Thoughts for an August meeting

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dale42's picture

There's been an ongoing interest expressed in a hands-on co-work style meeting and the interest was really brought home at the Irish Heather meeting last week. These kinds of meetings haven't happened In part because I haven't been sure what one looks like, and in part because no one else came forward to organize one. We have had sprints, but it seems many people are looking for something more free form. For August I propose embracing uncertainty and just scheduling something to see what happens.

Here's what I'm thinking:
- Pick a cafe with space and wifi, I propose The Grind
- Post a range of hours, perhaps 4pm - 8pm
- People come and go as they please
- People come with their notebooks, problems, questions and skills (everyone is a learner and a teacher)
- We let the room organically self-organize

The goal is to create a comfortable atmosphere for people can learn from each other and get to know each other.

If nothing else, we could talk about Mozilla Service Week.

Your thoughts?

Comments

New ideas

arianek's picture

We've been discussing this a bunch at work off and on over the last few months (and again after your last post http://groups.drupal.org/node/24467). Trying to really think through what might be the most useful and beneficial for the community before proposing some more fleshed out ideas about new directions for the group.

Please share your feedback on you all find this first coworking session. I've been talking to the cohort in Seattle about their experiences running coworking groups, and I think there's a lot to be learned from them. Might be a good idea to talk with other Pacific NW people at the Summit in the fall...

A.

I'm in!

canuckistani's picture

That sounds really good, and a perfect way to get some co-workers' feet wet in Drupal, as we slowly increase our use of it.

Jeff

Awsome idea Dale

tomho's picture

Since i have quite a bit of time on my hands(looking for a full time job), if anyones got a Drupal problem, they could post it up here, and i'll look into it, do some research and experiment and i can practice my presentation/teaching skills.

Thanks,
Tom

need help with customizing login block

katy5289's picture

Hi Tom,

I need help with making a custom Member Login block. See the CSS Layout here: http://joliemama.seascapewebdesign.com/

Can you help me out with the custom PHP code that I need to use? My PHP skills are rusty
and I'm new to custom coding with Drupal.

Sometime next week, I will need help with a custom sign up form. It has a check box for subscribe to newsletter.
I need to be able to export the csv file with the client info and email address for the client to import into Constant Contact.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide,

Katy :-)
www.seascapewebdesign.com

Dale, can we meet somewhere

katy5289's picture

Dale, can we meet somewhere closer to the Skytrain?

Katy :-)

If we can find a location

dale42's picture

If we can find a location close to Skytrain that has the prerequisites, definitely. Sadly, I'm not aware of any.

The Grind is at King Edward and Main so is on a major bus route. The bus system inside Vancouver doesn't suck (buses run more frequently than once-per-hour) like it does for most of the rest of the lower mainland. I think one bus up Main Street from Skytrain gets you there.

Connecting from Skytrain

Ryan Weal's picture

I'm considering this event, I like the idea of it being more work-focused.

For those on Skytrain you can take the #25 UBC bus from Brentwood Stn westbound. The #25 also stops at Nanaimo Station on the expo line going westbound. From Nanaimo station it is really fast. It runs every 10-15 min.

For those coming into town via the Granville corridor you can also take the #25 eastbound from there. Again, it is super fast.

Of course, there is always the #3 southbound from Main St. Skytrain.

There's a cafe called The

katy5289's picture

There's a cafe called The End Cafe and it's near the Skytrain station at Commercial and Broadway. They have free wireless and power outlets. Maybe we could meet there.

The End doesn't exist,

dale42's picture

The End doesn't exist, anymore. I haven't been in to the new establishment to know if it's a change in name only, or if they've changed the entire concept. Anyone?

St Augustine's!

Yeah, the new St.

CatherineOmega's picture

Yeah, the new St. Augustine's is not really the same idea at all anymore. I went to the End several times, for meetup-style events, even, (though not the laptop kind) and this isn't it--it's much more a restaurant than a hangout at this point.

I don't know how up they'd be for coworking, to be honest.

Feedback in definitely important

colincalnan's picture

Dale,

thanks for making this post. I'm really looking forward to experimenting with this idea. I guess it might be good to clarify whether this proposal is something that, if successful, could be carried forward for all Group meetups or whether this is something that could be run in addition to the meetups (where the meetups also follow a different format that usual - that's open for discussion). I was so relieved and excited to hear others opinions on this over a few pints at the Heather and it feels like we're all thinking along the same lines. Having a great team of people like the folks at Affinity Bridge thinking about this also helps to instill confidence that we can do something that will benefit everyone. If there's one thing I took away from DrupalCon DC is was the closeness and the talent of the Drupal community in DC itself. There's a real spirit of sharing and no real competition between companies/individuals, surely that's the spirit of the West coast also.

