So, today, I'm going through my todo list, and I noticed a todo that states "Pair mentoring for DBUG". Which reminds me, yeah!
I've talked with a few people about interesting formats for meetups, and a format that has come up several times is the "Hack Night". I envision this is as a time where people have the opportunity to pair up based on mutual interests and hack together on whatever they like. Additionally, this is a very cool way in which face to face mentorship can occur.
Most hack nights take the format of a competition, and this would not be that. Instead, we'd be hanging out and hacking , rather than watching a presentation. This might be an additional DBUG during the month, or maybe a format for a night where no one is interested in presenting.
Whatcha think?
Comments
Right on!
This sounds like fun. I've got an idea for this I'll pitch at you tomorrow.
Developer at Aten Design Group, official title: Joe "the Joe Crespo" Crespo.
peer mentoring
I think peer mentoring is the way forward with contrib, whether at a hack night, over irc, etc. I know for me it's helpful to see the process by which people do things.
Certainly, and it's a large
Certainly, and it's a large part of core already. I think it could be helpful to do it face to face in our local community, as it kind of acclimates people to the idea, and is a little more accessible than IRC, though if this happens, it could definitely be happening in conjunction.
In my experience, core mentorship is more of a "Okay, make a patch for this issue", and less of a "Check out this cool thing".
When I was working on the
When I was working on the Pueblo Library site, I had some days where I would work at the PPLD office sitting next to Virginia who did their site in Drupal the year before.
Some days I had very few questions; other days, I needed a Drupal paradigm explained to me. It just felt good to be working next to another Drupalista.
I'm doing a pro bono Drupal site for a foundation that I would love to learn on, as it's just super basic.
Plus there's that goal of me writing my first module...
Something Like Drupal Office Nights
The group had a couple of Drupal office nights a couple of years ago. Everyone got together, had beer and pizza (since DBUG never meets without beer and pizza), and worked together on projects is small groups. The one I attended was at examiner.com. It worked out great, I was able to get help with an SSL issue I was having. I'd love to have that as a separate meeting once a month.
That sounds great. I wonder
That sounds great. I wonder how feasible that type of meeting would be?
Upvote for office nights. I
Upvote for office nights. I think this format is great, but probably not as a replacement (or occasional program) for the meetups. I enjoy teaching and my skills have sharpened so much over the last few years that I enjoy the opportunity to pay it forward and help others get over that steep Drupal learning curve.
If my office weren't my spare bedroom, I'd volunteer space and beer. :-)
Volunteering to host
I found this thread after it's mention at DBUG last night because we've been thinking and talking a lot about how something like this would be really useful. We'd love to host a monthly office night type meetup at the Elevated Third office. We're downtown at 18th and Lawrence, so it's a really accessible location, and we'd be happy to provide pizza and beer for anyone attending.
Looking at the schedule of other meetups, it seems like the first Monday of the month might fit pretty well. We could potentially start on Aug. 5. How does that sound?
August 5 is a little too
August 5 is a little too tight, but might be worth doing anyways. More notice would increase attendance.
I'd like to hash out ideas in IRC, and then post back in this thread with more definite plans for how the night will work. For instance, one thing that might make this a productive meet-up would be planning for pairs in advance. Perhaps we can generate a document where people post things that they'd be interested in sharing vs. things people are interested in learning.
Basically, I'm trying to think of how this doesn't just turn into people clacking away silently in close proximity.
After some discussion in IRC,
After some discussion in IRC, it seems like a workshop format would work really well for this meetup. Basically, we can put together a collaborative document to gauge interest in what people are interested in learning about, and who can lead workshops based around those topics. Ideally, these would be real problems small groups (maybe 4-5?) could collaboratively work towards a solution for, but some meetups it might be more of a "let's get together and try to build something with X" feel. There will need to be a workshop leader (or group of leaders) who can provide some direction/organization/goals for the small groups.
Like I said in my earlier post, we're more than happy to host at the Elevated Third office, we have plenty of space for people to spread out and work together or a large conference room table everyone can sit around. We can provide pizza and beer.
I'd propose we try for the first monday of every month because this seems to fit in well with other meetups happening around the state. We could try to start as early as Aug. 5, if we can decide on a topic and find a leader before then.
Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.
Boulder Meetup
I'm definitely interested in a Boulder Drupal meetup. Please keep me in the loop. I've been really looking forward to a Boulder meetup.
August 5th?
I'd make a point to be there for Aug 5th if that's a go. I like the "let's get together and try to build something with X." Maybe slated attendees could put out ideas subject to a casual upvote with a qualifier of "I know a little sumpin about this" in the time leading up to the meetup. Should it be informal enough so as not to obligate attendees to work on the chosen project? With my limited skills I find the presentation format of the DBUG meetings to be helpful, but I learn way more from collaboration/application.
Also, the original topic of "Pair Mentoring"
Are people interested in Pair/Peer mentoring and could we create an easy system to facilitate this?
Seems like Aug. 5th might be
Seems like Aug. 5th might be kind of a stretch at this point, but I've created a spreadsheet we can use to generate topic/project ideas. There's an upvote column I'm hoping to use to gauge interest, so if you're particularly interested in any of the proposed topics add an 'x' there. Depending on what the spreadsheet ends up looking like towards the end of the week, we can make the call as to whether we'd like to do sort of a small, informal initial meetup or just plan for something the first Monday of next month.
Here's the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag4nRk81IX0_dHB4WkFHN2pfNUV...