Why?
Several of the different organizers of US Midwest camp events have identified an common issue that it is becoming hard to communicate with regards to scheduling to other events in the area or country, to ensure best possible attendance. This problem is becoming worse with DrupalCons squeezing the summer camp schedule possibilities. This communication cannot be public since they may involve contracts or unannounced dates.
The organizers of the Midwest Drupal Camp, Twin Cities Drupal Camp, and Drupal Corn (Iowa) camp wanted a place that event organizers can be free to communicate privately with each other. In response, we created the Drupal Event Planning (Private) group. For example, an appropriate post would be checking for potential non-public date conflicts before contracts are signed. Anything that could be considered shareable information, like event retrospectives, planning advice, etc should be posted to the public-facing Drupal Event Organization Group instead.
I'm an organizer! How do I join?
Contact a Group organizer listed in the right sidebar to join. Please make sure to include in your request/email/IRC message what event you are organizing.
Comments
This is an interesting group.
This is an interesting group. I think I understand the reason for it and I have a few questions.
Is this group only for organizers of the camps mentioned, notably the Midwest Drupal Camp, Twin Cities Drupal Camp, and Drupal Camp (Iowa)?
How are discussions in the "Drupal Event Planning (Private)" group going be private? My understanding is that OG Access has been disabled on the Drupal Groups site and that all posts are public.
Finally, since this post has been cross-posted to the public Drupal Event Organization group, the group organizers who are listed are Gregory Heller and and Cary Gordon. Are these the organizer who we need to contact to join the private event planning group?
Nope
We want this group for all organizers. It just so happened that we had a high concentration of Midwest folks in attendance at DrupalCorn last week.
And Dave Reid volunteered to moderate the private group.
I build websites, push pixels, move type, make media, plan camps, tap mana, roll for initiative, eat like a boss, chase food trucks and like an #eggoneverything. Sponsor my travel and I will record and post your camp sessions!
Sounds good! Sign me up. I'd
Sounds good! Sign me up. I'd be happy to be in this group. We recently mapped out our quarterly event schedule here in Los Angeles and have Drupal Design Camp LA in Q4 2014, GLADCamp 2015 in Q1 2015 and DrupalCon LA in Q2 2015.
Lots of events and lots of coordinating.
For GLADCamp 2014 (March 7-9, 2014), we booked the convention center back in June, 2013, not knowing that GLADCamp, SXSW and FL DrupalCamp would all be on the same weekend. That wasn't fun.
May I suggest posting a link to https://groups.drupal.org/drupal-event-planning in the original post? Currently the OG Details block is showing the "Drupal Event Organization" group details.
Not actually private
I guess we need to rethink things. I thought g.d.o offered private communication in groups, but turns out you are right and all content is public.
Senior Drupal Developer for Lullabot | www.davereid.net | @davereid
No Cosed Groups
Right.
This was established about 3 years ago with a lot of conversation being had around the question of "Why have closed groups?"
In the end it was decided we would not have them. Back story can be found at https://groups.drupal.org/node/174154
I'll start a new thread down below to suggest an alternative.
-- dougvann
Let me know if there's
Let me know if there's anything I can contribute. I can join a phone conference or chat on IRC or something. I just need to know about it and I'll try to be there.
I like Doug's idea of a separate site but perhaps it would be better right now to simply have a shared Google Docs spreadsheet that's shared only with camp leaders?
FYI everyone, Drupal Design Camp LA 2014 is October 17-19, 2014.
Yeah is this GOING to be
Yeah is this GOING to be private in the future or something cause I just saw it plain as day :).
As for the group itself I'd like to be a member as an organizer of Drupalcamp Pittsburgh. I also think that Ohio and Wisconsin organizers would be good to have involved; especially Wisconsin since their event is this coming friday/saturday and with being so close to drupalcorn I'm sure attendance is affected.
We scheduled our camp before knowing when others were only to realize Capitalcamp in DC was the day before and that D4D in boston is the same weekend. Our attendance is still decent but I'm sure we would have pulled a few people if it wasn't the same times as those two events that are relatively near ours :)
Ex Uno Plures
http://elmsln.org/
http://btopro.com/
http://drupal.psu.edu/
I posted this to both groups,
I posted this to both groups, so this post itself is visible.
Senior Drupal Developer for Lullabot | www.davereid.net | @davereid
It would be nice
If we didn't all plan in a vacuum, right?
Once we had our dates (facility space was our requirement), I should have posted them to this group. Ah, hindsight. I would have loved to make it to the burgh for the camp.
We are gonna look at dates as soon as we're over next weekend, and as soon as we do that and have a solid set of dates, I'm going to announce the dates and we'll put up a splash page.
But feel free to sign up (everyone) for Drupal Gov Days and Capital Camp next week.
http://2014.capitalcampandgovdays.com/
Just a minor kind of drupal geeky girl and for the US government no less!
Exactly
A key part of the intended date sharing is to avoid conflicts (as much as possible) especially when the dates are still loose due to a lack of venue commitment. This way, other camps can know what primary/secondary dates are being looked at before a splash page even goes up.
I build websites, push pixels, move type, make media, plan camps, tap mana, roll for initiative, eat like a boss, chase food trucks and like an #eggoneverything. Sponsor my travel and I will record and post your camp sessions!
