Hello folks,
The developers at GoingOn got to talking recently, and decided there seemed to be a gap in SF for a developer-centric advanced topics meetup group. Something less along the lines of formally prepared presentations, Drupal news, and the use of Site Building tools, and more like round table discussions about things like Exportables, Performance, D7 Custom Module Upgrades, and Views Plugin Development.
Does the community see this sort of thing as redundant?
We've got permission to sponsor as a venue (12th floor with a view in the Financial district) and supply food and beer. You know, in case there was some reluctance. We are hoping to get a proper date and post together so we can do a little marketing at BAD Camp, but I'm not out to try to fork the community.
I realize I don't know many of you, since I've been too busy to participate properly since moving up from Santa Barbara last April. For what it's worth, hefox, starbow, sociotech, and techninja have all been helping bounce ideas around on this.
Comments
Forget what he said before...
We're offering free beer, pizza and like minded Drupalers a chance to shape the future! And to talk and such and so forth. It'll be great! Also, don't miss out on your chance to meet the almighty hefox ;)
What type of beer? ;)
I would be game for this provided some good discussion around performed, cloud , services API where discussed. When are you thinking of having this?
Hefox hefox hefox
Well if hefox is there then I am in!
Seriously though, I don't see a problem with a second SF meetup as long as you have a different/more targeted audience than the main one, and as long as you are not scheduling the meetup to conflict with either of the two existing meetups here in town (the Users helping Users and the main SFDUG). This shouldn't be a problem with a little forethought on your scheduling.
Drupal evangelist.
www.CoderintheRye.com
I'm in favor of this, and I'd be happy to talk
Hi! I've been not very involved in Bay Area Drupal, and I'd like to change that. I definitely like the idea of a second meetup that is more technically focused. The regular meetup definitely has a place but I think a forum to present and discuss more advanced development topics would be welcome.
I'd be happy to speak on either or both of the following:
The View Modes talk would be greatly expanding on things I touched on in my BADCamp talk from this past weekend, and EntityFieldQuery is something that I want to get other developers using in general, because it is awesome. They're both topics I could easily talk for 30 - 60 minutes on.
Looking forward to hearing what folks have to say!
Best,
Tim Cosgrove
Engineer, Treehouse Agency
www.treehouseagency.com
Tim, I very much enjoyed your
Tim, I very much enjoyed your BADcamp talk and would be very interested in what you propose here. I am in Santa Cruz and not always able to come up to SF for these but definitely wanted to chime in with support!
-- Julia v.
http://www.pfvdw.com
+1 Vote for another Cosgrove
+1 Vote for another Cosgrove presentation - you killed it at BADCAMP; very eye opening.
Lets do it.
I agree that we need a more casual hang out group. It seems like a number of us who do attend the current DUG simply hang out in the back room and chat anyway - so why not make an official event where that's the whole point? (Maybe we can even talk Tim into bringing a board game or two...)
Set a time and place, buy the beer and invite me and everyone else in this thread. Get the ball rolling and see where it goes.
--
David Needham
Team Lead of Training at Datadog
Count me in, please.
I've been traveling for a client for most of the year and haven't been able to make it to the DUGs, but I'm home and I'd like to jump in. Since I work with fairly advanced installations of multiple CMSs, including Drupal, it would be a great forum to contribute to the local brain trust.
Board games are fun, too.
Aimee :-)
Spatial Path: https://www.spatialpath.com
Bringing people, process, and technology together.
+1
I like the idea of a more informal/relaxed meetup. It's nice to just hang out and socialize sometimes.
https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com
Something equivalent to NYC's
Something equivalent to NYC's Drupal Beers might be nice, yeah.
Space?
We'd need a space to do this. It would minimally need to have a projector and chairs.
The office I work out of is a possibility, though I would need to see if we have a projector there. I just rent a room there and haven't had to use the conference facilities before. I'd probably also need to get permission.
Will ask about it. I know the primarily lease-holder of the space is not at all averse to beer or wine drinking in the office.
-Tim
I don't know that a projector is necessary
Chairs we definitely need, but do we really need projectors or big screens? I thought the point is that we don't focus around presentations, but rather social interaction.
https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com
I guess you're right; the
I guess you're right; the original thread called for more round table discussion rather than presentations. I was just psyched to talk to people about stuff. I will probably float the more formal talk ideas at the main meetup.
That said, screens are a really handy tool for sharing ideas, and a projector that we could take turns plugging into might in fact be useful.
I run SFDUG and have for a
I run SFDUG and have for a few years now. I setup a secondary group which is smaller and much more informal call Users Helping Users, the attendance is good, we could use some more senior people in there to help out.
I really believe this group is strong because we have not splintered it up into many smaller groups and that we actually get together as one big local community once a month - hang out - talk - socialize.
What would make it better is quality presentations from developers and some help from members in improving the overall event which is already very established.
If goingon has a great space how about sponsoring the whole SFDUG event?
Hi flavor, That idea trickled
Hi flavor,
That idea trickled in, and we're looking for the opportune moment to talk it through with higher ups. There's an order of magnitude difference between what we imagined to be a couple dozen people once a month and dozens of people once a month.
Will drift back in later with more info.
We have wholehearted
We have wholehearted approval. We can host in December to try it out. I've emailed that Flavor guy, but he's busy. I'm laying the ground work to connect some kind of community coordinator with out marketing department.
The space where SFDUG is held
The space where SFDUG is held now has a fairly large conference room in addition to the main space where the presentations are held. Why not have the advanced discussion/hangout occur before and during SFDUG in the conference room, officially? The whole group socializes after the presentations, as well.
This keeps the group together and provides some options for everyone who attends.
For those who have not come to an SFDUG yet, come check it out and we could try the round table discussion/hangout/board gaming in the conference room.
Users Helping Users
If advanced Drupalers are staying away from Users Helping Users, they are really missing out.
More often than not the problems we end up spending a lot of time discussing are brought in by more advanced developers that have exhausted the available documentation and support channels online. The only downside to this is that beginners have a tendency to feel a bit intimidated, but hopefully we can continue to strike a balance there.
Basically the only agenda is 'talk about Drupal' and whoever shows up gets to decide what that means.
That being said sitting around a table with laptops and chatting still may come off a bit too formal to some, and I think there is definitely room for a purely social event, but that would make more sense in a bar or restaurant than an office or conference type space.
We will find a great new
We will find a great new location for this event. I already have a ton of leads so it will be exciting to see where we end up.