Future Meetings

I am a huge proponent of having two presentations. Have one presentation geared toward beginners, and then have another advanced presentation after. we could divide the space so that while the beginner presentation is going, the advanced users can socialize and discuss over refreshments, etc... then switch. At the end we can have one big Q/A session or just all mingle, as we did last time.

We'll try that (or something similar) at the next meeting. I've set the stage in the event I created for March 4.

Also, we REALLY should get a projector...

One of our members has one that he's allowed us to use, and I have access to a screen.

Topic wise, I really would like some kind of detailed presentation on module development, specifically the Drupal database abstraction layer and how to work the Drupal Database the correct way, broken code and all lol. It's something I can read about, but I just think it would be beneficial, at least to me(I know I'm selfish), to work through some of the issues with it in a group setting.

I can work on something like that, but it would be for the next meeting, as I would want a little more time to prepare.

Of the top of my head, other advanced topic Ideas I can think of might include, good production tips, perhaps a discussion on where it might be easier or less overhead to just 'hack' or code something instead of getting an entire module to perform some function. Another idea might be cool things to do with Jquery, or common CSS/theming issues, and how you solved them?

Some good beginner topics might include, introduction to the working of themes, simple ways to customize a theme and the right ways to do it. Also, a simple introduction to CSS and/or javascript and jquery. Or, how to install and use the big three modules: views, cck, and/or panels.

Yes, those would be good topics, as well. Some of that might be easily covered in a Q&A session, as well.

The idea of a goal for us to work toward, I have much less concrete ideas on. I have my spam module that I started lol. I actually had plans to expand it to do all of the stuff the big mass mailer software does, like keep a database to track email opens and click throughs, etc... I don't think that is a big enough or a good enough project to have the group sponsor though.

We can discuss that more at the meeting. I have an agenda. :^)

For future demos, in particular more technical ones, a little more intro and wrap-up would be helpful.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. I did not even consider that when I was preparing.

These are learning experiences, so a good rule of thumb is: tell them where you are going, tell them, and then tell them where you took them (the cardinal rule for any presentation).

I know that rule, and looking back I can see that a little more of that would have helped considerably.

I wasn't sure if anyone would care about what I was presenting, and I was more concerned about boring people rather than losing them. I also didn't think it was going to take as long as it did. All things to consider when preparing.

The way to grow LVDUG is to make it attractive to become part of the community. We want people to feel ownership, not to just drop in and out when it is convenient. To get commitment we need to make it personal. As a starter, I would like to add is a bit of structured networking. I suggest we quickly go around the room and introduced ourselves: name, where we work, our Drupal experience, what we are working on, and what we hope to get out of LVDUG. Finally, and I think most importantly, what we hope to GIVE to LVDUG … our expertise and where are we willing to assist others.

Yes, we will do that at the next meeting. My primary focus for the last meeting was to simply have a meeting to make sure there was still interest in them (or drum up interest). Even my presentation was secondary in my mind (and that probably showed). Obviously there is interest, and I'll be doing more to formalize and organize the future meetings (hopefully, w/o losing the good spontaneity that also happens).

Hopefully the group will grow to the point where these extended intros become impractical, but at that point we can do it on a table by table basis. Name tags: name + company would also be helpful.

By that time, we'll probably need a larger venue, but maybe someone will materialize by then that has access to one.

You might also consider having one person (each meeting) give a more in depth (10 minute) presentation about themselves and their company and project(s). The focus here should be on the business or technical challenges they are dealing with and how they solved them. You can ask for volunteers or just draw names from the hat, whatever it takes to fill the timeslot.

I guess we can discuss that at the next meeting to see how people feel about that.

On the subject of things to discuss in future meetups, I'd like to learn more about nodes, content types, and how to use them in custom modules.

Are you only interested in them as a module developer, or in all facets from administration to theming to development, etc.? I would hate to create something that didn't actually help explain what you were looking for.

On the other side, I could teach basic, non-Drupal related things, like MySQL, PHP, jQuery, CSS or HTML.

I think all of those topics would be useful. Of course, the more you can slant it toward Drupal, the better it will be, but sometimes they don't lend themselves well to that, and understanding the underlying technologies has benefit, too. Other angles could be: installing and setting those applications, and/or covering HTML5 and/or CSS3 and possibly how they differ from previous versions.

Yes, there are lots of avenues to explore.