Posted by fending on April 7, 2010 at 3:27pm
Hi, all! So... April. Is this the month? The month to actually get together for a real, in-person User Group meeting?
It will ultimately come down to agreeing on a city (buffalo? rochester? batavia?), picking a date & time, and seeing who shows up to plan the next one.
Here's a proposed agenda, assuming we do it after drupalcon (anybody else going??):
- Intros
- Redux on drupalcon sessions
- Headache of the week (i think we can all contribute here... :)
- Collaborate on plan for next time
The last poll had pretty poor response (2?) split between Tuesday evenings and Saturdays (afternoon?). So... how's about starting with the date: Tue 27 Apr @ 7pm? Anybody?
Come on! Who's with me?? Start throwing around ideas!
Comments
Aye aye. . . .
I should be able to make it that evening and would be open to meeting at a central location. For instance, Eastern Hills Mall has a comfortable food court with Wi-Fi, but I would gladly travel to a similar place based on who's where.
Hearing about Drupalcon would be a highlight for sure.
A bonus would be a few minutes on D7 experiences.
Thanks, Brian, for spearheading this.
-John
Weekends?
Weekdays really don't work for me at all. Best chances for me are weekends or even Friday night. Also, I want to toss out that events like the Rochester Barcamp would make excellent venues for Drupal meetups. Until we have the locomotion to stand on our own, it'd be good to piggyback on existing events.
WebOzy: the web services company
About Me
Awesome.
So one vote for weekends / don't bother doing an event and one Aye! Good start!!
One thing I can say about the piggybacking is that we'd need to find overlap for the different kinds of drupal users that would attend such an event for that to work. I can think of a few kinds: novice builders/"configurers", advanced admins, designers/themers, straight-up developers coming at it from PHP background, developers without PHP attracted by the API, business users / "i had a drupal site done, now what", etc. If it's three guys in a room, that's borderline worth the trip to Buffalo, Rochester, or Batavia (nudge ;) - double that, and somebody's going to learn something, or at least how to talk about something in a new way.
I guess my vision with the user group like this is to attract not just developers, and not even people who would attend (and necessarily present) at a barcamp, rather the gamut of "you have to download something?" to "yeh, I'm pretty mad they're talking about taking Actions out of core". In a sense, we're prospecting for Drupal adoption. And I think that's something that needs to happen in this region as much as or more than a support group for devs. Does that even make sense?? (No, really - I'm asking.)
In the spirit of getting more comments, how about one of these theoretical possibilities:
???
A modest proposal. . . .
Brian, I like the idea of drawing from diverse levels of experience, plus the understated need to have more than just a trio to be effective.
My history with "Meetup.com" style groups has pretty much been that without a theme for each meeting, and a confirmation list of a core of attendees, they peter out within a month or two and we end up impressing no one but ourselves (if even that).
What if we did a group Skype chat first, among at least three of us, to run some more ideas around in real time, then see if we can draw in a few more participants for the first in-person meeting? You're free to say 'no' but I think that it may be beneficial to talk over your concept of prospecting and maybe scope out some other ways of attracting the attendees you're after . . . unless there is already a critical mass for a live meetup.
Unfortunately I have a video shoot scheduled for the 24th (weather permitting). The 27th is still clear for meeting. Of course, a Skype chat can happen almost anytime.
I hope this helps!
-John
inertia
Yeh, I'm open to a chat. But really the core issue afoot is that it's just the three of us talking (here or in chat). The long-term goal of prospecting for drupal adoption is just that - long-term. There are active drupal users in this region NOW, and I really believe the next steps are pointing them to the comment box here to express interest, picking a date, and starting small. If a physical meetup's going to happen, it has to begin somewhere (I've witnessed meetups that started with 4 bodies for a long time and eventually grew to 30! persistence is key!!!) - and all we're seeking out are people willing to show up & share/learn something.
I'll begin more aggressive outreach later today. I hope to see a little more local (WNY) action in this thread soon.
I could tentatively sign up
I could tentatively sign up for the 4/24 meeting, but it's a long haul for me to anywhere in Buffalo so an evening meeting is going to be an iffy prospect for me at the best of times. Batavia I could imagine swinging on a weeknight, but not often. Don't hinge your plans on me, though -- looks like you guys are all either Buffalo or Batavia.
your feedback and consensus-building
If I could suggest something, based on the email / contact form replies I've received today: Let's pull the dates off the table for a sec.
Also, let's assume and state a few things:
All that said, let's collectively commit to a few things:
Sound like a more constructive path forward? (Man, this is harder than I thought!)