We had a short chat in the Drupal-Seattle IRC channel** on Friday about the monthly SeaDUG meetings. Someone had commented in IRC that the meeting the day before was great, and I wrote back that I wasn't sure it was great for everyone (newcomers to Drupal, experienced Drupalers, newcomers to Seattle, people new to Seattle, and everything in between).
I'm not sure we can make every moment of every meeting perfect for every attendee (that may not be possible), but what I'd like to do is to open up a discussion here about what could make our meetings better, since I don't think we've discussed it in a while. Hopefully Gregory and Jared (our monthly meeting organizers) will not mind too much that I've started this thread... :)
So please comment if you have ideas about:
- If you don't come to the monthly meetings, why not
- If you do come to the meetings, why
- What you think the purpose of the monthly meetings is or should be
- How well the monthly meetings are working for you
- Whether you feel welcome at the meetings
- What you'd like to see happen at the meetings that isn't happening
- What you'd like to see continue at the meetings that is currently happening
- Any other suggestions
Please include some information about your level of Drupal experience etc. so we can understand your comments better.
** If you don't know what IRC is: http://drupal.org/irc -- our channel is #drupal-seattle -- join in!
Comments
Apologies in advance if I'm
Apologies in advance if I'm verbose...
Q. How well the monthly meetings are working for you
I have been exceptionally pleased with the meetings. I am a hobbyist of less than one year and these meetings have provided me the technical guidance and community support that encourages me to further pursue site development with drupal. Essentially, reinforces the strengths of the open source community.
Q. If you do come to the meetings, why:
1. Talented group of people that genuinely love what they do and care about improving the drupal community.
2. Opportunity to ask direct questions that are outside the scope of support in IRC or forums.
3. Learn new things every time
4. Inspired to continue my project.
5. Networking with the group
Q. What you think the purpose of the monthly meetings is or should be
Exactly what they are, learn, share, support each other and have fun.
Q. Whether you feel welcome at the meetings
As a newcomer, it takes some time to learn the SDUG culture and can be hint intimidating at times, but any rookie would feel similarly about most endeavors. Once I've come to a few meetings, I feel more comfortable, occasionally I feel nervous about speaking up and perhaps revealing some inexperience, but I have always found the group as whole responds favorably to good intentions.
Q. What you'd like to see happen at the meetings that isn't happening
- For lightning talks, it would be nice to have some basic noobie references provided/posted before the meeting if possible. That way we could be more versed on the presented topics and be more engaged. I think in some cases it is done, so it would be a great practice to continue.
- It also might be helpful if the group had a reference such as the SDUGs guide to getting started and actually have it reviewed by some newcomers? I find that learning drupal is much like learning a foreign language, there is no one way to do it, it takes time, patience, etc. However, some structure and expert pointers can really go a long way.
- I've mentioned remote attendance in the past, but understandably, I don't think it was a big win for others who were present. I'd be curious to see if that issue still has a pulse.
- For what it is worth, it has been my finding in the last year that the group strives to provide value for its members and has always open to suggestions regarding agenda and processes
Q. What you'd like to see continue at the meetings that is currently happening
I really like the split break-out sessions. Much more personal and provide a good opportunity for everyone to learn / participate.
Thanks again for the great opportunity.
feedback
Don't come because of location. Live/work on the Eastside. When I do come I usually enjoy what is going on.
I most enjoy the co-work
I most enjoy the co-work component of monthly meets. I tend to have a workload to get through and like being able to ask about hurdles or enjoy sharing about ideas and technologies in use. I'm always impressed with the experience base at meets.
good discussion
I like talking about how we run the meet-ups.
I personally like when people prepare things to show the group and I like when we break into smaller groups and have focused discussion.
I think good examples of prepared things are site showcases where people show what they have built and prepared demos showing some new thing they have learned- things like "How to use Panels", "How to install Drupal 7", "How to use the awesome new pluggable backend in Views 3", "How to build a Drupal Product" (okay those are just topics I want to hear other people talk about :))
Overall I really enjoy our meetings and being able to connect with all the other local Drupaleers.
-jared
i've been excited to get to
i've been excited to get to the meetings since i moved back to Seattle this summer, but due to family scheduling/juggling it's hard for me to make it at 6-7:30. i may be in the minority in this request, but working with Drupal as a "day job" :) , moving it in to the work day (say, 4-5:30) would make it much more feasible for me.
either way, i'll keep trying, and i look forward to joining the group.
Meeting time
I'm with you on this -- evening meetings mean cutting into my personal time for what is (for me) a work activity, which I don't like to do (to keep my life/work balance going).
However, if we did have meetings during the work-day, I think there would be quite a few people who could not attend. Maybe we should do a poll about meeting times -- I don't think we've had one in a while?
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I would be able to attend
I would be able to attend more easily if meetings were during the work day, actually, as Drupal is now the focus of my job.
Mixing in different formats, locations, etc...
Based on my limited experience w/ the Seattle Drupal scene...I think there's a great mix of presentations, discussions, coworking, and socializing at the monthly meetups. That said, it's difficult to find the ideal location, day, time for everyone...also challenging to keep people at all levels of Drupal interested and active in the community.
One way to drum up activity is to mix in different formats, locations, around the monthly meetup. From talking to folks in the area, I think this has been done to a certain extent. Hopefully a [Seattle Drupal Dojo](http://groups.drupal.org/node/108129 (or regular coworking/working groups) will be one way to keep folks involved between the monthly meetups.
Gus Austin
Re: Better Meetings
In response to the first couple items - I haven't been coming to the meetings for two reasons -
First, I've just been extremely busy and pulling long hours at work since about May. Things are finally beginning to get sane for me again and I am planning to get back in the swing of things with the community on some level.
The secondary reason is convenience. I typically work until 6-7pm and getting across town without a car from 2nd Avenue is difficult. However, I think this can be overcome now that things are calming down. I feel pretty confident that my employer would not mind at all if I were to leave a little early to bus/walk there.
I really don't have any criticism regarding the meetings. I thought they were fun, lively, and interesting. I learned loads and it was wonderful to hang out with such a great bunch of intelligent people.
In regard to my Drupal experience and such, since I haven't been able to share at the meetings, I would like to share what my team worked on! Our latest is www.sonymoviechannel.com which is a Pressflow install with heavy reliance on cck, views, and context ui. Also, last spring we developed a very Flash heavy site that used Drupal as the backend with reliance on the Services/AMFPHP module to create http://pbskids.org/wordquest.
I greatly regret that I have been too busy to reach back out to the community that made it possible for me to become a developer on those sites. I would love to find a way to give back to aspiring Drupalers who were struggling as I was a year ago.
Thanks!
Michele
Meeting times
When I was working full-time and in Seattle every day, post-work meetings would have been convenient, but I never made it to one... pretty much wanted to be heading home at that point. Currently I'm not working full-time and not in Seattle every day, and really do want to come to these, so I'll make an effort regardless of the hour. Almost got to the last one but wasn't quite in the right place at the right time. :-(
I think a poll is a great
I think a poll is a great idea... I started to pull a couple thoughts together regarding questions... it too is a wiki--please add/edit.
http://groups.drupal.org/node/109639