What's Seattle Drupal Dojo?
Call it a hack night or whatever, Seattle Drupal Dojo is a weekly opportunity to get together with other folks in the local Drupal community. Bring your problems, bring your solutions, bring your laptop.
The word Dojo (道場) captures what we're trying to create -- a place to practice and master one's art. Think of it as a place to become a Drupal blackbelt, a Drupal Ninja.
What to do in a local Dojo?
- Work together on personal projects or troubleshoot Drupal issues
- Local outreach/participation in training programs such as Google Summer of Code or Google Code-In
- Collaborate on actual projects beneficial to the local community (ex. Barnraising)
- Participate in important Drupal Community Initiatives
- Brainstorm/collaborate on local training or events
- You get the idea... what else??
When and Where?
TBD
Organizers
Add your name if you'd be interested/available to organize some sessions.
Drupal Dojo Resources
- Other Dojos and working groups - http://groups.drupal.org/node/64153
- Group Page - http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-dojo
- Dojo website - http://drupaldojo.com
- Dojo History- http://groups.drupal.org/node/24866
Comments
Posted this wiki for further discussion
Based on the conversations at last week's Seattle DUG meeting, I've posted this bare-bones wiki so we can flesh out some ideas and move forward. Chime in if you have ideas about frequency, venue(s), topics, any anything else... or just add them to the wiki.
Would be great to get this started here!
Gus Austin
Suggested Time / Day
How about weekly? Thursdays seem to work well for DUG meetings. I'd suggest we stick with Thursdays and potentially the same 3 to 7:30 time frame as the co-working / DUG meetings... skipping the week when the monthly DUG meeting takes place.
I think this time frame is
I think this time frame is great. making the time consistent could increase the likelihood of adoption.
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Makes good sense
The folks in Boston are doing a similar thing in terms of working around the monthly DUG meeting. Wonder if would be difficult for people to start at 3pm. Maybe block out something like 4-8:30 would accommodate people w/ different schedules? Also may help to identify/rotate a few venues in different areas of town.
Here's one potential venue in Wallingford, but looks like a Thursday meetup would have to end at 5pm:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mosaic-coffee-house-seattle
Gus Austin
Meeting space...
Finding free space for evening meetings in Seattle is problematic in general, and this is probably the biggest barrier to getting this going.
Thoughts:
- Public libraries are often suggested as venues, but the Seattle Public Library branches only let you reserve space once a month [downtown library meeting space isn't free], and in my recent experience, they're usually totally booked for evenings.
- Coffee houses are probably not the best venue for this type of meeting, unless (like Mosaic) they have a dedicated meeting space, preferably with a screen and projector.
- It's possible we could use the Amazon space on a weekly basis, but it is not open until 5pm (which is why we have "co-working" elsewhere).
- We also have a database of meeting venues on http://seattle.drupal-camp.org/ (you have to log in to see it -- if someone wants to see it and can't, let me know and I can give you access). At the moment, however, the only free spaces listed in that database are public libraries and conference rooms at people's workplaces.
- Speaking of which, if someone has a conference room at their workplace that they could volunteer on a regular basis, that would be great... I don't think it needs to be too big?
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Should we just pick a day/venue for the first few sessions?
Definitely would be ideal to have a few regular venues that would work for the long term. If cost becomes a factor, there are probably ways to compensate via donations, sponsorships, or even bartering (say if a sweet co-working space or media center needs some website help?).
As it might take a bit to solidify some long term venues, possibly we should schedule 1 or 2 with the options we already have?
Based the discussion above, possibly Mosiac in Wallingford might be a good place to start?
Gus Austin
Should we try Thursday
Should we try Thursday afternoons or perhaps the 3 to 7 time frame on Wednesdays?
Mosaic is available and has a couple of larger tables we can pull together. Unfortunately, the conference rooms are only available for special events, not on a regular basis, but the big room should serve our purposes well. I spoke with them about small groups (2 - 8)... a little larger is ok too. They have free wifi and lots of good coffee. They also have free parking and lots of street parking. They do close at 5pm on Thursdays and Fridays, so if we want to go into the evening we'd have to pick another day. Apparently Tuesday evenings at the beginning of the month have more traffic.
(imho)
Great place. Friendly people. Good Coffee.
http://www.mosaiccoffeehouse.org
Yes. I'll make contact and
Yes. I'll make contact and explore options after the holiday.
Startpad
I don't know how many people you expect but for smaller groups Startpad is always an option. Mike Koss has been very amenable to Drupalers.
Startpad looks like a good option
I wouldn't imagine these meetups would be larger than 10 or so. As they're using Drupal (http://startpad.org/) possibly there's some room for barter if cost is an issue. Does anyone else know these folks?
@hejrocker - you'll make the commute out for these, right!?!
Gus Austin
Startpad background
Mike Koss is the owner of StartPad. I found Mike to be very friendly and community oriented. SeaDUG use to have monthly meetings at StartPad until the meetings got too big. Startpad has a conference room with a projector that holds 10-12 people. When SeaDUG meetings grew larger we moved to an open space after 6pm that caused some disruption to StartPad office workers. Gregory Heller or Jared Stoneberg (RockSoup) would be good representatives for proposing Dojo meetings to Mike. Greg Dunlap (hejrocker) worked out of StartPad, so he has insider knowledge.
- John Walling
1st Barn Raising Planning Meeting & Dojo Meeting locations
I'm looking at my email for the 1st Barn Raising Planning Meeting and a time and place for the Local Dojo Meetings and see that the Old McDonalds is listed as being in Belltown. I don't know if there is an old McDonalds in Belltown, but the one I was talking about is in Greenwood. The name is now the Green Bean Coffee House and their address is 8533 Greenwood Ave N., Seattle, WA 98103. They have wifi and a meeting room that we can use. I don't know much else about it, but can find out.
I talked with Tom Ogden this morning. He saw the Seattle Genealogical Society Website and asked me a lot of questions to get us started. The web address for the Society is
<www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~waseags/> Tom is going to be out of town for a week, so we probably won't do much this week, but if you have any ideas or want to meet at the Dojo Meeting I can be there.
Annette Dwyer
Annette
Street Bean Espresso in Belltown
Here's another location for the Dojo meetings we can try. The have a private room for meetings, although i haven't seen it yet. They're coffee is good, and the main area is pretty big.
I can swing by and check it out.
http://streetbeanespresso.org/
HOURS: 6am-7pm, Mon-Fri. 9am-4pm, Sat
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Join the Seattle Dojo team for the barn raising
Click to join our Seattle SGS barn-raising team on Drupal Kata
Join the Dojo IRC - irc://irc.freenode.net/drupal-dojo - (announce yourself: Seattle Barn Raising team member) Read the log here http://druplicon.info/bot/log/drupal-dojo