This is a wiki page to get going on how and what we're going to present. Please comment for suggestions, or edit the wiki for how and what we're going to do.
Parameters
Length of presentation
- 20-30 minutes
Level of difficulty/complexity
- Beginning
- Intermediate
- Advanced
Presentation tracks
- Site set-up, configuration, administration, maintenance, etc.
- Theming, design, user experience (UX), etc.
- Code, coders, coding, etc.
- Business & professional services
- Drupal community
Guidelines
- Each meeting will have two presentations.
- Every meeting will have one of the following combinations of presentation levels:
One beginning and one intermediate, or
One intermediate and one advanced, or
One beginning and one advanced - The presentations at each meeting will each be from different tracks.
- People volunteering for presentations need to identify a level and track for their presentation.
- The last part of the meeting will be a question and answers, and a DSO - Drupal Show Off; if somebody is willing to show off their site that's built w/ drupal, that would be cool. We have yet to see sites built w/ drupal, and it'll help each of us understand our knowledge of drupal and who to ask.
If your presentation idea seems a little too much for the parameters and guidelines above, consider breaking it up into smaller chunks and present pieces of it at multiple meetings.
Topics
I'm willing to present on
| Name | Topic | Level | Track |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jason (oadaeh) | Views | various (see "A presentation series idea" below) | various (see "A presentation series idea" below) |
| Michael (mikeejt) | Creating a Drupal Local Dev Environment (starts off as beginner series, then goes to advance w/ setting up Xdebug, source control, etc.) | Beginner-Advance | Developing w/ Drupal |
I want to see a presentation on
| Name | Topic |
|---|---|
| Steven | Site Showcase (Real Estate Site) w/ Drupal 7 |
| Ray | Panels |
| Michael (mikeejt) | Developing w/ Drupal |
| Michael (mikeejt) | The hook system - drupal development |
| Michael (mikeejt) | Theming & design - how these fit in the whole stack of things |
Comments
Meeting Suggestions
Since I have only been to one meeting, I can only state what I would like to see. I am a new user of Drupal, but I have been programming Windows databases for a long time.
My suggestions:
Beginner's presentation on some aspect of learning basic Drupal with open discussion and questions at the end.
A display of a website that has been written in Drupal and an explanation of its key elements with open discussion to follow.
An advanced presentation of a more complex Drupal solution with open discussion to follow.
A presention about using Drupal to grow your business
I would be more than happy to talk about the problems that I have encountered in getting started using Drupal, since that is about all I am qualified to do.
In reply
I think I addressed most of your comments in my edits to the wiki page itself and in my comment below, but there are two that I know I didn't address.
I've never considered doing this before (for personal, irrelevant reasons that I won't get into here), but I guess it would give people new to Drupal opportunities to learn how to do various things with existing solutions, while also showing how they work on actual live sites. It would probably also give us new and/or multiple ways of doing the same things. I think something like this would fall under the "Site configuration, set-up, administration, maintenance, etc." track, and the level could be any of the three, but would probably settle more at beginning or intermediate.
Great! You're signed up. Start making notes before you forget, which will eventually happen. I think something like this would be similar to the above: in the "Site configuration, set-up, administration, maintenance, etc." track and at the beginning level. I recommend you have some clear bullet pointed items to present problems and solutions (or answers, if there are no real solutions) on, because this topic could be huge and explode in many different directions, depending on peoples' knowledge base, skill level and mindsets when enter the Drupal world.
I updated this page
First of all, thank you, Mike, for jumping in and getting this started.
I told him I was going to get something up at the beginning of the week, but I didn't have the time to do it, like I thought I would.
I did do some research last week, in preparation for organizing presentations (based on Mike's suggestion at the last meeting) into how they are organized at various DrupalCons and DrupalCamps (DCDCs). Based on that research, I added the track and level lists above that I think we should follow.
There are a few reasons for following the established DCDC model. First, it gives our presentations a bit of focus. Second, it prepares us (individually and as a group) for presenting at DCDCs. Third, it keeps us in synch and on par with everyone else so that people can, in general, know what to expect.
Most DCDCs had their tracks organized as I listed above. Though they weren't always called the same thing, the subject matter was generally the same. Occasionally, they had an extra track. For example, Colorado's DrupalCamp in June will have a commerce track. I didn't include those extra tracks, so that we can focus on the basics and not distract ourselves with something fancy until we have a good routine in place.
