Hi, fellow performance nuts. We're planning the next High Performance Drupal meetup in Los Angeles, California, and I'd like to coordinate with everyone here in the larger group to see how we can boost our online attendance.
What would make this meetup more interesting and accessible? What's working for your user groups and other organizations with online tech events and webinars?
The highest number of remote attendees we've had so far is 7 when mikeytown2 presented on HTTPRL (and mikeytown2 himself presented remotely). Recently, that number of remote attendees has been hovering around 2.
This is pretty good attendance for a specialized topic such as Drupal high performance, but in comparison we've consistently had between 15-20 people from the Los Angeles area attend in person and I'm not sure how to cater more to those who'd like to attend (and present) remotely.
Possible problems ^
The reasons that I can think of that our remote attendance has been lower than expected are:
- The date and time of the meetups are not convenient for those who would otherwise attend;
- The meetup topics themselves aren't interesting to those who would attend;
- The topics aren't announced with enough time to inform people who would attend what the presentation topics are;
- The actual attending part is difficult and inhibiting attendance.
Meetup details ^
Here are a few details of how we currently run these meetups.
In general, presenters aren't coming out of the woodwork and instead our event organizers are regularly asking members of our local and global communities if they'd like to present. This is standard operating procedure, but I'd love to hear the ways that other organizers are approaching potential speakers.
Meetup topics in the past have included Solr, Pressflow, high performance hardware, Google SPDY, frontend performance, HTTPRL, using fileconveyer with CDNs, load testing with BlazeMeter, a case study on GRAMMY.com, and an informal chat with Riot Games on how they use Drupal.
Announcements are posted on Drupal Groups and Meetup.com with almost always 1 week's notice. The meetup is always on the 3rd Tuesday of the month and is from 7-9pm Pacific Time. The news, announcements and raffle drawing portion of the event is scheduled between 7-8pm and featured presentations and lightning talks begin at 8pm.
We used to use Google Hangouts but have had limited attendance and technical success following their URL scheme changes. Since then, we've been using WebEx successfully to both broadcast and record our meetups. Attendees receive the WebEx URL and password when clicking the "Signup" button on the Drupal Groups meetup announcement, as well as an automatic email reminder one day before the event.
There are dozens of videos that have been recorded but haven't been uploaded yet. Our wiki page at http://groups.drupal.org/node/269563 describes how we're working through the video backlog. These videos are later shared on Planet via the presenter's or event organizer's blog.
Possible solutions ^
- Unlike Google Hangouts, WebEx provides consistent, predictable URLs for each meeting, so for the next few meetups I'll include the URL directly in the meetup announcement instead of putting it behind a Drupal.org account registration and event signup process.
- Add GMT time equivalent to the meeting announcement to accompany the local time information.
- Use "Webinar" in the title instead of the current "WebEx" wording.
- …
What else can we do? What would make this meetup more interesting and accessible? What's working for your user groups and other organizations with online tech events and webinars?
Comments
I am interested, just missed
I am interested, just missed out on fact that there is option to join online too. Timezone difference is no matter for me on this topic even if it means 4am ;)
You got it, Jānis! Look
You got it, Jānis! Look forward to seeing you at the next one.
If you have any other suggestions for increasing remote attendance, please let me know.
Add "Webinar" to Announcement Title?
Perhaps adding "Mtg. and Webinar" to the announcement title might pull in some more remote participants.
Also, adding the GMT time equivalent to the PST/PDT start time might might be a friendly thing to do.. eg, "starting 1900 PST (0300 GMT)".
For me, it's more likely I'll attend remotely if a URL and password is supplied in the reminder email. If we can also provide same in the public announcement, so much the better.
imho
This is great feedback.
This is great feedback. Thanks, crablouis! I've begun incorporating feedback into the original post:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/275088#possible-solutions
Two more thoughts: Do you
Two more thoughts:
Do you think people will have different expectations if they hear these are "webinars" instead of meetups that are remotely broadcasted?
I wouldn't want to give people the idea that all the meetups have professional sound and video. Some of our recordings are very good, but the quality tends to vary a lot depending on what equipment is being used, whether presenters speak toward the mic, etc.
Also, the URL and password have always been included in the reminder email, but I've noticed in some followup comments and on Twitter that some folks often don't sign up in time before the event begins.
This is relevant because groups.drupal.org has the Signup module configured in a way that signups are automatically closed at the start of an event. Re-enabling signups only works until the next cron run. :(
A number of the previous
A number of the previous posts are right on as far as 'production values are concerned. The main thing I'd wonder about if the meeting was styled a "Webinar" is "What are you trying to sell me?". I get a lot of emails from different companies (including Acquia) about "Webinars" they are hosting. Are you sure that you want to get mixed into that kind of crowd?
"Webinar" does imply
"Webinar" does imply production values, yep. I agree. How about, "Meeting with Webcast"? Some further language in the event description about the add hoc hardware setups might ameliorate disappointments over broadcast quality as well.
Huh, the confirmation/reminder emails have been supplying a link and password? I guess I've not been paying attention.
