Andrew Moore over at The Bend Bulletin covered a recent COISUG meeting over at McMenamin’s.

It seems there are many tech minds here in town – take a look at Andrew’s article:

Tech talent

Bend high-tech sector has ‘momentum to move forward’

Get a bunch of information technology workers together, feed them soda and pizza, and engage them with a software demonstration and you have a snapshot of the Central Oregon Information Systems User Group.

It’s not as geeky as it sounds, however. The group, known as COISUG, meets every month in order for its roughly 100 members to network, share knowledge and listen to software demonstrations from some of computing’s biggest vendors, including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.

The two-year-old group, along with other technology-oriented user groups in the region, also has been instrumental in attracting attention from the Software Association of Oregon. Harvey Mathews, the association’s president, said COISUG is one reason the SAO has agreed to begin discussions with the groups to form a Central Oregon chapter.

“It’s just in the beginning phases, but I can definitely see how that is going to become a chapter in the very near future,” said Portland-based Mathews. “There’s too much going on (in Central Oregon) to not have some sort of centralized voice.”

The SAO — with chapters in Portland, Corvallis, Lane County and the Rogue Valley — supports and advocates for Oregon’s software industry. It had expressed interest last year in opening a chapter in Central Oregon but felt some push-back from local technology user groups, Mathews said.

That has since evaporated, said Lewis Howell, the founder of COISUG.

“We feel like we have some momentum to move forward,” Howell said. “We know we can do something.”

A local SAO chapter or some sort of organized technology community is often sought by businesses that are considering moving to an area, Mathews said. The SAO also can coordinate education efforts between local technology user groups, arrange for speakers to visit and help local groups with finances and finding local sponsors.

For Howell, having SAO join the mix of technology groups in Bend is one more indicator that there is an impressive pool of talented technology workers in the region.

“There’s so many leaders and creative talent here — industrious people. It’s going on,” Howell said.

At their meeting Wednesday afternoon, roughly 30 COISUG members gathered in the Rambler Ambassador Room at McMenamins Old St. Francis School to hear a presentation from a Microsoft representative about Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization software. The members snacked on Tater Tots, pizza and slices of cantaloupe and pineapple.

In the group were several women, including Jennifer Floyd. Floyd is the founder of a similar technology group, the Central Oregon Web Professionals’ Usergroup, or COWPU. Floyd founded the group at roughly the same time as Howell founded COISUG, when both were employees of Edge Wireless.

Her inspiration was the same as Howell’s, she said, to gather local Web professionals together to network and share knowledge and to keep local Web designers and developers from having to drive to Portland to attend meaningful Web presentations.

“COWPU was a way for me to learn about new products, who’s using what and why,” said Floyd, who now works as the senior Web application developer for Deschutes County.

Also in the audience was Chris Mills, the corporate IT manager for XL Management Company LLC, a Redmond firm that manages a number of retirement and assisted-living facilities around the country. Mills, a 13-year resident of Central Oregon, said COISUG meets a need he long searched for, an opportunity to gather with other information technology workers and see what they are doing.

“I’ve waited for something like this,” Mills said. “It’s a nice niche that was missing.”

Howell, who now works for a Bend-based IT consulting company called Cinetix Solutions, said COISUG’s members pay no dues. Rent for its monthly meetings is paid for by the visiting vendors, who like the opportunity to pitch their products to numerous people at once, Howell said.

COISUG also posts technology-oriented job openings on its Web site and offers links to other local groups and events, and a technology-themed bookstore that allows COISUG members to review its books for free.

In addition to COISUG and COWPU, other active local technology groups are COMUG, the Central Oregon Macintosh Users Group; WoTech, for women who work in technology; and BendTech, a group for individuals of all backgrounds interested in technology.