All of them had the same three levels of difficulty, understanding, complexity, whatever.
The time limits at DCDCs are about twice as long as what I listed, but we really don't have the same amount of time available to us. The presentations need to be shorter, so there is time for Q&A, and so those of us who can't stay late can still get the core of the meeting. Those of us who can stay later can certainly do so to discuss various things in more detail, later.
Using the DCDC model, I created the list of Guidelines for us to follow in preparing and volunteering for presentations. That should give us enough diversity to give multiple people opportunities to give and get at each meeting. If we have too much commonality in two proposed presentations, we'll have them in different meetings.
Also, one last point. Something I have been trying to do in the past, was trying to contain the presentations into a single presentation at a single meeting. Sometimes that makes sense, and sometimes it does not. It also sometimes makes for longer presentations that might possibly be better suited as smaller presentations in a series (not so much information at once). So if you have an idea to present something that doesn't seem to fit into the guidelines, see if it makes more sense broken up into smaller chunks. I'll have an example soon.
A presentation series idea
Okay. In response to all I wrote above (and especially to my "I'll have an example soon." comment), I've also been thinking about a presentation series I could give that I think would help fill many voids. My idea is to present a series on Views, thusly:
Level: Beginning.
Track: Site set-up, configuration, administration, maintenance, etc.
Level: Intermediate.
Track: Site set-up, configuration, administration, maintenance, etc.
Level: Advanced.
Track: Theming, design, user experience (UX), etc.
Level: Advanced.
Track: Code, coders, coding, etc.
To add to that, I will do the same series, first for the Drupal 6 version of Views (version 2), and then for the Drupal 7 version of Views (version 3). I could also add a presentation which would be the differences between Views 2 and Views 3.
The advanced presentations will actually be more of an overview, touching on the various aspects with quick demonstrations, as those presentations by themselves could be 1-2 hours.
Volunteer
Although I have little to offer other than my experiences as a beginner, let me know how I can help.
Note taken
I don't want to leave your offer to help unanswered. As I get to know you and your skills and knowledge, I will draw on you. Until then, if you see something specific you know you can and are willing to do, pipe up and let me know.
Cool idea - this should be
Cool idea - this should be our Views tract. Views is a beast in itself.
Twitter
-Michael
More updates to the wiki page
One of the things that makes it hard for me (and others, I'm sure) as an orgainizer is that I don't know who knows what and who's willing to present on what they know. I know about a few people, but I think there are a lot more who would be willing to participate, if I only knew what they knew. :^)
So, in order to help with that, I just added the Topics section.
All you have to do is Edit this page (at the top, underneath the "Meetup Presentations (WIKI)" title), scroll down to where you see
<h2>Topics</h2>, and add your information to the "I'm willing to present on" table, the "I'm want to see a presentation on" table or both. Follow the Markdown example presented.Later on (like when I'm not procrastinating something else), if you haven't done so already, I'll go through previous posts and comments and add anything anyone has said they can and/or will present on or want to see a presentation about.
Do we chuck the book on drupal 6? and start with 7?
Hi all,
I just quit my part-time job and moving on to tackling Drupal. For presentations, being new to Drupal... yes I would love to have an overview of what all I need to get going and things to consider.
However, I don't want to slow the group down with stuff they have already gone over.
With that said, are there certain members that would consider themselves as "go-to" guys and gals that are willing to help answer questions as newbies are developing?
I am definitely looking more from a development point of view and I really don't know much about programming or about database. I am looking for a collaborative group that can help with their skillset, but not sure how I should approach that.
So I could definitely use some advice on this as well. I have some funding coming in to make this project into reality and I'm hoping I can find some really good answers through the group.
Can you say start-up? I might've crossed over to insanity...oh well...cheers!
-Wendy
Welcome
I am relatively new also, but I am also looking for the similar feedback from Drupal meetings. Make sure you sign up for the meeting on June 3. I believe they are going to devote part of the meeting to beginners and another part for the more advance users.
