About

What is Beer and Blog?

Beer and Blog is a free meet up that takes place every Wednesday from 5pm until at least 7pm at Cloud9 in Corvallis, OR. Bloggers and Twitters from the local scene show up and we help each other with our blogs. Sometimes we’ll arrange for a special guest to be there to help us on topics that are beyond the group’s skill set. Beer and Blog is like a networking event based around a group work session. Not only does it bring together talented folks that each bring a unique offering to the group, but it’s also a set social event that prompts us to do the updates we say we’re going to do.

Where do we meet?

We meet at Cloud 9 every Wednesday starting around 5pm going till around 7pm. Sometimes it goes later, sometimes shorter. Please check the Facebook Fanpage or our Twitter feed before attending in case we have a change. We still may go to other venues once a month such as Block 15 or McMenamins on Monroe.

Do I have to be drink beer or even be 21 and older?

Of course not! Beer is just one of the many binding elements that bring people together. We’re planning to keep this event open to everyone even including high school students! Don’t feel obligated to drink an alcoholic beverage but instead please contribute to the group discussion and of course blog/tweet.

Do I have to be a blogger to show up?

It’s not a requirement that you’re a blogger to attend any of our events. If you’re interested starting a blog using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or any other form of social media, then this event is for you! It’s not all geeks either, a lot of the people are just normal folks that just have an interest in expressing themselves in a new way online. You don’t even need to live in Corvallis, we’d love anyone from the surrounding area that can make it.

How did Beer and Blog start?

Beer and Blog originally started in Portland, OR by Justin Kistner (@justinkistner) as part of a conversation with a friend of his as he was tinkering on his blog. Justin mentioned that he worked with a lot of my friends on their blog and it would be nice to have a time and place where we could all work on them together. He immediately ran with the idea and before he knew it Justin had a domain name!

How did it start in Corvallis?

At Beaver Barcamp in the fall of 2008, Lance Albertson (@ramereth) presented a session discussing what we could do to ignite the social media scene in Corvallis much like it has in Portland. We were lucky and had a few people (which included Bryan Stearns (@bryanstearns)) from Portland, OR at Beaver Barcamp and shared the history and experiences of their social media scene. The primary conclusion from the session was that the first step in igniting scene in Corvallis was starting a local Beer and Blog. Lance contacted Justin and tweeted about it to get some interest. We quickly had several local and regional people interested and decided to give it a shot! The owner of Block 15 was generous enough to host the event for us and there you have it.

Goals

We hope to have several things happen by having Beer and Blog in Corvallis, some include but are not limited to the following:
  • Create a fun & comfortable environment to socialize with local bloggers/twitters
  • Share ideas and concepts between our diverse knowledge and background
  • Promote local tech/social events like Corvallis SAO, SpeakerLunch, Beaver Barcamp, and IgniteCorvallis
  • Learn new tricks, technologies and ways to express ourselves digitally
  • Network with area and regional people
  • Innovate our social media culture
  • Rule the world one Beer (or root beer) at a time

Please join us and have fun!