a panel.
how to get heavy hitters while being good w/newbs – common issues
how to get beyond doing the same thing every month
how to best help people who are getting started
continuity
how to get non-drupal users more involved
fostering more of a networking vs presentation orientation environment
document agendas – up to 30 people, can do individual intros; 30-60 mins of presentation time (mix of longer & lightening); questions – then bar, not so much for the booze as for the small group conversations.
surrey user group (so, suburb) – posted on meetup.
“seattle was a plone town” – and microsoft. organized a drupalcamp before the user group. huh. first 6 months not more than 5-7 people. promotion. groups.drupal.org – preaching to the choir. upcoming.org. piggybacking on any other local group. hakolyhak? god help me, the .Net user group? argh. this runs into the same problem I had running Tech Tuesday. global drupal meetup. huh. (so as not to pay) but start w/groups.drupal
also, connect with non-profit or entrepreneur groups? drupal as good fit.
[saved in progress]
different kinds of presentations bring out different audiences. VPS brought out largest (broadest?) group.
“who you work for and three words” for larger groups.
food. (more important than internet?) quiet also important. OMG in the summer Big Tom’s would be fabulous. especially sponsored food. (that was problematic at some of the oly tech meetups. cowork space no food; fishtale too damn loud.) colleges a good place to look. one-breath intro. “what’s your fav/most hated module right now?” chambers of commerce – but think about orientation of what you want to talk about.
piggyback with code camp: drupal “track” – mostly MS-centric, but thrilled to have something that ISN’T. or barcamp.
list of weird problems written up at the beginning. then split up into clusters to work on that problem: present how did you solve it?
barn-raising for a non-profit, broken into teams. common cause, opportunities for newbies, and nobody is the special expert on this site. “rose city resource” civic actions has a recap of one in nashville. other options for “doing something” – the stuff in angie’s talk, but with other people.
co-working, either in a co-working space or at coffeeshops, in conjunction w/meeting or separately.
separate type of meeting that gets a slightly different group. more newbs at formal, more experienced for co-work type.
try out different ideas.
surrey: big piece of paper: what is your favorite Drupal [n]?
idea for one advanced and one basic session.
“grow the group that’s appropriate for our city”
audience member talking about young professionals of nanaimo having different tracks/types of events. get different people active. pass the baton model. have a running list of things that people are interested in.
group for group organizers
sponsorships! not just food, but he contacted lullabot about getting videos; free books from publishers. o’reilly, packt. conferences often give discounts to user groups.
“speed dating” for collaborating on projects. issues for introverts trying to network. just getting to know people over time.