I have been self-employed for over twenty years. I do custom Windows database programming, and I am adding interactive websites to my product mix. Drupal seemed like a good choice. It will help you to have some basic knowledge of HTML/CSS in getting started, if nothing else, but to help you understand the vocabulary. I look forward to seeing you at the meeting.
p.s. I picked Drupal 7 because I am learning anyway. I figure by the time I am ready to use the more advanced modules, most everyone will have migrated to 7.
Nice :)
Thanks for putting it out there.
About 6 years ago, I started work in print and went to college to learn about designing websites and graphics. Design wise, I can do a lot of good stuff. I got pretty fluent in HTML/CSS but I realized creating static pages was kinda boring. I started to get into front-end development and wanted to mess around with jQuery and PHP, but I never really found the time or reason to put it into application, meaning any new found skill had to equate to making money. The only way I could see this making sense was to jump on a team and maybe start as a Jr. Developer. I held off at that idea as I really prefer to freelance and stay on the creative side of things. So I migrated over to Multimedia and Video production which is turning into true passion.
In the last 2 years, I have been meeting a lot of creative people and they always have the same problems. No money, not much knowledge of the web other than Youtube and Facebook, and not much exposure. Breaking into business for many artists are kind of joke these days. With that said, I started to research pretty heavily within the last year to find solutions. Last month, I drafted up a proposal to get some funding so that I could quit the print job and focus on building this project.
I've consulted with a friend who I've worked with on projects in the past, (apparently he's some kind of guru) and we talked about options. In the end, a CMS seem to be the most logical answer, and Drupal really caught my eye.
So here I am! I figure I'd put it out there too... and I definitely look forward to meeting you as well.
Cheers!
Presentations
In light of Stephen and Wendy's requests, Mike and I have come up with the presentations that will be happening this Friday: http://groups.drupal.org/node/150569#comment-510099
Congratulations Wendy!
Awesome that you're gonna try your hand at a startup! It's not for the feeble, but it is very rewarding, after lots and lots of hardwork. I'm working w/ a startup now as well =D.
Twitter
-Michael
To D6 or not to D6
It really depends on what your target is. If you have a relatively quick project that needs lots of functionality in place right at the start, then D6 is probably still the right target. If you have a basic website w/o a lot of complex features, or your project is around a year+ out, then D7 might be a better option. We can discuss this more at the meeting.
New Meetup Organizer
Just wondering, do you guys know who the new organizer is? Never met Darrell at any of our meetups...
Twitter
-Michael
A constructive criticism on our Presentations
I had a candid discussion with Tim (tgriswold) today about our presentations and meeting goals, and he brought up some interesting points that I would like to throw out there for consideration. I apologize in advance for the hugeness of this post. Skip to the end for a quick summary lol.
The most basic of which is the time limit of the presentations. We feel that the time limits should be more strictly enforced. Even if that means having a timer, and pulling the person off the stage after 30 minutes. The problem is, especially with us more advanced users, is that we get sidetracked trying to show every feature or we get on some tangent that is interesting but not completely related to the main topic. This not only makes the presentations run way too long, it makes them very confusing, especially for the less advanced users. I am VERY guilty of this myself, don't get me wrong, but I think it will force everyone to be more focused, and allow more people to get more out of the presentation, if the time limit is strictly enforced.
The time limit brings up another related issue. The focus of our presentations. There is a very limited amount of information that can be given in 20 to 30 minutes, and people will most likely retain even less of this information. I have an idea for a presentation guideline, you can take it or leave it:
It seems like a good route to take for a short presentation like this is to pick a specific idea/feature/module:
A.) give a short intro about what it does 2 - 5 min
B.) give an idea about why you would need it/want it. I.E. The pros and cons., specific use cases or examples 5 - 7 min
C.) give an overview of how to implement it. use a few good simple examples/use cases if possible 10 - 20 min
D.) give sources where you can learn more. 1 - 2 min
The last step is the most important, because there is no way we can ever relay all the information the audience may need in this short time frame, and most likely they won't remember when they need it anyway. But if we provide good sources that they can reference later down the line, that may be the most valuable thing we give them. That way, we can just provide a good general overview so that people at least have a place to start, and then provide good places to go if they need more in depth information.
