This is a follow-up to an idea brought up at last night's DUG Toronto May meeting.
Here's what I wrote to Tierney Smith who is with TechSoup Canada and a co-organizer of the Toronto Net Tuesday meetup group. This conversation below is part of another unrelated discussion.
On another subject, I went to a Drupal meeting yesterday with other developers and there are plans underway to have a Drupal Camp in Toronto this fall. I attended a Net Tuesday meeting earlier this year and found that there were a number of non-profits that were already using Drupal or have an interest in using Drupal. The idea came up that it might be a good idea to connect Drupal developers that might like to either volunteer for the non-profits or spend some time in a session with a group of developers for sharing ideas and advice. It's also an opportunity for developers to get clients.
It might be possible to also do this as a Net Tuesday with prior commitments from developers which I could coordinate with the Drupal group organizers. What the group is also looking at is having Drupal 101, 201, etc sessions in the days leading up to the Drupal Camp weekend which might interest some of the Net Tuesday members.
Let me know what you think.
Discussions, comments anyone?
Comments
Great idea
This is a great idea. As you know I have a non profit myself and Kevin Walsh if I recall correctly specifically works with non profits using Drupal
Follow-up
Tierney has been having a conversation with Julian of Freeform Solutions about having a Drupal Case Study event at some point. Julian would have to fill in details and let us know if he wants other Drupal members involved.
She also said that the Toronto Net Tuesday organizers have made a point avoiding having any event be about one specific technology. She is not averse to letting the Net Tuesday members know about a Drupal event they might be interested in so this is probably the best way to proceed with regards to Drupal Camp 2012.
The Toronto Net Tuesday group has 1101 members. There's also another group with a similar non-profit base with 187 members called NTEN Toronto Tech Club (I think they're bigger in the US) and they cover specific technologies. Would it be worthwhile connecting with them?
Re: Follow-up
Hello,
Yeah, I saw the thread earlier and mentioned it to Tierney, we talk every now and then about Techsoup stuff and IT stuff. So the conversation was really just around what the Drupal group knows, and what Net Tuesday people would be interested in, just brain storming stuff really.
The idea of case studies was the thing she liked the best. She had a great idea that the non-profits that have the sites could do the case studies from their point of view, what they like about the site, what they would change if they could, what went well in the project, what was hard, what didn't they expect, etc. The Drupal folks who built the site would be there to provide perspective, technical background, answer questions, etc. But I thought it was really clever to do it from the NFPs point of view, which is really what Net Tuesday is all about.
In no way do I mean for this to be a Freeform event. One of the big concerns they always have is how to make events of general relevance, and not be vendor specific or product specific. In fact, I am really not planning on helping organize this at all. I was just chatting with Tierney about it, "on background" as you might say in the Journalism trade. However she wants to engage with others to organize/shape the event, that's totally up to her and whoever else wants to take the initiative.
The case study idea was just the top idea when I spoke with her, I'm not saying that's the way it's going to be. I do think it would be cool to hear about the projects from what we would call "the clients' point of view." The thing I like best about the Net Tuesday events I've been to is being able to step outside my techie point of view and hearing how other people perceive these things, there's lots to learn there.
--Julian
cms smackdown
always a popular format, we had a good one at an opensource showcase event some years ago which I recall being the most popular section of the show.
nothing like a little blood and the threat of violence to pull in the crowds.
canned powerpoints/presentations about why xyz is the best: bleeaggh.
i think we had one section where the crowd was providing the questions. Definitely some kind of audience-directed-controlled process is more lively.
P.S. about the members and NTEN
Oh, and the 1101 members is like everyone who has ever RSVP'd for an event in years. There's only ever a handful at any Net Tuesday event.
The NTEN group is the local Toronto chapter. NTEN itself is primarily based in the US, and has a large pressence there, with local groups all over and a huge conference. The NTEN group I think tends to have a slightly larger-organization focus, because the NTEN membership seems to be organizations, whereas Net Tuesday is more individuals, no organizations are "members" of that group. Both are excellent networking opportunities.
I know the organizer of the NTEN group too (I spoke about cloud computing there earlier this year: http://prezi.com/ntddw1gyxpu7/what-is-the-cloud-answer-the-new-name-for-...). I'll point out this thread to her.
The hard thing from the point of view of us all as Drupal developers, with regard to both groups, is they are generally not looking for a dog and pony show about any particular "product". So the "event design" can be hard, just showing up and talking about Drupal probably won't ever fly.
--Julian