Already A site for Camps / Cons
There is already a site for listing all camps. http://www.drupical.com/
Kaleem S. Clarkson
www.kaleemclarkson.com
The difference being that
The difference being that drupical is for camps with locked down and officially announced dates. There is a need for sharing (in a closed group) potential dates to help avoid conflicts because camp dates only solidify when a venue is locked in.
I build websites, push pixels, move type, make media, plan camps, tap mana, roll for initiative, eat like a boss, chase food trucks and like an #eggoneverything. Sponsor my travel and I will record and post your camp sessions!
Event Management Tools
Hi There: New to this so please forgive if not applicable. That being said, I am a professional Event Producer and I was wondering if you knew about Cvent and/or Masterplanner either for your use and/or examined for building a better mouse trap for your specific needs. Hope this is of some help.
How to proceed?
I agree that a sense of privacy is needed to discuss planning details in an open arena, but not open to the world, just to other organizers.
Since a closed group is not an option, I propose that we establish a new website running OpenAtrium, or some other distro, and have our conversations there.
I'd be happy to purchase the domain unless some one else wants to.
Pantheon would be happy to sponsor the hosting for free.
I'm ready to jump in and make this happen.
Tell me what to do!
:-)
dougvann [Drupal Trainer, Consultant, Developer]
http://dougvann.com
It makes perfect sense to me.
It makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for explaining it well, Dave.
Do we need this?
Honestly, I question the need for this at all (FYI, I'm one of the Ohio organizers). Do people have hard evidence that this is an issue that drains attendance at camps? In our case we have conflicted with Michigan (in 2011) and Chicago (in 2013) and attendance has been pretty steady (~160) for all 3 years.
Did WI see a huge drop-off due to DrupalCon? @btopro did Design4Drupal really affect the PGH attendance? In fact 2 of your presenters and one of your sponsors were are at CapitalCamp and still managed to make PGH.
My gut is this is an issue for us, the kind of people who actually know there are 2-3 camps on any given weekend, but most of our attendees don't care as they aren't focused on the greater community only their little corner of Drupal (ie their staff, company or web site).
You nailed it, Jim
Your gut is 100% correct. This is for the organizers, not the attendees.
I believe a private conversation among camp organizers is essential to a more healthy and sustainable growth of Drupal camps across the globe.
Ohio camp is not in an isolated market. While Detroit and Indianapolis did not have camps this year, there were two in PA, one in St. Louis, and three in/near Chicago.
Camp scheduling has already become a congested affair.
A private group won't be a miracle cure for the issues within camp organizing, but it will go a long way to help coordinate our efforts and make them intentional. Few things stink more than getting your node on GDO touting your camp, then finding out days or weeks later that a huge camp is also on that weekend. We will always have double down and triple down camps. But the organizers, presenters, and sponsors will certainly appreciate some pre-planning around the dates. Of this I am 100% sure.
The Facts:
PPL travel to camps.
We all know that the same faces can be found doing the same sessions from camp to camp. This is a given and works out very nicely for the benefit of all. When one camp [even a brand new camp] solicits for speakers, they can expect to see some famous famous who create a DRAW for that camp. Drupal shops will graciously send ppl to these camps AND independents will make the trip as well.
With more and more camps [and so many of them overlapping] it is getting difficult for the "famous faces" to make it to all of them.
Camps get Sponsored
We all know that camps are getting sponsored. But shops are feeling the squeeze. Each year we see new camps. The camps that are not new are wanting to move to more expensive venues and/or want to pay for bigger keynotes and/or want to spend more money on then next camp for reason X or reason Y.
With more and more camps [and so many of them overlapping] it is getting difficult for sponsors to make the call. {A} Should we sponsor this brand new [or smaller] camp that is on the same date as a well established, huge camp? {B} Should we send one of our designers or devs or PMs to this new [or smaller] camp or should we not split our attendance on that same weekend?
I believe a private conversation among camp organizers is essential to a more healthy and sustainable growth of Drupal camps across the globe.
New camps want to form, but are, to one degree or another, very concerned about the scheduling issues.
Existing camps want to experiment with new months or new seasons, but are, to one degree or another, very concerned about the scheduling issues.
The frequent faces at camps would love to help out the newer and smaller camps but are, to one degree or another, very concerned about the scheduling issues.
Any way I look at this I see the benefits and advantages of a private conversation.
:-)
DrupalCamp Chicago 2014
Heads up, our 7th annual DrupalCamp Chicago 2014 will be Saturday December 6th. More info soon...
Just posted Gov Days North America
Our 2015 dates July 22, 23 and 24th It'll be at NIH again in Bethesda.
We're going through a name change and haven't finalized the new name yet. Right now, it's still Drupal Gov Days and Capital Camp.
I'll up date as soon as we decide on the final name.
Just a minor kind of drupal geeky girl and for the US government no less!
GLADCamp 2015 dates and a proposed invite-only calendar
GLADCamp 2015 is joining forces with SCALE, the Southern California Linux Expo, and will be 2 days during February 19-22, 2015.
I propose that for now we just set up a Google Calendar that's invite-only.
I created a "DrupalCamps"
I created a "DrupalCamps" calendar and put in GLADCamp 2015's dates. I've invited everyone I have email addresses for: Doug, Slurpee and bigjim.
If you would like to be invited, send me your Gmail / Google account email address on IRC, via my contact form or your preferred drone delivery service.