The other big thing is examples and use cases. I think Jason's presentation on Views would have been much more successful had he, instead of just going down the Views interface feature by feature, just walked through the creation of a simple view, from concept to completion (or perhaps a few different views that did different things). People got lost in all the different features he went over, and nothing really stuck. I don't really remember any specific thing Jason went over at the last presentation, lol. That isn't a big deal for me, because I already know views very well. Tim on the other hand, had the same problem, and he is a much less experienced user, a better example for the target audience of that presentation. Sorry to pick on you Jason and Tim, You guys were just the easiest ones to pick on :-P.
There is another issue relating to the time limit of the presentations, as well as the scheduling of the meetings. This is related to the idea of "series" lectures.
It seems we can't decide on whether we want to run the presentations as a "class/workshop" or as an "feature overview presentation".
The problem with running it as a workshop is that, 30 minutes is way too short for the level of depth needed for a class/workshop type lecture, and meeting only once or twice a month is also way to long of an interval to run a class and have people retain the information from the last class. This means if we did decide to do a class structure, the classes would have to be very self contained, not requiring people to have to remember much from previous lectures. The presentation lengths would also have to be doubled, at the least.
If we do a "Feature Overview" presentation type structure, we really have to work on getting our presentations more and more concise and focused. Really just providing a starting point for features, and then giving places to go to get more in depth information. This would also give much more reason to use our web space, an issue we have been having, as a central hub to link to those resources. To that end, it may be good, at least from a content standpoint, to write an article that goes along with your presentation that you can post to the site, that way people can go and reference that article long after they forgot the details of your presentation. Admittedly that is asking a lot, since presentations themselves take a lot of work to produce, but it would be nice in theory lol.
It's not that I think classes/workshops are bad. In fact I think they are a great idea. It just seems like our presentations have been trying to mix two ideas and it isn't working very well. Especially in the shorter time frame that we seem to be aiming for. If we do want to do workshops/classes, we should do them separately, in their own time frame. Classes/Workshops also take a lot more prep-work than a short feature presentation, and since we seem to have limited presenters, with very limited time, I think we should focus on the shorter presentations first, and build up to a workshop/class scenario later. That of course goes back to the main focus of this long critique, which is that we need to categorize and focus the presentations, essentially by breaking them down into even smaller pieces than we are currently doing.
The last issue related to the timing is that because our presentations run long, we usually aren't left with a lot of individual "mingling" time. I am up in the air about this, but the idea is that a person may have a very specific question they may want to ask, but because the presentations may be on something completely unrelated, or perhaps they are shy, etc..., they don't ask any questions during the presentation, but by giving an amount of individual social time, the person can ask these questions on an individual basis. We could actually run an open Q/A session at the end, but we are small enough that it may be more efficient to leave the last 30 -45 minutes to just talking among ourselves. Or perhaps a 10 minute Q/A, where a person opens a question to the floor, and whoever has an answer can respond, classroom style. Then the rest of the time we can use for individual mingling. Timing is a big issues, especially at the Coffee Bean, where we are limited to 2 hours. So we have to be kind of efficient lol.
Ok, so, sorry for the monolithic post, but here it is in summary:
A.) Stricter enforcement of presentation time limits
B.) Break Presentations into even smaller chunks (Make them more focused)
C.) More Examples and Use Cases
D.) Provide links to resources to learn more
E.) Provide more individual Q/A time
I am not condemning anyone's presentations. I have learned from and enjoyed all the meetings. Considering Jason has been the sole leader in presentations, he has done a damn good job carrying the group. This is more of a constructive critical analysis. These are things that I seriously think will make our group better.
In closing, I am not (only) full of hot air! I plan on implementing these things in my own presentations, starting with my intro to panels presentation.
"If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day
but if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime."
(Programmer's curse)
Agreed
Even though I'm new to the group, I would like to voice my agreement with Ray's suggestions. In addition, feature overview presentations would be easier to develop, and thus they would more likely be contributed by the group members -- myself included.
Responses (because I'm not feeling creative with the subject)
I nominate Tim as time keeper!
The reason I went long last time is because I forgot to check the time when I started. I was probably half way through before I realized it. (Or maybe I just like talking in front of an audience? :^))
How about having someone monitor the time and having them give "10 minutes left", "5 minutes left" and "time's up" types of announcements? Then the presenter can focus on what they are doing, but also get a head's up on where they stand, timewise?