Ok, here I am, REALLY
Ok, here I am, REALLY interested in drupal and high performance.
Yes they do. At least I do! And yes, I just joined the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal(@meetup.com). I never would have done this if I hadn't read your post here, saying that there is the ability of attending remotly and they. I'm almost on the other side of the planet! :)
Well and I'm new to meetup.com too. Maybe it was a good idea to call the/another meetup group something like "Drupal high performance Webinar"? Since there is almost no activity regarding Drupal (or DHP) around my place (and other might have the same issue) the first thing I did was searching for those terms at meetup.com.
Really looking forward to the next meetup! Thanks for your commitment!
BTW, is there an IRC room related to this groups topic?
Great feedback, thanks aaki!
Great feedback, thanks aaki! Thank you, and thanks for joining our group.
I agree with your sentiment. We don't have professional video and audio equipment at most of our events and I don't want to use the word "webinar" and give people the wrong idea of the production value of our web conferences. These are meetups, not formal workshops or trainings.
Perhaps there's another word to use other than "webinar"?
I'm willing to try it, though. We could try "[Meetup name] and Webinar on [date] at [location]: [theme or featured presentation]" and see how it goes. (Right now this meetup has "[Meetup name] on [date] at [location] and via WebEx: [theme or featured presentation]" as its event title, which is pretty wordy but to the point.)
As far as I know, there isn't a dedicated channel for Drupal high performance topics. Is that something that you think would be worth setting up?
Google+ Hangouts on Air
I don't have a suggestion for the name, but I agree that webinar suggests a cheesy sales pitched dresses up as something educational.
I have always found webex problematic. Google+ Hangouts on Air work well. I used it to present at the NWDUG meet up last year, when I was at home in Australia. Not only does Hangouts on Air stream the meeting to anyone who's interested, it records it and makes it available via YouTube. An example is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJD5_cwV5jM Over time this can create a great resource for the community.
That's a great point --
That's a great point -- "records it and makes it available via YouTube". Since a lot of the material presented is close to 'cutting edge' in the Drupal community, you can further your educational outreach this way by making the presentations available later to those who didn't even know they needed '.......'. I try to be aware of many things Drupal, but being 100+% on top of them is more than i'd have time for; on the other hand, having the presentations available when 'poking around' would be a great way to help people learn about new areas as they have a need for it.
Even if it's not
Even if it's not professional... for guys like me, living in a Drupal free area, it's good to know that I can join in even though I'm about 9300 km away. Webinar or even webcast are giving me this hint. Thats great! And again thanks for your effort to spread the word!
Well, having a channel dedicated to Drupal high performance would be great. But there need to be some guys willing and having the time to "be" there, answering questions. And at the current point that wouldn't be me (not that I'm not willing, I just don't have the skills).
Comparing it to other channels with a more distinct topic like the Drupal Continuos Integration channel there might be a lack of those people. Still, very worth it!
Yeah, webinar's cheesy, but I
Yeah, webinar's cheesy, but I have gotten used to it in the sales/education context - which is, yes, not the one we're discussing. fwiw, I still think " meeting with webcast" is pretty clear.
Love that Google + Hangouts save to YouTube feature. What's the participant limit on Hangouts? As much as the bandwidth will handle?
Hangout Limits
Hangouts have a limit of 10 participants, which should be adequate for a meeting. Hangouts on Air support an unlimited number of people watching the stream. You would need to use IRC or some other channel to ask questions.
<plug type="shameless">
For those of you who want to see this in action I'll be presenting to the NY Drupal meetup next week using a Google+ Hangout on Air. More info at http://groups.drupal.org/node/275038
</plug>
Sounds like an interesting
Sounds like an interesting presentation subject. I'll tune in if stationary and connected.
Sounds like an interesting
Sounds like an interesting presentation subject. I'll time in if stationary and connected.
When's the next one?
The remote participation sounds like a great option, and the subject is one of the key advantages of Drupal (scalability, performance), which I wish I knew more about.
So when is the next one taking place?
The event announcement for
The event announcement for our next High Performance Drupal meetup, on February 19, 2013, is up:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/282243
http://www.meetup.com/DowntownDrupal/events/104225932/
It's another "hybrid" event with in-person attendance at Filter Digital in Culver City, California, and web conference via WebEx. Looking forward to seeing you there!
edit. Fixing the date. It's only Monday and it's already been a long week…
It's been a few months now
It's been a few months now since incorporating these suggestions and remote attendance has increased but not by much. Specifically, we now have the WebEx URL and password in the main event announcement, and include "WebEx" in the title.
Next month's meetup is a joint event with the Greater Los Angeles Drupal group and the Austin Drupal group, and both Pacific Time and Central Time info is included in the main event announcement.
Is there anything else we can do? Is attendance just not going up because of limited interest or availability of the larger Drupal high scalability and performance community?
I'm not about to give up. One goal of mine is to get the videos we've recorded of previous meetups up on our video channel.
Next Meetup?
When is the next one? April 16th?
