On the Hot Seat: Portland Picks

Two years ago, we interviewed Kathi O’Neil, publisher of PortlandPicks.com (June of 2006), a free website devoted to sharing the best shopping, dining and entertainment tips for Portland. Besides doubling their subscriber base since then, they have also launched Picks sites in Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago and Minneapolis. What’s more, in December of 2007, the unstoppable team launched PortlandPicksforMen.com—to much success.

I joined Alisa Sloan, Editor-in-Chief for CityPicksGroup.com and Justin Valdivia, managing editor of PortlandPicksforMen.com at Kell’s Irish Restaurant mere days before St. Patrick’s Day. We dished on the journalism business, our fine city, our love of smoky bars and, well…reality TV. We had so much fun, I kind of forgot to interview them. But here’s the news that was fit to print.

PDX: So [Justin] how’d you get involved with Portland Picks?

JV: This one. [indicates Alisa]

AS: We know each other. We were launching Portland Picks for Men and we were trying to think of someone who had a good grasp of fashion, things that are happening in town, the bar and restaurant scene—

JV: And they couldn’t find that, so I took the job. [laughs]

AS: And it’s hard in Portland because you want to get the manly-man but still have a little bit of edge. It’s a weird line that you have to walk.

PDX: Any plans to do a Picks for Men in Chicago or—

AS: No, we just have the Picks for women in Chicago, but we are launching a Seattle Picks for Men. That’s going to be our next adventure.

PDX: You don’t stop at all, do you?

AS: I know. So much for not being a workaholic.

JV: Yeah. Seattle’s going to be a bit more challenging because I’m not there. I’m trusting the writers. I really had to get a feel for them. I can go online and look up a business that they’re writing about, but there’s only so much you can glean without going. I can send a writer [in Portland] to someplace I know, because it fits our readership and I think it’s someplace that they will like, but it’s harder [when you’re not there]. It’s an element of the unknown.

PDX: There’s a lot going on in Seattle.

JV: There’s a lot of stuff happening. So, we’ll do bi-weekly at first, just deliver the good stuff and see how it goes.

PDX: So, how has the response been for Portland Picks for Men?

JV: Really good.

AS: Yeah. We’re up over 3,500 [subscribers].

PDX: Oh wow.

JV: Yeah, initially there were something like a thousand or so women who were signing up their guy friends. But whenever we write someone up we try to tie in with them, get them to write a little blurb about us, use our logo in their newsletter or things like that.

AS: But I think the big thing is finding that connection with the readers. In those first few issues, you’re trying to establish who is going to read it and what they are going to get out of it. And having that connection—when you get those emails from people saying, “I really liked that article” or “I really liked that place.” We had someone send us 1,000 words on a shaving product and their favorite way to shave. And I thought, “Now, that’s dedication.” [laughs] No, it was great. You want the intimacy with your readers. And I think that’s the reason—aside from being online—that we really do try to establish that BFF kind of relationship with them. You know, we want to be able to tell our readers that they can respond and tell us what they think of what we wrote.

PDX: I just re-read today—we interviewed Kathi in 2006—not too long after Portland Picks was launched and she said that she was basically writing to herself.

AS: Yup. She was. [laughs]

PDX: What was the motivation for launching in other cities?

AS: Well, Portland is wonderful. I love it. It’s home base. But we were getting emails constantly saying, “I live in Boston. Where’s my Boston picks?” It wasn’t really a master plan. We probably would have been content to just stick to Portland and do what we do better, but the requests were coming in fast and furious.

PDX: And you’re doing all of them. You’re the editor for all the cities?

AS: Yeah. I’ve probably done more work in the last year and a half than I’ve done in the last 10 years. I’ll work until 10 o’clock at night and I’ll have to turn off the computer and say, “That’s it! No more!”

PDX: So what’s the reward in that, with so much work?

AS: Oh! I love it!