Elemental Perspective: Startup seedlings or clearcutting in Silicon Forest?

Submitted by Sam on Thu, 05/27/2010 - 12:41

Sam Blackman mugshot

Oregon got some sad news last week when Jive Software announced the company was moving its headquarters to Palo Alto. Jive is a terrific company that has built one of the best social media businesses around: unique technology, a deep customer base, and national recognition in publications like The New York Times. Dave Hersh, Jive’s current chairman and founding CEO, helped mentor many other Portland startups and was an inspirational technology leader here. What happened?

For those of us who have lived in the Northwest for a long time, it’s a familiar story. The excuses are plentiful: it is difficult to find great sales and marketing talent here. The epicenter of the technology world is the Bay Area. There's not enough venture capital in the state. I could go on and on.

So, why try to build a company in Portland?

Elementals Rebuilding Together, Lending a Helping Hand

Submitted by Whitney on Fri, 05/14/2010 - 09:14

Group Photo at Rebuilding Together

If you work at a startup company then you are probably familiar with strict budgeting of money, time and other resources to stay competitive.  Even with the limited resources of a typical startup, Elemental does its best to stay involved with the community by doing good works for our neighbors here in Portland.  We like to get to know members of our community and play an active role in their lives and hearts.  This strong sense of community extends beyond the fourth floor of 620 SW Alder; it is a belief we enjoy sharing with a large number of Portlanders. 

We recently joined forces with Rebuilding Together, a national nonprofit that rehabilitates homes for low-income homeowners, particularly the elderly and those with disabilities.  Saturday, April 24, nine of us Elementals set out to refurbish the home of an elderly and disabled couple here in Portland (Most of the team is pictured above).  The home, inside and out, has been well cared for in the past, but as you can imagine, some things became unmanageable for them over the past few years. 

Elemental Accelerator Product Tour Video

Submitted by Sam on Mon, 08/24/2009 - 15:38

As you may expect, video is near and dear to our hearts at Elemental. Those who have been following us for years will certainly recall the original Badaboom commercials, which tended to incite strong reactions: some people loved 'em, others thought they were too corny. We believe our newest foray into production is consistent with the professional grade product it represents.

With the Elemental Accelerator product tour video, we wanted to increase the use of motion graphics to create a visceral, impactful illustration of the power of our GPU-accelerated software. Lisa, product manager, and Julie, communications manager, drove the process working closely with local production company Funnelbox Studios to create a unique, professional overview of Elemental Accelerator in 2 short minutes. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Elemental Accelerator Product Tour Screenshot

Elemental Server Changes the Game

Submitted by Sam on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 17:46

It's been awhile since I posted (I'm clearly the worst blogger around, very embarrassing considering that Portland is a leader in social media!), but Elemental has made huge strides in the past few months that I'm excited to share.

  • The biggest news is that our Elemental Server product has moved into the beta phase with several online video platform and broadcast customers. Elemental Server is a game-changing product for enterprise customers that have to deal with large volumes of video. In the past, these customers had to create just a few renditions of their content; today, they have to figure out how to get video formatted for the myriad of playback devices and distribution systems that consumers demand. Elemental's GPU-powered Server product dramatically reduces the cost and complexity of creating all these streams.

Elemental Server

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