LA Drupal Main Monthly Meetup - January 25, 2011

Our next LA Drupal meetup on the Westside is on January 25, 2011 at the corporate headquarters of at Media Temple in Culver City, CA. The meetup begins at 7:30pm but the doors open a little earlier at 7pm.

If you'd like to give a presentation, announce a job position or ask any questions of the group, please leave a comment below and plan to come a few minutes early. If presenting, be sure to bring your laptop (and power and display cables) and whatever else you need.

This event is free - in fact, there will be raffle prizes and food and drinks will be provided - and no RSVP is required. Those who sign up, however, will have last-minute details (if there are any) sent to them before the meeting. It's also good to know how many to expect so that we can arrange adequate seating, food, drinks, and so on, so please sign up by RSVPing here on Meetup.com or logging in at http://groups.drupal.org/la and clicking the Sign up button on that event announcement.

Location

We are meeting at Media Temple's corporate headquarters at 8520 National Blvd. in Culver City, CA. There is on-street parking as well as a parking lot on Hayden Ave. To find the meeting space, first park and then enter Building A. You will be led by a Media Temple employee to Building C, where the meeting is being held.

Media Temple, is a webhosting and virtualization service provider and has one of the largest virtualization deployments in North America, with more than 85,000 customers and more than 600,000 domains on both coasts of the United States. Media Temple is a new venue sponsor for us but was one of our gold level sponsors at DrupalCamp LA 2010.

We want your feedback!

During the meetup, we'll be gathered in the #drupal-la IRC channel and all are welcome to join us. The event organizers will also be checking Twitter for feedback and questions that mention @ladrupal or use the #ladrupal hashtag.

Agenda

Main Presentation

Drupal Forms - Heavy Lifting with the Form API - presented by Steve Rifkin
In this presentation, Steve plans to cover some of the "ooey-gooey Drupal awesomeness" by delving into the guts of Drupal! He'll be showing "the power that the Form API offers developers who are writing and altering modules. So, if you are wondering about form creation, validation, and submission, join us as we walk through the elements that the Forms API offers." Recently, Steve shared a version of this talk down at SandCamp, so we're expecting quite a treat as the topic is both well prepared and fresh! This topic is a bit more advanced than usual, so don't sit too close to the code monkeys as they'll likely be drooling all over. (Ya, you know who you are :-P ). But seriously, this will be useful topic for anyone trying to better understand how Drupal works. Plus, we can ask questions!

For next month, if you have an idea for something you'd like to learn, post a comment below, or better yet suggest a presentation idea! ... and if you see a topic you'd like to present, post a comment or contact us!

Depending on remaining time, we'll have lightning talks, job announcements, break-out groups, and networking. Oh, and of course raffle prizes!

Users Helping Users

The meetup begins at 7:30pm but the doors open a little earlier at 7pm for Users Helping Users, which is a chance for members of the community to help and be helped by others with whatever questions and problems they're having with Drupal. Please note that while Users Helping Users is not designed to be a replacement for bonafide consulting from a Drupal professional that there are plenty of Drupal experts and professionals who attend our meetups and sometimes they need help, too!

Lightning talks

We have time as well for lightning talks, which are 5-10 minute presentations from attendees who would like to share something with the group. If you'd like to give a lightning talk, be sure to come a few minutes early and bring your laptop (and power and display cables) and whatever else you need.

As always, please feel welcome to leave a comment below and let others know what you'd like to present ahead of time.

Job announcements and open Q&A

Everyone has a problem every now and then and the open Q&A session is a chance for attendees to divine answers from the collective wisdom of the group. This is also an opportunity for local businesses to make job announcements and ask for referrals and recommendations.

Raffle! Prizes! Collect them all!

We love our sponsors and have several raffle prizes from our sponsors in the Los Angeles area and around the world. If you or your company would like to sponsor a raffle prize at the LA Drupal meetups, please come early or contact the LA Drupal managers.

Breakout Groups

As we've occasionally done, we'll split up into groups (sometimes called BoFs, or birds of a feather) and each group can jump into a particular topic that's set at the beginning of the meetup. The topics for these BoFs so far have ranged from high performance websites, Features-driven development, PCI compliance and general "getting started" discussions.

Wrap up and Drupal After Dark

Several of us may be going to a local restaurant or bar for a Drupal After Dark afterward. Leave a comment below if you have ideas of a possible bar or restaurant that is nearby.

About LA Drupal

LA Drupal is Southern California's largest hub for all things Drupal, and is one of the world's largest regional Drupal user groups. We host a monthly meeting on the last Tuesday of every month. LA Drupal is also the producer of the annual DrupalCamp LA conference, the largest independent Drupal event in the world for three years running, and Drupal Design Camp LA, a design-oriented conference on February 5-6, 2011.

There are also other member led social gatherings and meetups.

Attending LA Drupal events is one of the best ways to meet and talk with other Drupaleros and we encourage you to attend meetings and special events regularly. Whether it's about finding solutions to problems you've been having, sharing something you've learned or just meeting interesting like-minded people, the LA Drupal events are an essential resource for Drupal professionals and hobbyists alike.

If you aren't already part of LA Drupal, it's easy to become a member and find events announced at http://groups.drupal.org/la/events