Drupal Ireland Meeting - feedback, suggestions?
Hi everyone!
First off, thanks to everybody who made it to the Drupal Ireland meetup today. It was great to see so many people, especially so many new Drupal users! I hope to see you again at the next Drupal Ireland event, which I'm sure will be even bigger and better!
Which brings me to ask what people thought of today's event? Was it useful for you? Would you attend another similar event in the future? What things could we improve on or do differently next time? We've already decided to make the time for the individual presentations longer and to build in Q&A time and switching time into our schedule - fingers crossed we won't be sooooo pushed for time the next time we do this!
As for the presentations, what did you think of them and were they useful? Are there any topics that weren't covered, or not covered in enough detail, that people wished had been? Or which areas would you like to find out more about?
Would anyone be interested in a regular, but smaller, monthly Drupal meetup in Dublin?
I've run out of questions, but you get the idea! :)
All feedback and suggestions greatly appreciated!
I've also added an online survey form at http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/83102/drupal-ireland-event-survey if you'd prefer to fill out that.
Cheers,
Stella
Thank you
A big thanks to all who took part in the event - you can read my general thoughts over at codegobbler - http://www.codegobbler.com/drupal-meetup-ireland-big-success
However, my two main thoughts are:
But all in all it was a very enjoyable day and I look forward to meeting some or all of you again.
ps. yes, I would certainly be interested in a more regular, smaller meetup - weather this be a full of technical session or just a more social get together. You have my contact details! :)
Tom - www.codegobbler.com
Thanks
Thanks for all: Saturday was a very useful meeting.
I am total newbie but now installed and exploring.
Would be interested in any further meetings.
Any recommended specific resources for quick appreciation of overall structure / workflow?
All the best
John
It was great to see such a
It was great to see such a big attendance on Saturday – thanks to all for coming and in particular to Heather and Stella for organising it, these events take time and enjoy to get up and running and this was clearly evident from the event. nice one girls
Some of us would be interested on building on this and getting a monthly group off the ground where we met for an informal presentation. Possibly the first one happening in early January what day would suit everyone? I think Thursdays could be out as there is a popular linux group meetup in the first Thurday of every month- what about first or second, Tuesday or Wednesday.
I would suggest a 2 presentation format with both presentations not lasting for longer than 20 minutes (usually they last longer but that’s not a problem) – something for the beginner and the more advanced user. Also it would be nice to have a problem solving element – any one any suggestions. The while thing not running for much more than an hour and a half
Tom kindly volunteered (ehmmm cough) to show some of his work on using jquery with jaxer :)
I could do something on setting up a portable drupal install on a USB stick which is very hardly when you don’t always have your laptop and also best practices, but i'm open if some one else has other suggestions.
Later
M
Thank you!!!
This was the first Drupal event I attended. It was very informative.
It was great to have a Hands-On session which gave me the opportunity to ask about modules I was looking for.
Many thanks to Heather, Stella, Stephane and others involved to organize this event.
Looking forward for further meet-ups.
Many thanks to Lynda.com for the training DVD I won in the draw!!
Personally, I'd be more
Personally, I'd be more inclined towards a bi-monthly thing.
A 3 hour timetable, with 3 presentations:
1 hour each
I've posted my thoughts here: Drupal Ireland Meetup-2008 along with a copy of my presentation on TA-DA in PDF format, which I can't attach here because of the 1MB filesize limit :( The PDF is linkaged though! drupal_ireland_meetup_november_2008.pdf
Daniel
yes, this event was a big
yes, this event was a big success, thanks to all for coming along. I've written some remarks on my blog:
http://openspring.net/blog/2008/11/17/the-awakening-of-the-irish-drupal-...
Note to those who created an account on groups.drupal.org to register for the event: groups.drupal.org and drupal.org are 2 separate sites. So you will need to create an account on drupal.org if you want to contribute to the documentation or in the issue queues (create an account with same username if you want, it's easier). If you have any question or don't know where to start, feel free to ask in this group or contact me directly.
