Hazelnut Tech Talk is a podcast recorded in Portland, Oregon between July and October 2008. Thirteen episodes document the city’s technology, advertising, and design community during the early years of social media and in the midst of the Great Recession.
The show was produced by Cyborg Anthropologist Amber Case and Type Designer and Brand Planner Bram Pitoyo, who conducted conversations with founders, engineers, designers, writers, farmers, and community organizers working in and around Portland’s emerging tech scene.
Episodes were recorded at a range of Portland locations: the Green Dragon bar, SOUK coworking space, Beer and Blog gatherings, on the road between neighborhoods, and at various events around the city.
The podcast ran concurrently with CyborgCamp, Portland’s Beer and Blog gatherings, Cre8Camp, and the Inverge Interactive Convergence Conference, placing it at the center of a community that would go on to shape Pacific Northwest technology culture. Thirteen episodes were released between July 8 and October 8, 2008.
Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist and researcher who studies the relationship between humans and technology. In 2008, she was based in Portland and actively involved in the city’s tech and design community. She has spoken at TED and conferences worldwide, and has held research affiliations at MIT Media Lab and Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center. She is the author of Calm Technology (O’Reilly, 2015) and is the Founder and Executive Director of the Calm Tech Institute.
Bram Pitoyo is a type designer and brand planner who co-hosted Hazelnut Tech Talk from Episode 1. A Portland-based creative with a wide range of interests, he brought perspectives on typography, design culture, and media to the show’s conversations. His background in brand planning shaped how the show approached questions about community, identity, and the future of technology in a regional context.
Portland’s technology community in 2008 was small, interconnected, and unusually creative. The city had an active startup scene, a strong open-source culture, and a tradition of community events that brought together developers, designers, and entrepreneurs on a regular basis.
Regular gatherings included Beer and Blog, a weekly event at the Green Dragon bar; Cre8Camp, a creative unconference; and the Inverge Interactive Convergence Conference, founded by Steve Gehlen. CyborgCamp, an unconference organized by Amber Case, was also part of this ecosystem and appears in Episode 10 as a topic of discussion.
The podcast was recorded against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crisis and the first wave of social media adoption. Twitter handles appear throughout the episode descriptions, reflecting a moment when the platform was just beginning to shape how the Portland tech community organized and communicated. The Gnomedex conference in Seattle, which several Portland regulars attended, also appears in Episode 8 through an interview with Sarah Lacy.