The next High Performance
The next High Performance Drupal Meetup is on Wednesday, April 17th at 6pm Pacific (9pm Eastern) and will be broadcast via WebEx:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/289083
A brief update about the agenda was just posted in the comments yesterday:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/289083#comment-908023
Hope to see you there!
Level of Drupal Experience of Target Audience?
Hello,
I was wondering, what would be the appropriate level of Drupal experience we should know to be able to attend these High Performance meetups? I'm wondering because (time conflicts aside), I have always been a little hesitant to try attending these High Performance meetups because my sense of understanding is that we should have more experience with backend Drupal, programming, and building modules, etc. before trying to attend these lest we get a little in over our heads trying to understand the flow of technical conversations around more knowledgeable and experienced Drupalers. :) Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. And of course, if this is a place for more experienced Drupalers to discuss the various topics around high performance, I'm all for it too. :) Just wanted to understand that a little bit.
Also, certainly, I fully understand that professional video and audio equipment isn't available -- even offering to stream the meetup live is already great! :) And absolutely, this could just be me, but sometimes it's hard to hear what's going on and keep up since the audio can be kind of soft and so I get lost anyway. :) And asking for the presenter/speaker to repeat might come off as rude and/or disruptive to the perhaps full night of agenda items. I understand, of course, that the soft audio may be a result of various factors, some of which that christefano has mentioned above: "depend[s] on what equipment is being used, whether presenters speak toward the mic, etc." (please see: http://groups.drupal.org/node/275088#comment-870208). So I also understand that the soft audio may be a difficult issue to tackle.
Thanks, christefano, for posting this topic for discussion. :)
Just my own two cents -- or half a cent, really ;)...
Hi Cchy! In regards to your
Hi Cchy! In regards to your questions about a little better quality in the production value. As someone who can't always make the physical meetups & attends virtually as well, I'm already devising a list of guidelines for presenters to improve upon this. Things like, presenters repeating questions from the audience in the room would go a long way to allowing virtual attendees to feel more like "they're there." With so many other groups/events that us organizers are working on I haven't had a chance to finalize this but I will in the next few weeks, share it w/fellow organizers & then post them for the community to see & give us feedback on it.
Thank you for being an active part of the community & for caring enough about fellow Drupaleros to give feedback, suggestions & being involved. This goes for everyone else on this thread. :)
Miguel Hernandez - www.migshouse.com
Founder & CEO - The OpenMindz Group
Writer- Linux Journal & TechZulu
Making the remote attendees feel more like they are there.
Miguel,
What about an IRC channel or a texting number or using twitter to allow remote attendees to ask questions? You or one of the other organizers could watch those and ask the questions of the speaker.
I've seen this done on some live webinars.
Paul Chernick
CEO
Chernick Consulting
(310) 569-2517
We do solicit questions and
We do solicit questions and feedback on Twitter. Here's a link to the online participation component (including Twitter) for the High Performance Drupal meetup on April 17th:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/289083#join-online
Thanks for the suggestion.
Having a list of guidelines
Having a list of guidelines and best practices is a great idea. Thanks for working on it, Miguel! Would you like to start a wiki page here?
http://groups.drupal.org/node/add/wikipage?gids[]=219129
This sounds like a great topic to include in the "3. Brainstorm about the current group mission and distributing what we want to do across our current organizing team" agenda item at today's organizers meetup:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/289988
We just got another mic to
We just got another mic to use at our meetups and it can be used in either uni-directional or omni-directional modes to account for different acoustics and multiple speakers. I'm looking forward to trying it today at tonight's Downtown Drupal meetup:
http://groups.drupal.org/node/291053
If you tune in via WebEx, let us know how the sound quality is!
At our meetups I really like it when we have at least one presentation for beginners and another presentation for experts. Having topics on both sides of the spectrum helps keep everyone interested but it isn't always possible, especially since our meetups (and our presenters) are scattered all across the Greater Los Angeles Area. It's a big reason why we're so eager to increase our online attendance.
We have a presentation coming up that is both beginner- and expert-friendly (though I'm not sure our presenter will be ready in time for this month's High Performance Drupal meetup) on how to configure Drupal to serve dynamic HTML content even when used with a popular HTTP cache / CDN provider.
This technology is still fairly exotic and highly specialized, but easy-to-use tools for using it are now within reach of Drupal site owners who may want to try it — and we'll talk about it at our meetup for those who don't yet know about it and are interested in how this technology works.
re: omni / uni microphone device
just sharing (in case you want to try it) — I find that using smartphones as a uni/omni microphone works well with online broadcasts.
I plug the phone into the computer's mic in, launch the microphone app, and tune the acoustics as desired :-3
Marckee for Short
Hoping to join you all soon.
This group has been exciting to see startup. Its focus has been the focus of my career. So looking forward to participating and learning from the others who participate.
I will be out of town during the next meetup, so will try very hard to be on the webex. After that (I live in Corona) will be trying to attend in person. Please keep growing, I look forward to being there.
Steve Graham
Steve Graham
Corona, CA
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegraham