “Think about it, yes, but not seriously—I don’t know where I would go. I’m another tattooed white girl on a bike; this is really the only city that would have me.”

The Oregon Trail is still an open road some 150 years after the first wave of white migration. I’m here from Omaha. Darby’s here from Cleveland. Our friend Chief is here from Minneapolis. And so on…

But what’s at the end of the trail today? Open-minded and friendly people. A unique craft beer industry and thriving winery scene. Locally-grown slow food. Bike lanes. Off-leash dog parks. Volcanoes, wild salmon, big trees and lots of beautiful flowers. But no coin, however shiny, is one-sided. Oregon is also home to a frightening economy.

Look at this graph from the Portland Tribune:

One-in-four Oregonians are under-employed and one-in-six is on food stamps. Talk about an ugly underbelly. When it comes to employment, it doesn’t get any uglier than the Beaver State (which is odd given that beavers are builders).

I’ve been on a hunt for an answer (any answer) to Oregon’s economic woes, because I don’t think it should be a mystery; rather it must be an obvious problem that all Oregonians–new and native–work to solve.

I’ve had the good fortune to speak with two ad agency principals in the past few weeks about the problem and one of the things I’m learning is a mix of economic forces like banking industry consolidation and the lumber industry’s new focus on its Southern U.S. operations (where it can grow more trees faster) have dealt a particularly harsh blow, as firms that were headquartered in Portland now have little or no presence in the city.

In the meantime creative class hipsters and laborers alike are pounding the pavement, with little hope of finding work. One has to wonder where the answers will come from. Portland Mayor Sam Adams wants the City of Roses to become the City of Sustainability and he sees massive job creation as a result of that pursuit. He might be right, but I think more radical solutions may need to be implemented and soon. For instance, legalizing industrial hemp and recreational use of marijuana would in one year’s time revolutionize the state’s economy, and the region’s because CA, WA and BC would be right there with us. It might sound far-fetched but what’s even more outrageous is the idea that one-in-three or one-in-two Oregonians might someday be out of work or under-employed.

Portland journalist Abraham Hyatt spent the last month organizing all the details that went into today’s Digital Journalism Camp, a free conference for journalists of all stripes. Given the state of newspapers and journalism in general, the price was certainly right.

One thing that wasn’t right was the no WiFi situation. Apparently, Sprint was going to provide WiFi but bailed at the last minute. There was one hot spot available but it was only good for eight connections. Some attendees plugged their machines to a physical port, some thanked their stars for a cell connection and others took notes the old fashioned way, by hand in a $1.29 notebook (can you imagine?).

Hyatt opened the day with remarks about re-imagining the work journalists do. He said journalists must find “nimble, pro-active and exciting ways of telling stories and describing the world we live in.”

The first panel of the day–on hyperlocal news sites–was led by business writer Michelle Rafter. She said if she had a million dollars she’d build and fund a hyperlocal news organization. Panelist Ken Aaron, Co-Founder of Neighborhood Notes, could relate. His site endeavors to break news on the neighborhood level in Portland. He described the transition Neighborhood Notes made from blog to news site and I was happy to hear they do, in fact, pay freelance writers for news stories assigned by the site’s editor(s). The rate is only $.10/word but it’s more than Huffington Post pays, or AdPulp for that matter.

During the morning’s second panel on SEO for journalists, I learned that I’m supposed to look at Google Trends for keywords and then place them in my titles, preferably surrounded by html header tags. I’m sure the experts are right, but that’s not how I roll. Writing creative headlines is a joy and not one I’m likely to give up any time soon.

I grabbed a free falafel for lunch and a bottle of water, courtesy of a conference sponsor. Over the lunch hour, I chatted with Steven Walling who writes for ReadWriteWeb and works for AboutUs. Alex Wilhelm, a.k.a @Alex, Co-Founder of Contenture told me about his new PayPal-like service for content producers (something I want to learn more about and perhaps put into play). Finally, Mike Rogoway, business writer for The Oregonian, entertained my questions about why OregonLive.com was down the street in a separate building. He reminded me that while both The Oregonian and OregonLive.com are owned by Advance, they are in fact two different companies. I know that, of course, but it’s something I can’t quite get my thick head around.

The one o’clock hour was Ginger Grant’s turn to entice the audience with the power of story and myth, in particular. By the way, this Grant is not a character on Gilligan’s Island. She’s a B.C.-based professor, speaker and consultant. Grant said when she looks at a company she doesn’t want to know job descriptions. Rather, she wants to know what people are good at and most passionate about. She said if we suck at something maybe we ought to stop doing it. Sounds logical.

Grant also suggested we each make a list with two columns. First, list “What You Love” and follow it with “What’s Not Working For You.” Then use what you love to fix what’s not working for you, she said. Interesting. With that math, I ought to be able to write my way out of financial instability. Hold it, I’ve done that (several times over). Yes, but it’s a challenge that never ends.

Nau is a Portland-based active wear company that makes gear for “artists, athletes and activists out to unfuck the world.” I would have chosen a different way of expressing that sentiment, but I do hear what Nau is saying and I count myself among the people they’re trying to reach.

When you visit Nau’s Web site and click on “Collective Stories,” you’ll find an archive of videos that showcase the concerns of Nau employees and their customers. For example, here’s a piece on Salmon Nation and Salmon Nation Artists Project CD:

I like how Alexa Wiley Pengelly, one of the CD’s producers says, “Culture is alive. It is found within experiences and moments passed down and shared by our elders, civic leaders and creative communities, connecting people to the land.”

I also love the paintings of the mighty fish by Mimi Matsuda.

For the first time, The Northwest 100, The Seattle Times’ annual ranking of the region’s best-performing public companies, has fewer than 100 companies listed.

photo courtesy of Flickr user, SpaceNinja

The main culprit: last fall’s stock-market slide, which pushed dozens of Northwest stocks below $2 a share. The Northwest 100 long has excluded companies whose shares have dropped below $2, but never — not even during the dot-com collapse earlier this decade — have so many companies fallen below that threshold.

Another reason for the decline: fewer and fewer publicly traded companies are headquartered in Washington, Oregon or Idaho.

A decade ago, nearly 200 Northwest companies were trading on major exchanges; today, there are just 136. Dozens evaporated in the dot-com bust; others, from big names like Safeco, Puget Energy and Immunex to younger tech firms such as Captaris and Advanced Digital Information, have been vacuumed up by larger companies and private-equity firms.

“Should the dearth of new public companies persist, the region could become a less vibrant, compelling place to work and create,” suggests Drew DeSilver, the Seattle Times reporter on the story.

I think when you couple this report with news that Oregon’s unemployment shot up to 12.4% last month, there is reason for concern. I also find it interesting that these trends are present in a region that thinks of itself as innovative, smart and self-reliant. From the one person design shops to the slow food restaurants and sustainable wineries all the way to Amazon.com and Nike, Northwest companies tend to shoot for the stars. In general, I’d say people have higher standards here.

So, why isn’t this beautiful part of the country, rich in human capital and natural resources, booming? It’s a conundrum.

The Oregonian did a nice job with this video. The economic story in The Dalles is interesting, so that’s a good place to start. But the paper is also showing it can create compelling video content, which is essential for an online media enterprise.

Federal workers at Bureau of Land Management sites throughout the West are being asked to weigh the nation’s need for clean and plentiful energy with concerns for wildlife habitat.

According to Matthew Preusch of The Oregonian:

Rows of tall turbines have already remade the landscape on wheat farms and ridgelines on private land around the region. But so far there have been no wind farms built on public land in the Northwest.

That’s about to change.

Although Oregon’s dry side was bypassed by the oil and gas boom that roiled the West in recent years, it’s clear that won’t be the case with wind. That could change the view from atop Steens Mountain or on Interstate 84 while driving toward Boise. But it also portends some bitter fights over who gets to use publicly owned land and for what purpose.

And a lot of that fighting could center on a showy, chickenlike bird called the greater sage grouse.

I’m not a wildlife scientist, an engineer, nor a politician, but I am confident there’s room for both the sage grouse and a conscientious wind industry on the publicly held lands in this state.