I actually thought I was working on getting my presentations concise and focused, by going the "series" route.
How about for this coming meeting, you do a "Feature Overview" for Panels, and I'll do what you think I should have done for Views last time, two or three use case examples?
So, then, considering your comments, several people have asked for more in depth and advanced presentations, like Drupal's API, using hooks and pre-process functions in theming, etc. They can't really be presented well using your method. How would you propose we handle those situations, or do we?
It has always been my intention to provide Q&A time, but the long presentations seem to get in the way. I think this will happen (more) once we get the presentations trimmed down. Also, I can trim announcement related time, but I don't want to eliminate it. We also currently have a bit of mingle time at the beginning during setup, but I think if we make that an official item, we'll lose track of time and start late.
Lol. I agree, Tim as
Lol. I agree, Tim as timekeeper!
I also agree with you about the time keeper giving reminders. (I am getting flashbacks from my freshman public speaking class lol). It is a very good tool to have. In all seriousness, perhaps we could rotate timekeeper duties.
I apologize for picking on you Jason! I love you man. It's not that your presentation was bad. I do think you are going the right route with the series idea. The thing is, because of the time frame we are aiming for (20-30 min), the we need to break the series into even smaller pieces. Your presentation should probably have been split into two presentations. It is just too much to go through the whole Views UI in 20 minutes, even a basic overview is overwhelming. I believe it would have been better to have gone over less features, and just stay focused on a few key ideas. In the case of views, creating a new view, and setting a filter on it, for example. That's it. Keep it that simple, and just really elaborate on the completion of that example, and let the questions people have lead the rest.
Being one of the people who has requested those types of presentations, I agree it is an issue lol. The problem is, those types of presentations have to be treated very differently from the beginner/intermediate presentations. We have to have a very clear separation between them, and they have to be run differently. The biggest thing being those presentations need a lot more time to do.
You bring up a really good point, my post is really focusing on presentations aimed at beginners. I made it the focus because it seems most of the people at our meetings are at the beginner level. There are only a few of us who are more advanced. I guess I implicitly made the decision to put the needs of the many over the needs of the few lol. There is also the fact that no one has really volunteered to give an advanced presentation in a while.
I don't know the best way to break up the advanced and beginner presentations. We could alternate per meeting.
Have 2 beginner presentations one meeting
Have 1 long advanced presentation the next meeting
This would give presenters more time to prepare, but it would also create a big divide in who would want to attend the meeting. I don't know if we want beginners to be put off by advanced presentations, and there are a lot more beginners than advanced users.
Another option is simultaneous presentations, but we don't really have the resources to do that lol, so that is off the table. The problem is, we haven't really worked out how to run both an advanced presentation and a beginner presentation at the same meeting. I remember us talking about switching off at some point, keeping half the room doing a presentation, while the other half mingles. The problem with this is that everyone tends to stay for both presentations, whether they understand what is going on or not lol.
A possible solution to this would be to not present the advanced presentation to the whole group, but just have the few interested people meet in a corner and huddle over a laptop and let the rest of the room mingle. (Of Course, this will probably leave the beginner majority without any experts to answer their questions lol). It all goes back to the problem that there seems to be far more beginners than advanced users.
Let me know what you think on this. I don't know the best solution.
The announcement time is perfect! Don't trim that!
I think the biggest thing is just making sure the presentation time limits are enforced. Once we have the presentations down, I believe that extra time we need for Q&A will magically appear lol.
I agree, we obviously have to take into account that initial setup time as mingle time. I am talking more about the end. The presentations are definitely first priority, and starting late should be a big no no. My main point is that I believe we should formalize the Q&A.
I think it may me advantages to give a formal 10 minutes or so at the end to just have an open Q&A. Just let people ask what ever questions they have, it doesn't have to be related to the presentations, just any problems they have, and then open up the floor for people to answer (trying to make sure the answers are short 2 minutes or so). We sort of do this already at the end, but it is really informal, which tends to waste a lot of time, and not let everyone who may have a question get heard. By formalizing the Q&A, at least for a few minutes, I think it will make it run smoother. I think people would appreciate that (or not, let me know if you think it is a crappy idea lol).
"If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day
but if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime."
(Programmer's curse)