My thoughts in regards to the format of the meetup. It might be a nice thing in advance to post topics you might want to learn about/instruct others on.

As a start here are some things I'd love to know more about

  1. Development framework/processes - Staging, production, SVN, setup and configuration for lots of sites on the same server.
  2. Development life cycle - Agile development, how it applies to Drupal and how to get started with it.
  3. Ubercart - How it works, what makes it tick.
  4. Features, Context and Spaces - What are they, a working example.
  5. Patching core - now I know Affinity Crew can help with this having had chx hold their hands through it :)

Things I might be able to help with

  1. Webform manipulation.
  2. Views - theming and building.
  3. Pathauto and it's finer points for taxonomy redirects etc.
  4. Building things like Video and Galleries into your site using existing tools like jQuery, Flowplayer etc.
  5. All sorts of weird and wonderful theming questions.

Also, about the location, I'm not familiar with the Grind so I don't know how conducive it is to such a session, and there are not other locations I can think of right now that can offer such a space, so can't help with that.

Regards,
Colin

Having people post what they

dale42's picture

Having people post what they know and want to know would help shape expectations and is a great suggestion. And if nobody posts, we could simply fall back to self-organizing at time of.

The Grind would work for hanging out and doing one-to-one or one-to-three type discussions. It wouldn't work if someone had something so interesting the whole room wanted to hear it. We'd definitely disturb the other people.

Regarding addition to or replacement: It's the will of the crowd! I think we could support this in addition to a formal meeting.

I like the Grind because

CatherineOmega's picture

I like the Grind because it's generally not the sort of place where a bunch of laptops are going to cause anyone to look twice.

I'd definitely be up for that!

Sounds great!

mellenger's picture

I've got things i'd like to run by people in a group as well. For instance, i'm strugging with the video upload module at the moment, getting it to work in any reliable way. It could be timeouts, upload limits, youtube, who knows.

Also, what about some sort of library or book exchange? I just bought Front End Drupal and Drupal 6 Javascript and jQuery, we could maybe lend out or trade books as well if people are interested.

A Great Idea

baronmunchowsen's picture

I'd be happy to try and help people who have themeing or basic module development/drupal customization questions. I'd be particularly interested in chatting about best practices for changing and/or updating production websites - how others manage their sites.

Yes, dev/production workflow

rjdempsey's picture

Yes, dev/production workflow is something I'm definitely needing to learn more about right now. I've been reading a lot about what dev seed is doing with features. I'm interested to see if anyone local has implemented some of those things in their current work flow.

Similar Interests

colincalnan's picture

Wow, it looks like we have a few people interested in best practices for changing and/or updating production websites and production work flow. Perhaps we can get together at the meetup to share attained knowledge and work towards developing a workflow that we can share with the rest of the Drupal community. baronmunchowsen and rjdempsey, are you up for that?

I'm up for it. Though I

rjdempsey's picture

I'm up for it. Though I don't have much to share yet regarding our workflow. All I know is that at the moment it's woefully inadequate. We keep our sites folder under subversion but that does little to solve the database issues with ongoing development for live sites. Dev Seed's 'Features' look's promising.

For sure

baronmunchowsen's picture

Absolutely. Would like to discuss this at the meet-up very much.

Katy, your suggestion of the

Jeanine's picture

Katy, your suggestion of the place near Commercial and Broadway skytrain "The End" sounds interesting, transit-wise.

Is it cool in there? I like the Grind but someone meeting there in this heat recently found it rather hot. Have you been inside "The End"?

Waves in New West?

dale42's picture

There's a Waves 1 block from the Columbia Street Skytrain station in New Westminster that has a conference room we could book for free. My sense is this would be too far from the Vancouver core for a lot of people. Of course, with Skytrain it would be an easy ride for people from the core.

