Local group organizer best practices and improvements to groups.drupal.org meeting

This sounds like a great topic. Thanks for putting it together, Jacob and Kieran. Looking forward to participating. Hopefully Enterprise 2.0 Conference activities won't conflict.

Is there a local number for Australia?

--Ryan

That converts to 02 am in europe, don't think I'll make it.

See the following link for the meeting time in your timezone:

http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?day=9&month=6&year=2008...

(Though user profiles have timezone configuration on g.d.o - this doesn't seem to be used in this situation. Perhaps it should be, or perhaps events should automagically link to a URL like above?)

yas: hello
christefano: howdy
michael hofmockel: hey fernando
michael hofmockel: Just under two hours to meeting time, correct?
timmillwood: hi
timmillwood: im a little new so can you give an overview of what will be going on?
michael hofmockel: don't think the presenter has showed up yet
michael hofmockel: suspect presenter will share screen
timmillwood: ok
Kieran Lal: Hello
Kieran Lal: Thank-you for joining us this evening
Kieran Lal: I'll doing the presentation for local groups and then Jacob Redding and I will be fielding questions and getting feedback
Kieran Lal: Here's some links to get you started: http://acquia.com/drupal-event-organizer-kit
Kieran Lal: http://acquia.com/blog/kieran/growing-drupal-through-local-groups
Kieran Lal: Free Conference CallConference Dial-in Number: (712) 432-1600Participant Access Code: 450345#
Kieran Lal: I have started the call if anyone wants to dial in early.
Kieran Lal: Michael - Ann Arbor
Kieran Lal: Tim, go ahead an call in, we are starting in 5 minutes, but chatting now.
christefano: http://acquia.acrobat.com/lo... just kidding
jlmeredith: greetings all
marvil07 (privately): should I hear you throe this web or by phone?
jlmeredith: yes
Joe Moraca: not now
Kieran Lal: http://acquia.com/drupal-event-organizer-kit
Kieran Lal: there is a call in number , look above
michael hofmockel: ambassador page sounds good
michael hofmockel: presentations section sounds good too
jlmeredith: Is there any kind of monetary help that may be available for building DrupalCamps
michael hofmockel: recommend that block resource be one click deep
Mike Schinkel: What skill level are most attendees at your groups?
michael hofmockel: most users of g.d.o. are not groups leaders so put resources one click deep
jlmeredith: guidelines for building out the organizational structure (admin/ volunteers, etc) would be very helpful
michael hofmockel: My group could use a rock star showing up once in a while
Dave Terry: what types of presentations have been the biggest draw?
michael hofmockel: most attendees are new bies
michael hofmockel: we often loose more experienced people because they see the group diluted by newbies
Mike Schinkel: I get the feeling that Atlanta is very different from the groups you guys are working with. I don't think more then 5 or 6 people even know the names of any "Drupal Rock Stars."
michael hofmockel: name is not important but someone to come and give a good presentation
michael hofmockel: my group gets tired of hearing me talk and it is hard to convince power users to present
michael hofmockel: especially after a year or soo
jlmeredith: who is speaking?
Kieran Lal: Mike Schinkel is speaking
jlmeredith: thanks kieran
michael hofmockel: fast majority are newvbies for sure
marvil07: we(drupal-peru) are starting to make presential meetting, we are a few people
Joshua Brauer: We've found a local IRC channel for all the web-developer types has been useful to spread the drupal word
marvil07: but our idea is the make some patches or something at that meeting
marvil07: Joshua is right
Jacob Redding: I would say that you should use whatever is available to you and to use the tools that work. In China we've found that working with google groups is much, much more effective that any other items.
marvil07: IRC helps a lot, and it's a little filter too(not all newbies arrivwe there)
Joshua Brauer: An aside our local PHP group uses meetup.com but it is blocked by 2 of our largest tech employers
christefano: regarding email reminders, groups.drupal.org is waiting on a patch at http://drupal.org/node/86462
christefano: any help to get that patch reviewed is appreciated
Jacob Redding: my simple point is that you have to experiment and find out what your community (i.e. market) utilizes and work with that as well as cross posting on g.d.o (for the Drupal market)
Kieran Lal: Search on Drupal.org for drupal events on other services, like meet-up, groups.drupal.org, upcoming
Jacob Redding: call dropped?
michael hofmockel: call still going
Dave Terry: Kieran, has any research been done on what factors cause us to lose newbies...people who attend one or two meetings, but dont come back
jlmeredith: I am here
Dave Terry: here
Jacob Redding: ok ok, who mentioned Tibet..
jlmeredith: can someone type out those marketing steps
Kieran Lal: awareness, consideration, initial commitment, loyalty, evangelism
Kieran Lal: Drupal is good at the last three
Joshua Brauer: O'Reilly has also been helpful with the registration/book front
jlmeredith: great .. thanks kieran
Dave Terry: interest...should focus not only recruitment, but retention - echo what current speaker is saying
Joe Moraca: Pakt and apress are good - my challenge is distance -- to get the newbie and advanced users to show
Mike Schinkel: Dave, that's been a common discussion at the Atlanta Drupal for well over a year; newbie vs. experienced
Jacob Redding: I think the newbie vs. Advanced is a common one that all groups grapple with.
Mike Schinkel: Yes
