Meeting other Kansas Drupalistas

We encourage users to post events happening in the community to the community events group on https://www.drupal.org.
wichitamichael's picture

The Kansas group is up and running, however, as with all groups it can be a challenge to create a successful community. Any ideas on how we can be helpful to each other in promoting the stated purpose of our group? Specifically, I think it would be beneficial to get together with other Kansas Drupalistas and learn from each other. Each person brings there expertise, every one in the group benefits from everyone else... Thoughts?

Comments

I think it would be fun to

boyfly's picture

I think it would be fun to have a meetup sometime with other local drupal-ers. I know of one or two...

I think we should

wichitamichael's picture

@boyfly

I think so too. I know of one or two as well. BTW-- NICE work on the FBC site! Really impressed. Are you in Wichita too?

Yes, I'm in Wichita. The

boyfly's picture

Yes, I'm in Wichita. The whole team for the FBC site actually attends that church. We were fortunate to have such qualified people to work with.

I thought I was pretty much

Radiating Gnome's picture

I thought I was pretty much the only Drupal guy in Wichita. This is GREAT! I'd love to try for some sort of meetup.

-john

@RadiatingGnome Awesome. I'm

wichitamichael's picture

@RadiatingGnome

Awesome. I'm pretty surprised at the number of people I'm finding here too. I think I'll leave this up here for another week to give other people to crawl out of their hiding places :). Then I'll create an event!

I'm way excited!

As far as events go, I work

Radiating Gnome's picture

As far as events go, I work for an educational service center in Hutch -- we have big meeting rooms, wide open wifi, soda fountains in the wall, projectors in every room, etc. It might be a bit of a drag if everyone coming is from the Wichita area, but if you're willing to make the commute, I can provide a pretty good venue for meetups.

-john

I can also host

ghouse-bcc's picture

I'm in the IS dept at Butler Community College in El Dorado and I'd be happy to host meetings at the facilities here. Like John's company it's kind of out of the way if you're in Wichita, but it's available.

Count me in for a meet up.

Greg

One more, if it's still on:

mconrad's picture

I didn't see an event posted yet?

I'm just checking out Drupal, haven't even done a tutorial yet--but I'd enjoy saying hello if there is a local meetup.

Matt Conrad
Wichita KS

NE Kansas DruNewbie

lance.m's picture

I am very new to CMS and I am an non-tech administrator for Community HealthCare Systems in Onaga, KS (3 hours from Wichita). I am a low level tech-nerd that wants to keep the brain active and learn something new.

I investigated Drupal and Joomla. Decided to jump in and experience the initiation by Drupal Fire and set up a development LAMP server at my home.

I have an intranet project concept that outpaces my knowledge and would love to bounce ideas off fellow Kansans.

Policy and Procedures Management
For all departments
User ability to read without cumbersome download steps
Policy tracker (based on retention and review guidelines)
Human Resources
Forms
Employee Handbook
Project Management/Tracking
Macro tracker that can select projects from departmental project list
Basic project tracking at the working level
Project blog
Training Resources
IS Help Desk
PM Help Desk

yadda yadda yadda :)

Dream big, Right?

Lance McCormick
Onaga, KS

Lance - If you're looking for

Radiating Gnome's picture

Lance -
If you're looking for someone to tell you that joomla is the right choice, you're in the wrong place. ;)

Actually, though, I do think that Drupal has the modular flexibility to work for you, but it does take some work to get the right configuration going. Last summer I built a project & time tracking system for our internal use using Drupal, so it can be done, but you're going to want to get to know CCK and Views very well. Beyond that, you're probably going to want to look at the Organic Groups module (and many of it's associated modules) to help manage permissions, etc. There are other ways to handle permissions, but if you're really trying to limit access to project areas, I think that's going to be your best choice.

-john

Drupal Advantage

lance.m's picture

John,

The granularity of permissions of Drupal is a reoccurring positive .

