Posted by jonahruh on October 13, 2010 at 3:55pm
Hi All,
I was introduced to Drupal a few months ago and am building 2 sites on it. I use the drupal forum to post questions which has been very useful, but i have more questions than I feel i can put on the forum. Is there a Drupal buddy system? Or mentor system for experienced users to help their green colleagues along?
Thanks
Jonah
Comments
Local groups and IRC
Hi Jonah,
This group and IRC are good avenues to ask questions. If you can make any of the meetups, I'd encourage you to have a question ready and perhaps post it as a talking point. I spoke with a few people after one of the meetups about not just having the more experienced Drupalers show off the cool things they're doing, but also to find a way to encourage new Drupalers to ask a question. The Boston group does this to some extent and the New Hampshire groups are starting to as well.
I know that personally, I've gotten help from so many people that I wouldn't really call it a mentoring system because at any given point there are different people who will jump in.
The local user groups are great, but for immediate feedback and a wider audience, IRC works well too. Just have to be ready to explain what you're doing and to attempt some investigation first.
_Erik
Tutors and Mentors
Hi,
I am involved in setting up http://drupalkitchen.com, hopefully to help people connect with others that are more advanced.
You can help us test the system by signing up and giving some feedback.
Handbook on Platform Cooperativism, a movement building platforms and tools owned by the people. http://bit.ly/hackitownit
follow up on Drupal Tutor
Hi Micky,
I signed up at DrupalKitchen following your posting. Looks like an excellent forum. Just what I could use. Now what? Are you far enough along so folks are actually connecting?
I stumbled into this Drupal project when the organization's site crashed & I offered to help out w/ troubleshooting. Quickly got in over my head! But it's coming together. What I've been searching for is someone skilled in Drupal to actually sit down with me, look at what I've done, and things I've tried to do & what I'm planning to help guide me over the stumbling blocks and glitches. Would love to get over this hurdle to enjoy the process and experiment w/ Drupal's possibilities.
I do show up at the monthly meetup as well as the dojo in JP, both of which are helpful, but my stuff is small and picky. Would love to show off my site at the meetup in a couple of months.
I'd sure be grateful if you have any suggestions or recommendations to help guide me toward a good resource!
I'm in Cambridge, but can easily get to most anywhere in the Gr. Bos. area.
Many thanks,
Paula
meeting up in Cambridge
Paula, I'd be glad to sit down with you for a few hours on a weekday night to look at what you've got so far. I live near Davis Square. The Blue Shirt Cafe is a decent place with free wifi. Starbucks might have space, too. If you're near Union, I wouldn't mind meeting at Bloc 11 or 1369 in Inman. Harvard Square is a possibility, too.
Jesse
Drupal help follow up
Hi Jesse,
I apologize for the delayed response - I sent you a reply on 10.28 through Drupal Groups, and message bounced back. Dug around a little and hope this works.
Excellent. Thank you! I live quite near Davis Sq. as well. Of the places you mentioned, I've found Bloc 11 to be the most agreeable for talking/working, am certainly flexible. Dates that work best for you?
I'm looking forward to it
.
Paula
Ditto Jonah's request for a mentors/advisor
Hi,
I was so pleased to see Jonah's inquiry for Drupal mentors. This is my first experience with Drupal - rebuilding a nonprofit site
that crashed - took on the challenge voluntarily and get stuck on minutiae on a daily basis.
I take advantage of the usual online resources, books, am taking part in the Acquia/webenabled pilot course,"Introduction to Drupal". All this is helpful to grasp the concepts, but invariably there are gaps between what I read/hear and what transpires on my screen.
My site is not complex, and having someone available to ask quick questions would be a tremendous relief.
Sure would appreciate any suggestions.
Many thanks,
Paula
Boston Drupal Dojo commencing soon?
Word on the street is we're very close to commencing regular Drupal Dojo meetups here in Boston. The general idea is to have a weekly opportunity to get together with other folks in the local Drupal community to work on projects and share solutions to problems. Background and related discussions can be found here -
http://groups.drupal.org/node/64243
http://groups.drupal.org/node/95224
http://groups.drupal.org/node/91979
Cheers!
Gus Austin
Cool
I haven't been to a meet-up yet, but definately plan to go to the next one. When is it?
What is IRC? I agree, people are real generous in sharing their knowledge, i really appreciate this about the drupal community.
Drupal Kitchen sounds interesting, especially for nonprofits just getting into drupal. Speaking of which, a friend has been working hard to get nonprofits in the Merrimack Valley onto drupal by building sites for them. Now he is finding that he needs to direct them to someone they can contract with for back-end updates and general support. I know of several organizations that are quite happy editing their site once it is up but who have no interest in learning how to update modules and would be very willing to pay someone to do this once in a while. Anyone have interest in this?
Drupal dojo sounds great!
I'm interested and open to
I'm interested and open to maintaining Drupal sites.
Actual Meetups
If enough people are interested I wouldn't mind setting up a Drupal Meetup, we could all meet at a coffee shop or something.
interested
interested in showing up and watching/learning
1001 Mentors
Just come across this thread. I'm part of the team running 1001mentors.com. We're based in the Seattle area. Our mission is to connect people with mentors based on expertise. We support public group for open source communities. Mentee can send mentoring request to senior group members. We're looking to have a Drupal mentor group. Send us an email to 'contact at 1001mentors.com' if you are interested in organizing one.
See an example of Redmond Startup Weekend mentor group here:
http://1001mentors.com/groups/1