Albuquerque Drupal User Group (ADUG): Meeting notes and propositions

Our first meeting was great! We had 11 people and threw out a number of reasons we all want to meet together.

Here is the agenda we covered:

1. All present introduced themselves and discussed their level of experience with Drupal
2. We discussed the question, "What would you like this group to provide?"
3. We discussed the question, "What should each meeting look like?"
4. We discussed specific topics

1. Introductions

Most present had some level of experience with Drupal, and a few were evaluating Drupal as a possible solution to their content needs, but hadn't yet used it. About half were working with Drupal on personal projects, with the other half running Drupal for business.

2. What would you like this group to provide?

People offered a variety of reasons they wanted to be part of a local group:

• Tap into local resources when we have specific issues. The larger Drupal community can be pretty daunting, and knowing locals who have common goals provides a great support basis.
• Have a place to showcase key elements of Drupal as requested by the community through polls. Before meetings interest polls can allow us to vote before a meeting on what we want the showcase to be about that month.
• Meet people with whom you can arrange coffee shop meetings to discuss a specific topic in an informal Birds of a Feather (BoF) style. It's always nice to get together with real people!
• Create a Drupal site just for ABUG that allows members to work "wiki-style" within an actual environment for hands-on applicability of what we talk about.
• Have a community to provide feedback on plans for implementation. Maybe others are trying to do the same thing and have some experience to share! (www.drupalmodules.com is a big resource for it)

3. Goals to make meetings productive:

• Provide a "newbie" pathway for new people who come to meetings.
• An intermediate track for each meeting could feature an issue/roadblock that someone faced and how he/she found the solution for it. This track could also be a case study of a success that someone just experienced.
• Every meeting will have a showcase for all to benefit from. The showcase could walk through a specific module or be a tutorial about a feature.
• Every meeting should be well-documented, and we'll create a screencast of the showcase an post it as part of the minutes for that meeting so that non-attendees can keep involved.

4. Topics Discussed in this meeting

Drupal vs. Joomla

• One person prefers Drupal for anything involving analysis and output of data.
  
• Another preferred Drupal because it seems to have a "higher coding standard" and the architecture seems more robust (the hook system in Drupal, for instance).
• Another said that anything dealing with data is easier in Drupal.
• Another considered PHP Expression Engine and some other systems but once started using Drupal, concluded that it would fit needs, no need to go back to others.

Interaction Design

Analisa mentioned points about Interaction Design, which she specializes in and one reason why she chose Drupal over Joomla: book mentioned: The Inmates are Running the Asylum

Themeing

• Some people presented some resources to help people learn themeing: Art Lab.
• Another said there are always browser issues (IE7 versus other browsers, FireFox 2 versus FireFox 3).
• A module called Browsecap allows better browser detection to help main cross-browser compatibility.

Action Points

• I (TJ) took minutes for this meeting and will be responsible for putting together the agenda for next month's meeting, taking recommendations and settling on the Showcase and breakout sessions that we'll cover.
• Members who attended the meeting need to answer polls, propose topics, and ask questions to get the flow of questions going for this group
• Members who attended also need to invite buddies and other people who may be interested!