Jacob Redding: in NYC we always tried to start the groups off together as a single groups and then we broke into two groups.
Jacob Redding: newbies and advanced.
Dave Terry: good idea jacob
Jacob Redding: and then every meeting we'd swap out one of the regular advanced folks into the "newbie" group.
Dave Terry: in atlanta we have presentation/topics and are starting one more workshop oriented catered towards newbies
Jacob Redding: or even during the meeting we'll swap out those folks and get them away from the brain-sucking-very-exhausting noobs and back over to the advanced folks.
Mike Schinkel: Jacob, I'm still unclear; are you saying that the people locally don't use Meetup because they the current members don't like it or because it is not effective at recruiting new users?
Jacob Redding: Mike: in our experience the NYC Drupal community doesn't use meetup.com nor does the PHP community.
jlmeredith: I have to depart .. will catch the rest if recorded .. leaving the acrobat window up!
Mike Schinkel: But that doesn't help me understand what is the cause, and what is the effect
Jacob Redding: Mike: without using Meetup.com the NYC Drupal group has grown to over 300 members with an average meetup having about 50-75 people. Camps get arond 150-200 people
Mike Schinkel: Anyway, the real problem is that XxxxDrupal.com, Groups.Drupal.org, Meetup.com, Yahoo Group, Drupal Groups, etc. are all islands and I think it would help if there were integrations.
Dave Terry: how much does time and location factor in attendance...for instnace, has anyone done lunch time meetings
Jacob Redding: finding people hasn't been the problem so there hasn't shown a need to use meetup.com particularly because the PHP group does use meetup.com and it is only 50 or so people and about 10 or so meeting up.
Jacob Redding: Dave Terry: The Berkely (California) does lunch meeting
Jacob Redding: Mike: yes, but that is a much larger problem that can't be solved easily. A lot of the web is an island and I personally think that sucks but what are you gonna do.
Jacob Redding: Dave: Time & Location is a HUGE factor in attendance.. you absolutely have to play around with the time/date and periodically poll your groups to determine which is the best date/time.
Jacob Redding: In NYC that time appeared to best Thursday after work but early enough to hit the bar afterwards..
Dave Terry: good feedback, thx jacob
Jacob Redding: in China. Its on weekend, never a workday and early in th emorning. (10am on Saturdays!) .. now I only get local Chinese and not foreigners, so we've strongly considered doing two groups meetings for the different groups (i.e. foreigners/westerners, want to meet weekday after work)
Mike Schinkel: Jacob: What are you gonna do? A userbase integration. Another thing I was suggesting to Dave was that being able to "market" Drupal to all the Meetup.com groups who need more capability than Meetup.com currently offers.
Jacob Redding: Mike: to be honest that's difficult and I don't know what I'm going to do.
Jacob Redding: I don't really care so much about users being "synced" between the two sites (google group, g.d.o, drupalchina.org)
Jacob Redding: because those are about announcing the meetups..
Jacob Redding: but what I care about is that conversations between local members being captured, googlable (baidu-able), etc.
Jacob Redding: and for that I've been strongly encouraging people to consolidate conversations onto one platform (in this case google groups) but always cross posting the events (and really only the events) on g.d.o and drupalchina.org (the latter for language purposes)
Mike Schinkel: And I care greatly about it. BTW, here's an NYC Meetup.com Web2.0 group with over 2000 members: http://newtech.meetup.com/21/ I think those people would all be prospects for Drupal. Just FYI.
Jacob Redding: Mike: thanks, but now how many of those people meetup together, and talk face to face.
Jacob Redding: theres a big difference in there.
Jacob Redding: but I think people understand what meetup.com is, yahoo upcoming is, google groups is, etc. As an organizer you simply need to use the tool that reaches your audience.
Joe Moraca: thanks this was helpful
Dave Terry: very insightful...nice job kieran
Mike Schinkel: I'd expect a lot, but I can't see because it's a "request to join group" but there are probably 25 other Internet Tech groups in NYC
Kieran Lal: Josh, Michael, Christefano volunteered to help edit a feed of presentation topics and resources for local group organizer
Kieran Lal: I'll leave this up, so you can ask questions for the next few minutes
Kieran Lal: kieran at acquia.com
Kieran Lal: if you have feedback or questions.
Jacob Redding: Mike: there are a lot of tech groups in NYC and they use a variety of methods to connect to each other. I've never argued to not use meetup.com just to use whatever your local community uses and don't lock yourself into one tool..
Jacob Redding: also don't ignore g.d.o as a marketing tool.. simply create a group on g.d.o and in the header say "We use blah, blah tool, to organize" and then crosspost events there.
Mike Schinkel: And what was trying to get across was how Drupal community seems to be insular and antogonistic towards using other sites when they do a good job of marketing. But without an integration, you can
Jacob Redding: this is Drupal LA approach which has their own website at drupalla.org and then uses yahoo Upcoming for event notices.. and rarely uses g.d.o
Mike Schinkel: can't really use both. We get half using Meetup and half using DrupalAtlanta and if undercounts for both.
Mike Schinkel: BTW, here's another NYC tech group with 6000 members and 400 people attending meetings: http://newtech.meetup.com/1/
Jacob Redding: Mike: use whichever tool is good for your community.

Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign

Very helpful meeting!

Thanks!

Jamie

During the meeting, a question came up of how to handle groups with both newbies and advanced users. It's mentioned in the transcript above.

I talked about how the Drupal LA group accommodates this scenario by designating a time period to Q&A, where more advanced users can answer questions (and ask their own, of course). Considering that the majority of attendees are beginners, I think it works pretty well.

Someone else (sorry, I don't remember who) said something to the effect of "always cater to your more advanced users because beginners will always show up." I'm not sure I agree with this, and wonder if this is an attitude that helps maintain the Drupal community's high barrier to entry.

I understand that focusing on the needs of any group's core constituency is what will make the group die or survive, but I'm reminded of the biblical saying, "There will always be poor people, therefore I ask that you to be openhanded toward your brothers and the poor and the needy."

What are people's thoughts about this?

Wow. This totally slipped my radar. I will read up on what was covered.

Sorry I missed it. It seems the Atlanta Drupal Users Group (of which I am Organizer) was discussed a bit. I wish there were a way to proactively notify all the Group organizers of this meeting. I haven't been monitoring gdo for a few weeks, due to other demands. I see at least two of our group members were present on the call, so thats good.

I attempted to started a Google group on this very topic about a year ago, and the gdo moderator denied the request suggesting that there was another similar group. In my mind its debateable whether the other suggested group (the name doesn't come to mind) has the same purpose, although there might be some overlap.

I believe this topic deserves prime time discussion--beyond just a one -time meeting. New people and new insights come along continually and need to be incorporated and documented for all to benefit.

I'm in favor of an ongoing Google Group on this topic.

http://groups.drupal.org/local-ambassadors

Kieran

Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign

It could work with FeedAPI and Feedelement mapper, You would have problems if the user name on the national site is different from the one on g.d.o - but even that can be worked out if user profiles on g.d.o would have references to the user accounts on national sites.

Right now there is a lot of activity that never gets syndicated on g.d.o, especially in countries that are not native English. I know that there was talk of an installation profile for DUG and national sites in Boston. I guess the easiest adoption you would get with an installation profile for national sites that has integration with g.d.o. pre-configured.

Maybe this is something for the code-sprint in Szeged?

Haven't signed up for Drupalcon Szeged yet? What are you waiting for? Registration until the end of July is only 120 EUR!

http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/register

How can I organize my personal group?

_
autostrada.ws

I just found this thread today.
I strongly encourage you to check out http://groups.drupal.org/local-user-group-organizers
The group started at the DC DrupalCon. We had long wanted a group for this and it was questioned whether or not their should be. During a BOF there happened to be a maintainer among us who said, "Create it right now and I'll approve it now" So here we are!
I'm hoping to someday not be the primary contributor to the group. Please join the group and join the conversation.

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