FYI, Katy has organized a Surrey co-work for August 13th: http://drupal.meetup.com/18/calendar/11013772/

Space offering - Hastings & Commercial area

humble's picture

As some of you know I run a space one block from Commercial and Hastings (right beside FreeGeek) that would be suitable for some VANDUG activities. It's about 1600 sq ft, split roughly into two with indoor bike parking, couches, kitchenette, bathroom, industrial power, projector, sound system, wifi, etc. I'm super happy to make it available for Drupal Vancouver events, especially all day on Saturdays (I'm happy to have it used other times too but there are other users of the space so it's just a matter of scheduling around them). The bus service to Commercial and Hastings is good with connections to the Skytrain via #16 Victoria via Broadway Station or via #135 SFU Express from downtown.

Putting it out there....

Convenient!

pnts's picture

humble, it sounds like you and I are in the same neighborhood - I'm on Pandora street. I'd be extremely interested in having events hosted in this area (the studio I work for might be able to host some events as well). I'm new-ish to Vancouver and haven't attended any of the VANDUG events, but really want to. Hastings & Commercial would make this much easier for me to do!

It is content, or rather the consciousness of content, that fills the void, but the mere presence of content is not enough. It is style that makes us care.

nice

humble's picture

Nice! I'm at 1814 Pandora.

+1 on humble aka scott's space

Roland Tanglao's picture

been there before, it would work well

i'd still prefer somewhere

arianek's picture

i'd still prefer somewhere downtown, but that's a heck of a lot better than new west! thanks for offering up the space scott!

I'll prefer somewhere with

tomho's picture

I'll prefer somewhere with good parking =)
But +1 on office space! Thats always better than taking over coffee shops or working at restaurants with WIFI

well... it's not really an office

humble's picture

It's a fair bit more casual than most offices... more of a dance/yoga/meditation space with a smattering of couches, some art and a projector.

Hi Scott, Does your space

katy5289's picture

Hi Scott,

Does your space have chairs? Or do we bring our own?

I heard the End Cafe is now a restaurant. May not work for a co-work meetup.

Katy :-)

a few opps for sitting

humble's picture

Hi Katy,

I have two couches, about 10 chairs, a bunch of cushions and a set of blue gym matts that can be turned into makeshift wall couches if need be. I think the largest sitdown group was the Ubuntu user's group a few weeks back when we had about 40 people in various states of sit. If you have something that's convenient to bring along please do!

that should be good too!

This sounds great as long as

Jeanine's picture

This sounds great as long as the people with cars can find parking for their iron horses. (Can they park on side streets around your place, humble?)

So let's set a date - unless I missed that, reading thru the posts.

August 13th would clash with the Surrey co-work event, but how about the week after that? Or, since Saturdays were mentioned by humble, how about August 15 or 22?

lots of hitching spots for iron horses...

humble's picture

esp. after 5pm

aug 15

arianek's picture

hey - just noticing that we've got 2 out of towners around that would like to meet up with VANDUG members and their visits both happen to overlap the 15th... http://groups.drupal.org/node/25056 and http://groups.drupal.org/node/24959

scott, is the space available then?

it's free up until 3pm on the Saturday the 15th

humble's picture

and we could go a little later if needed - say 4ish

~s

aug 15

johndbritton's picture

Sounds good to me, The Surry event would also be good, but I don't know how I would get there. I won't have a car.

--
http://www.johndbritton.com

the Surrey event is by a

Jeanine's picture

the Surrey event is by a Skytrain stop.

Ok, have to make a decision

dale42's picture

Ok, have to make a decision here. I was originally going to put the date as Thu August 20th, as that would have corresponded to our regular meeting day (as would Thu Aug 27, but I thought I'd keep that clear with Labour Day and school start coming).

Overlapping days for our visitors are Thu Aug 13 - Fri Aug 15, with the Surrey co-work on Thursday Aug 13.

No problem if people want to do the co-work on Sat Aug 15, but I'm not available that day to coordinate it due to other commitments.

Scott's given me a login for

arianek's picture

Scott's given me a login for the bookings for the space so I can see when there's openings - like he said the 15th is open till 3, and the 22nd and 29th are totally open right now (both saturdays) - it's currently booked thurs nights for the rest of the month.

i can't say for certain whether i'll be in town for it, as i'm planning a couple trips this month, but i don't really think that one of the group admins/organizers necessarily needs to be there as long as someone can put their name down for the registration. (if someone else wants to take the lead on this, just contact scott http://groups.drupal.org/user/3804)

Hey - a couple people

arianek's picture

Hey - a couple people mentioned this to me today, so I just wanted to make sure this was actually clear - I'm not available to oversee or plan this session. I don't know if Dale is super busy, but it seems he's at least not available for Sat. the 15th this weekend.

