Posted by BrockBoland on May 16, 2010 at 5:54pm
Has anyone else seen the Drinks and Drupal posts this past week (http://drinksanddrupal.org/)?
Is there any interest in doing a monthly happy-hour style get-together in addition to the meetup at Stetson's?
Comments
What's the purpose?
This is just my personal opinion; I don't want to discourage anyone.
The DC meetups are already in a tavern setting and usually feature short (3-10 min) and informal presentations. This is in contrast to some Drupal meetups— or the D.C. meetups from 5-6 years ago— which are organized more like traditional xUGs, with people sitting around a conference table at someone's office discussing aspects of the software.
So, I wonder what we would gain from an additional, separate "social track" for the local meetups. If anything, I'd like to see a return of the workshops we used to have a few years ago, which were more technically oriented, while retaining the Stetson's meetups, which are more about networking and marketing the platform.
cyool idea
Choster, I like your suggestion. While I am interested in the happy hours (luv my fun when I can get it!) too, the 2nd Mondays will not work for me given some other obligations of mine. I would very much like to see if these meetups can help me improve my proficiency with Drupal and, given my work-related objectives, a workshop session might fit more my expectations for the meeting. I would go to either type of session, but given my conflict with the 2nd Monday's, any discussion of an alternative is interesting to me. Best to all!
It's about the community
We've tried to combine the two at the Baltimore City Meetup. We just starting to build the group but so far their hasn't been much interest in the libations we've provided. Though we'll continue to offer some lite fair and quafables to encourage attendance and create a more social atmosphere..
Snake Hill
I attended the open-data
I attended the open-data night last week, the first DC Drupal event I have ever been to. Personally, I was disappointed by the lack of technical details. I was hoping learn little bit about how the WorldBank data site was actually built, so I could apply it to my own development sites. For example, I walked away wondering "How in the world did you get views to access the api instead of the drupal node database?" However, the presentation didn't amount to much more than a few screenshots of the site. I would be interested in an event more technically-oriented if I were to come again....
ditto
We also were disappointed in the open-data session because we had already spent some time looking at the World Bank data site and wanted to know how they did it. Would be interested in more technical sessions, particularly if there could be Q&A where we could get advice from others who have been where we are before.
Bring on the tech
I'm new to Drupal (and meetups) so my expectations might be all wrong. But I agree with the other comments here. I was hoping for a more technical discussion about how certain aspects of the World Bank's data site were accomplished. It would be ideal if these meetups functioned more like a 1 hour workshop where someone could discuss a best practice or demo a specific feature of the software. But perhaps that kind of Drupal group already exists in DC?
Some background
It's great to hear people's thoughts/feedback on the DC Drupal meetups. I want to provide a little background on why the meetups at Stetsons are organized as they are.
These meetups are targeted to everyone interested in Drupal with a range of programming knowledge from a ton to none at all. We do lightning talks so we can cover a range of topics, give everyone a chance to speak, and leave plenty of time afterwards so people who do want to dive into the details can find the presenters to talk over beers. At the same time this helps keep the meetups moving so they aren't focused on long presentations that may be over the heads or not of interest to a third of the people in the room. When there are 60+ people at a meetup like the open data one, it gets tricky to get your questions answered afterward by the presenter, but then this is not the norm. Over the years we've tested out a bunch of different approaches and have found this one works well for many people.
This same issue came up a couple years ago where some people said they wanted longer, more technical presentations. What resulted was "Drupal labs", which was a meetup that did this in an office setting and was more specifically targeted just programmers, as the talks dove into site building techniques, etc. But the organizer moved away and no one picked up doing them, so they stopped. But if people think that this would be useful again, then you should give it a try and organize it : )
It's great to see this conversation happening and shows that the Drupal community in DC just keeps growing : )
But if people think that this
I'd actually encourage anyone who'd like to run with a more hands-on style meetup (like we used to have them over at affinity labs) or any other alternative meetup to get in touch and talk. However we go forward here, we should make sure to coordinate in order to avoid schedule collisions etc.
I am one of the organizers of the Stetson's meetup, you can always drop me a line at alex # developmentseed # org.
http://www.twitter.com/lxbarth
Re: original post: wouldn't
Re: original post: wouldn't we just add the Stetson's Happy Hour to Drinks and Drupal?
http://www.twitter.com/lxbarth
I suppose that's an option
I suppose that's an option too. I guess I had in mind a third option that hasn't come up here yet (in addition to the Drupal Labs and the current lightning presentation), which would be more like the DC PHP Beverage Subgroup meetups: more casual with no real agenda or presentations, but an opportunity for a handful of people to sit around a table and talk about what they've been working on, what problems they've run into, etc. Not that much different from the time after presentations at the current meetup, I guess.
that"s cool too
that's cool too....my biggest thing at the moment is that the 2nd Monday of the month just happens to conflict with my schedule....i'm interested in meeting folk to learn more about Drupal.....I'm less worried about the exact format, though I do tend to like the details of a project....if anyone wants to team up occassionally for getting another DC alternative meetup goin' I'm willing to mull some ideas. friesk # cir-safety # org
best to all,
Kevin
informal small groups - sounds good
Yes, this would work very well for us.
We have a nonprofit membership site (actually, three membership sites... ) and at the moment we're particularly interested in 1) views/profiles/templates for members' pages, and 2) ubercart applications that don't sell "products" but allow members to pay dues and make donations.
We would like to know what other modules people are using and how they are using them, and just generally get to know more about Drupal's possibilities, particularly if there's an opportunity to learn HOW people are doing things.