Posted by vfranklyn on December 12, 2008 at 9:36pm
Start:
2009-01-08 18:30 - 21:00 US/Mountain Organizers:
Event type:
User group meeting
Join us for our next meet-up graciously hosted by East Library in Colorado Springs. Note that this is a change from our regular scheduled time: our January meet-up will be on the second Thursday of January rather than the first. We'll start socializing at 6:30, and the actual chatter will begin at 7:00. Unfortunately, our host locks up at 9, so we'll have to be out by then.
Our rough agenda is:
- Do it with Drupal report, by Mark Jarrell.
- TBD - please comment below if you'd like to discuss anything else.
See you there!
Comments
Possible 2009 monthly agenda
Before last night's formal meeting, we informally talked through potential topics for future meetings. We actually got to the point of coming up with a preliminary 2009 meeting agenda. (I really like having valuable agendas as more people attend when they see information that they can immediately use.)
January: Mark Jarrell reviewing the greatest hits of the New Orleans "Do It With Drupal" conference.
February: TBA
March: All the folks who went to DrupalCon in Washington DC will share their learnings. (February's meeting could include questions from folks who aren't going to folks who are...)
April: Boss's night. We invite the non-technical local users of Drupal in to learn more about local and international Drupal web sites and features. A great time to showcase cool Drupal web sites and features from a business perspective.
We discussed the following topics:
I'm sure this list is incomplete, but it can be a good start for agenda items for the rest of the year. Please let your opinions be known.
Rick Nashleanas
www.monarchdigital.com
Rick Nashleanas
www.monarchdigital.com
"new user" night
Sounds great.
I just suggest "new user" night instead of "boss's night." Drupal is used for a variety of purposes and I think we should welcome all new users, not just "bosses." The same message that works on "bosses" (free to use, easy to add advanced functionality) works on every other kind of new user.
--
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I agree
I think I could get a few potential users to show up for this (but maybe not my boss). It's a good idea to make the topic more general.
Odd man out, maybe
While I agree that "new user" may be a larger audience, I think that a "boss" (or "management") oriented session will attract people who would not bother with a "new user" event, and that "bosses" are, in fact, not a subset of a "new user" group.
There are two reasons I'd say this. First, because of psychology and, I suppose, ego. Second, because these are two different sorts of paths. A "new user" is interested in getting his/her feet wet and learning the basics and going deeper from there. A "boss" may want an overview of what is going on, how this tool will work as part of a strategy, and how to manage it, but have no interest in ever getting beyond a surface understanding.
Just my two bits. I'm probably odd man out for disagreeing, though.
Non-tech night
I was starting to think who I could invite to the new user/boss/non-technical night. Even though I knew many of our customers would like to come, I could easily imagine that their attendance could easily be trumped by other obligations.
However, I thought I could invite the non-technical users of Drupal web sites to give a 5 to 10 minute presentation about their site, its features and how it contributed to their business. These presentations would give a completely different perspective on the importance of their Drupal sites along with assuring that they will attend. These non-technical presentation would also make our guests feel comfortable as we wouldn't start using technical words they don't (and don't want) to understand.
Some folks might want to do a joint presentation with the people who actually developed the site or simply contribute to someone else doing an overview.
I could probably get 3 to 6 folks to give presentations. Any thoughts?
Rick Nashleanas
www.monarchdigital.com
Rick Nashleanas
www.monarchdigital.com
User Presentations
I've started talking up our user night presentations with folks and I'm getting enthusiastic interest from potential presenters and from folks who are considering Drupal.
If you have folks you'd like to invite to present or just attend, bring along this information to the January meeting as I line everyone up.
Rick Nashleanas
www.monarchdigital.com
Rick Nashleanas
www.monarchdigital.com
DIWD Debriefing/New User Night
Sorry again that I couldn't make it to last week's get-together, but I'm excited about sharing what I learned at Lullabot's Do It With Drupal conference/seminar. Obviously, I couldn't make it to all of the sessions, but I'll try to come up with some of the top things I learned to share with the group. I might also try to share my opinion of this conference (which is a newcomer on the Drupal scene) and how it compared to DrupalCon Boston (earlier this year) in my mind.
I also agree with Greg that the "new user" night sounds really good. I bet I could convince my wife to attend that meet-up. I know she's excited about Drupal but doesn't know a lot other than what little she's heard from me over the last year. It'd be nice for her to see other people that are excited about this technology and see some websites that are showing off the wonders of Drupal. I don't think I can convince my boss to come, but maybe some fellow coworkers if I can talk them into making the weeknight drive from Denver.
Mark W. Jarrell
Manager of Web Services
Jones Knowledge Integration Group, Inc.
http://jones.com
http://jonesdifference.com
http://jiu.edu
http://jonesknowledge.com
Twitter: attheshow
Mark W. Jarrell
Online Applications Developer
Richland Library
http://www.richlandlibrary.com
http://fleetthought.com
Twitter: attheshow
Going to make it this month!
Going to make it this month! See you all there!
I'm happy to present, if anyone has anything they want to learn...
Slides from Meetup
Here's a link to the slides from last night's meetup:
http://www.jones.com/sites/jones.com/files/DIWD_Recap.pdf
This PDF version of the slides includes all of the links to pages and sites that I referenced in the meetup.
Also, FileField Podcaster is the name of the module that Nate Haug mentioned in reference to using your audio uploads as podcasts that are subscribable.
Mark W. Jarrell
Manager of Web Services
Jones Knowledge Integration Group, Inc.
http://jones.com
http://jonesdifference.com
http://jiu.edu
http://jonesknowledge.com
Twitter: attheshow
Mark W. Jarrell
Online Applications Developer
Richland Library
http://www.richlandlibrary.com
http://fleetthought.com
Twitter: attheshow
Thanks!
Great presentation, Mark. Thanks for doing this!
V
Views Carousel Module
Brian asked about the module used to create my view of videos. That's a plugin/style module that goes with Views. It's called Views Carousel (http://drupal.org/project/viewscarousel). There's also an excellent tutorial by Mustardseed Media here: http://mustardseedmedia.com/podcast/episode20
Mark W. Jarrell
Online Applications Developer
Richland Library
http://www.richlandlibrary.com
http://fleetthought.com
Twitter: attheshow
next meetup
Hi Mark. I'd like to see that as well. Are you okay with talking about it at the next meeting? I could put it on the agenda if everyone's okay with that.
V
Re: next meetup
Virginia,
Sure, I can do show how to implement that at the next meeting. There's not a lot to it though. Probably less than 15 minutes. I had one other similar idea for a program topic last night. I'll post it on the February event thread.
Mark W. Jarrell
Online Applications Developer
Richland Library
http://www.richlandlibrary.com
http://fleetthought.com
Twitter: attheshow