Thank you for the Organic Group/CCK/Views pointer.

Lance

What I did for our project

Radiating Gnome's picture

What I did for our project management site was create a series of content types connected to each other by node references.

At the heart is a Project -- the actually project type is pretty much just an bucket, though, and does not have too many fields of it's own. Current State, Due dates, etc.

Under the project are tasks, which are connected to the project with a node reference. Tasks also have statuses (complete, etc).

Under tasks are time tickets, which are records of the amount of time spent on a given task -- and they're connected to a task with a node reference.

There was also what we called a "project charter" -- a sort of wiki area for the project that could be used to define and describe the project.

Once you've got those set up, you can start to have some fun with views, arguments and relationships -- you can, for example, show a table of tasks associated with a protect on the project's page. I can be confusing at first, so I'd encourage you to check out some of the good guides on using views -- I'm a fan of the Lullabot videos, and their video on views is very much worth the money.

-j

I'm in Lawrence

mollyavalon's picture

I'm in Lawrence, and so the likelihood of making it down to Wichita for a meetup is slender but not impossible. I'll keep an eye on what you decide to do. For anyone nearer to the northeast part of the state, there's a Kansas City group too.

I'm an independent developer and have been learning Drupal over the past year. I have been independent for 14 years, which is great, but it does mean I have to figure everything out for myself. So I'm always interested in talking to other people and getting other ideas.

I started as an instructional developer doing e-learning.

Right now I'm at Drupalcon. Anyone else here?

Incredibly Jealous

Radiating Gnome's picture

That you're at Drupalcon and I'm not. Totally not fair. ;) Good to meet you, though.

-j

Has there been any more activity on an event?

Jee's picture

Hello KS Drupal-ninjas!

I am in southeast KS, and would be excited about an event as well. Sorry that I missed mollyavalon at Drupal-con. Wasn't it exciting?

It really helped me go from working with Drupal for a living and wanting to help make Drupal better.

Is anyone still out there?

Jee

Meetup

wichitamichael's picture

Ok. We are all busy but we really should go for it! Let's MEETUP! How many of you would be open to a DrupalMeetup in Wichita the first week of November?

Michael

Meetup

ghouse-bcc's picture

I'd also like to do a meetup. First week of November could work for me, depending on the day. If it's an evening thing, Mon or Tues works best. I have regular commitments on Weds & Thurs nights.

If it's during the business day, Mondays are usually hectic so not that great. Other days can probably work, particularly if scheduled a couple of weeks in advance.

Greg

I can do Monday or Tuesday

Radiating Gnome's picture

I can do Monday or Tuesday the first week of november, no problem.

Earlier this month I attended the Lullabot week of performance and scalability training in Dallas -- it was pretty awesome, I just hope I remember some of it long enough to share . . . ;)

-john

Hai

Paul Green's picture

Drupal user and educator in Salina, KS. Work and teach at a local university, and might be able to host a meetup for the more...rural of us.

Just came across this!

bjlewis2's picture

Hey guys, I just moved from Wichita to Belle Plaine, but I'm interested in getting together with some other Drupalists! Is anyone interested in a meetup? Maybe at Meads Corner?

Lawrence HERE

whatsupdrew's picture

mollyavalon and I are trying to get together a monthly or biweekly meetup either on campus or downtown. Any other interest?

Lawrence planning meeting Dec. 13

mollyavalon's picture

We still don't have a hard and fast plan for a Lawrence meetup, but we're going to have a planning meeting at Mirth Cafe on Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 7 pm. (It's at 8th & New Hampshire.) Anyone is welcome.

I am 2 years older than my photo here, but look mostly the same. I'll also make some sort of sign for the table to make it easy to find us.

wichita meetup

philsward's picture

Whatever came of the Wichita meetup group? Anything ever materialize?
I've created drupalwichita.org specifically for this topic. Unless there is already a group going, head over to that site and let me know you're interested! I am eager to get something in motion.

Phil