Stephane.
As Stella said to me, we
As Stella said to me, we sort of bled into the DrupalCamp territory, considering the numbers.
Mind you, up until one week before we had 38 sign-ups. This means we didn't cater for the numbers (deadline for catering was one week prior, due to getting budget approved, etc). We also went from our original plan of two tracks down to one, because we didn't think we'd have the numbers. Schedules printed, and we informed all of the change. Then something amazing happened. More people signed up last-minute. This is a testament to the spontaneity of people here in Ireland, I think! 74 sign-ups and 73 attendees. And most interesting, there were many people who simply didn't use the registration form at all!
@zoro and @scor - thanks so much for your feedback. stella and i have discussed and realized that while "everyone is busy" the event planning would have been improved by getting consensus and feedback from the presenters. we realize now simply spamming: "hey, give us feedback" wasn't quite enough. a meeting face to face with you guys, or at least via video chat would have been ideal!
@scor - that would be great! maybe the next big event could be run as a proper Drupal Camp- in Galway! Of course, I'd really like to go to the DrupalCampUK one in 09 first, and helpout and learn about how they should be run.
@somes - I'd love the idea of a Monthly meet up. Can I attend via Breeze? I can talk to my colleagues at IT Sligo and we could get an account set up. This means others could pop in an watch too. I could occasionally make it to a face to face meet-up, but it would be depending on my schedule. I will be making trips this coming year to Unis and ITs for a work-related netowrking thing I'm doing, so I'm going to try and dovetail it with a traveling "Learn about Drupal" session. I need to look at regional meet-ups, barcamps, etc and see where these things are happening.
I'll be going to Cork, Limerick, Athlone, Dublin and Tipperary (Unis and ITs).
My dates are not set; sometime between Jan-May 09- so if anyone knows of web-development related local groups, meetups, etc where I could parachute in a give a Drupal presentation, that would be great! Please use the contact form to send me contact details/emails/names of anyone you think I should speak with.
I hope everyone gets a chance to fill out the survey!
Feedback
Stella, Heather, thank you so much for arranging the sat event, it was a great day enjoyed by all.
I would love to see a monthly meetup and help out so drop me a line if you need anything.
Loved Loved Johns demonstration on creating a module, but boy, did he make it look easy !
The advanced presentations were excellent and time constraints tight. Would of course been nice to provide more time to some of the speakers ... Perhaps less speakers and more dedicated presentations / workflows in the regulary meetups for beginner / intermediate / advanced. If we divided up presentations well in advance, then people could commit to time / venue for them which might help make it a regular event. That way, we always know whos on and where in the dairy.
Speak Soon
amax
thanks Stella & Heather
...and to all the other presenters, organisers. and of course DIT. Great event and really encouraging to see so many people turn up on a Saturday. The only suggestion i would make are around more time for presenters and including time for handover - which has been mentioned by others. Saying that - we weren't great with our timings ie arriving late - excuse - there was a problem with the train leaving from Belfast.
We are now inspired to seek out drupal people (eh drupalers? drupalites?) in Northern Ireland and try and get some momentum going here - who knows maybe we'll try and hold a similar event up north sometime next year - after Galway of course (if that is where the next one is)
In the meantime - open invitation - anyone handy to Belfast? myself and Feargal O'Kane like talking (or ranting) about drupal over a pint or two but it would be great to have others there too. We usually head to the Duke of York or John Hewitt. give us a shout sure.
thanks again Heather & Stella
s.
Many thanks
to Stella and Heather - great job!
I think that we should be realistic about numbers though, as Heather said..."people are velcro'd to Dublin". So moving out of Dublin will have a huge impact on attendance. It's not always a bad thing but it needs to be planned for eg it directly impacts on the ability to run multiple tracks.
rgds
rob