Our two out of town visitors are both here only between Thursday the 13th to Saturday the 15th of this week, if that's being taken into consideration. (And the Surrey cowork is on Thurs as well.)

It seems like a lot of people were interested in this, so my suggestion would be that someone who's planning on for sure attending the session take the lead and finalize a date/time and place sooner than later if you want it to happen!

Okay, so I'm not available

CatherineOmega's picture

Okay, so I'm not available this week at all for something like this, and given that I'm now down to 28 days on the dot before I enter ART SCHOOL, I'm unlikely to be available for a lot of Drupal stuff at ALL in the near future. That said, what, hypothetically, could I expect, were I to take lead on something? Just be like, "it's at the Grind, come then?" And then people listen? Do I have to be anointed or take place in some kind of ceremony to be imbued with VLAD authority? Does it cause a rash?

Also: can I spend the entire time working on a WordPress project while still offering what Drupally knowledge I might or might not actually possess, or would that make Drupalicon look more like a teardrop than usual?

I'll co-ordinate if no one else can

Jeanine's picture

However, when I tried to contact Scott to confirm space availability, I got "you are not authorized to use this contact form".

So Scott, if you see this, could you please confirm that your space is available 11 am to 3 pm Saturday August 15?

As a drop-in format where some people may have to arrive a bit late or leave a bit early, this span of time should work out for most people (based on what's been stated above).

Confirmed!

humble's picture

Yay, someone has taken the bull by the horns. The August (work)meeting will take place on Saturday August 15 starting at 11am and going until mid-afternoon (3 or 4ish). The address is #202-1814 Pandora St. You may wish to bring a powerbar (there are lots of outlets but just in case).

Can someone tweet this?

See you there!

ps. Jeannine you weren't able to make a booking because you weren't logged into the calendar app. An existing user needs to send you an invite before you can login and request a booking.

Can't attend :(

baronmunchowsen's picture

Sorry I can't attend :( I'm out of town this weekend. Looking forward to this next time!

Me too.

pnts's picture

I'll be out of town as well - am totally bummed I can't attend!

It is content, or rather the consciousness of content, that fills the void, but the mere presence of content is not enough. It is style that makes us care.

Scott, i'm tweet-disabled

Jeanine's picture

Scott, i'm tweet-disabled (on top of not knowing how to use the calendar app - yes, someone needs to give me remedial training. But I promise to bring a powerbar and laptop to your meeting space at #202-1814 Pandora St. for 11 am this coming Saturday Aug 15 and I'll stick around until people are done (3 or 4ish based on your suggestion).

I hope our out-of-towners can attend and meet some local Drupalistas!

YES! awesome popnfresh!

arianek's picture

YES! awesome popnfresh! consider it tweeted http://twitter.com/vandug/status/3269282231 - spread the word!

i'll see if i can pop by for a little bit, but if i don't make it, hope you guys have a great time!

ps. and yes catherine, impromptu coworking session organizing does not need any special ceremony - go for it! (DM me if you ever need anything retweeted from the @vandug account)

Hi Everyone, I'm new to

jtray's picture

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to Vancouver and eager to meet more local Drupal folks. Look forward to see you all there!

Jeff

Go, go, gadget co-work

dale42's picture

Yeah Jeannine, thanks for stepping up! I've created an event posting: http://groups.drupal.org/node/25266

Per my previous comment, I have other commitments on Saturday, but I will try to drop by and say hello.

Catherine (and any other interested lurkers), you don't need any special VLAD powers to organize an event, impromptu, planned, co-work or otherwise. It doesn't cause a rash but has been known to cause both headaches and euphoria, sometimes simultaneously.

I'll see you guys

tomho's picture

I'll see you guys there!

Thanks for every1's effort in organizing and providing space!

Thanks,
Tom Ho

snacks, drinks, etc...

humble's picture

The dharmalab has a rudimentary kitchen including fridge, kettle, toater oven, hotplate, pots, plates, cutlery, etc. Please feel free to bring along food and drinks if you wish.

~s

thanks for the reminder,

Jeanine's picture

thanks for the reminder, scott. i don't think there are a lot of snack places right around there.

i'll bring a 2-litre of iced tea and some paper cups and i guess people should pack a sandwich, snack or etc so they don't go all weak and silent.

Vancouver

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